Leah Moore and John Reppion have spoken to the ECHO in an exclusive interview about the story of Albion ahead of a book signing at Forbidden Planet on Bold Street on Saturday, October 17. The comic, which was first published 20 years ago, has been re-released this year in hardback to commemorate the milestone anniversary.
The married couple had just published their first comic series, Wild Girl, when they were given the chance to bring one of the most eagerly anticipated projects in the industry to fruition. Leah's dad is Alan Moore, who transformed the medium when Watchmen hit bookshelves in 1986. At the turn of the millennium, Alan was approached by artist Shane Oakley with the idea to reproduce the formula of another of his great stories, League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, and create an ensemble piece in tribute to the British comic heroes of the 1970s.
A baptism of fire for the writers
The story was plotted by Alan, but it was Leah and John who took on full scriptwriting duties to flesh out the six issues of Albion. Speaking to the ECHO ahead of the signing, Leah can't believe it has been two decades since such a crucial moment in her career. She said: "It really is special, and it's a brilliant privilege to know that these things are still interesting and important to people. But honest to God, it does kill you when you realise it's been 20 years."
While taking on such a big project was an exciting moment, it was mixed emotions for Leah as it was daunting to take on such a challenge to continue Alan Moore's legacy while creating a space to be an artist in her own right. She added: "We were literally learning on the job. It was for DC, so this big American publisher was going to be shining this great big spotlight on the whole of Britain as a result of it. I didn't realise at the time, but the pressure was really intense."
Leah also felt the weight of expectation from living up to her dad, as she said: "Especially to basically go, 'And here's Leah Moore, who is definitely as good as her dad and not in any way deficient'. And I was like, 'I might be deficient'." She added: "At the time, it felt like a nepo baby kind of leg up, and actually looking back, it was more like a diving board. It was like, 'You're all the way up here, go for it!'"
Putting Liverpool on the page
John thinks it was ideal to address her dad early on in the career with the collaboration as he said: "It's a good way of getting that out of the way to have worked with your dad that early, rather than there being people drawing parallels between the two careers, because obviously we both write separately as well as writing together. And the stuff that we do is nothing like what Alan does, we've always followed completely different paths."
Four creative minds having an input naturally led to a lot of ideas at the start of Albion and John and Leah were keen to put their own stamp on it. The two were able to do this by setting the story in Liverpool, the place where they continue to call home to this day. John, who has always lived in the city, was determined to authentically capture his home region in the panel as he recalled: "Because of Shane's attention to detail with the characters, and Alan's attention to detail with the plot, I think maybe we were feeling a bit left out. We decided we were going to go over the top with [the Liverpool references]. One of the things I remember is going into Sayers and asking the woman behind the counter if we could take a picture of the counter and her uniform and everything. And her being baffled by that."
He added: "And we did a load of bus referencing. And Norton's for Scrap, which isn't there anymore, but that was the scrapyard that was featured in it. Obviously remember that if you got the angle just right, it said 'Norton's for Crap', which was hilarious." Leah laughed: "That's what we choose to represent the whole of Liverpool. It's like, 'We've got to put Sayers in there'."
A city of inspiration
Leah was born in Northampton and moved to Liverpool when she was a child after her mum and dad split up. She said: "My mum just wanted a change and said 'Do you want to move to Nottingham or Liverpool?' At the time, I was about 10 or 11, and I was a huge Beatles fan. I was just going through this mad fixation, and I was like, 'We have got to move to Liverpool'."
It was hard having a thick Northampton accent in a Liverpool high school as Leah laughed: "People used to say to me, 'Do you know Prince Charles?'" But the writer fell in love with the city beyond the Fab Four and now she can't imagine living anywhere else. She added: "We thought about moving away before the kids were born, and I was just like, 'Why would we go somewhere else?'"
The city is a huge source of inspiration for both writers as they regularly look to their surroundings to inspire their next work. Leah recently even sent a picture of Coleman's Fireproof Depository on Park Road for a new comic she is writing for an American audience. She laughed: "I don't know, maybe we need to think beyond our immediate two-mile radius. But you go everywhere else and it looks rubbish."
Why Albion matters
Liverpool is rarely explored in comics and this is what makes Albion such an important story. John is proud to give his home city the attention it deserves as he said: "A lot of the stuff in London has been changed into something else. Whereas in Liverpool, you can actually go, 'This Victorian building, this hotel, it's still standing'. They represent real-world reference for this stuff that used to be in London. People outside of Liverpool have got very strange, narrow ideas about what Liverpool is, and for me, it's always been so many different things rolled into one."
He added: "That's the funny thing about Liverpool. It's nowhere near the size of Manchester, it's nowhere near the size of London, but you only have to go a few streets over from anywhere and you find completely different architecture, you find completely different history, and these little pockets of different things have always fascinated me. Everybody is obsessed with how many layers of London there are and how London's steeped in history, but Liverpool is exactly the same as that. And London's been kind of over-mined for that stuff, and we've hardly scratched the surface with Liverpool with all these connections you can make."
The two rekindled their romance after Leah moved back into her mum's home after university and John was working at Bargain Booze. They have come a long way since as they are both established comic book writers and are looking forward to continuing to represent Liverpool in print in the next chapter of their careers. However, they know none of it wouldn't have been possible if they haven't delivered on the mammoth task of making Albion, a success that is still loved 20 years later.
Leah said: "It was lovely when we found out it was getting reprinted because we'd always been dead proud of it because it is an odd fish. We've always had brilliant responses to it at the conventions over the years. People come up to us and go, 'I really enjoyed Albion', so we're really pleased it's being re-released. We were in the first flush of youth when we wrote it and I cannot wait for Saturday. I don't know when we last did a signing in Liverpool, I actually can't remember. So it's going to be brilliant fun."
