David Hine

British comic writer David Hine is coming next week for SWF.

https://www.singaporewritersfestival.com/nacswf/nacswf/author-speaker/david-hine.html

It will be good to hear from someone who has written for the mainstream in American comics and also worked on his own projects, and how he balanced between the two. While Hine has shared that he encountered changes made to his scripts for DC and Marvel, by and large, he was able to push certain boundaries in some of his stories for Marvel.



Rereading Civil War: X-Men (2006) and Silent War (2007), I noticed both dealt with the issue of American treatment of 'terrorists', which Hine was critical of. I asked him if he encountered any editorial difficulties and he replied that no one at Marvel seemed to notice the Guantanamo references!



But he did have more problems later at DC with depiction of jihadists and the American role in Afghanistan. There were several captions and dialogue balloons which were dropped from his script when the printed version appeared. Still, he managed to get away with depicting the Pope as a demon in Azrael.



(this would not be new in British comics – just see Pat Mill’s Nemesis the Warlock)

In the meantime, do check out these books, my top 3 of Hine’s work:

Strange Embrace (Image Comics)
The Bulletproof Coffin Vol 1 and 2 (Image Comics)
The Man Who Laughs (Self Made Hero)