The Ultimate Vampire Resource and Directory

Little boxes [with apologies to Pete Seeger]



The city was grey, as was the day and ‘down South’, “Greed was Good.” It had been showery, as I’d walked up the hill to the large grey block that was the city college, built in the sixties and, had certainly seen better days.



I’d asked of the Cartoon Class at Reception and been directed upstairs, by a smiling lady, who’d greeted a shy youth from The Wirral with genuine warmth.



Passing people on the stairs, all laughing I’d walked towards the class with growing trepidation and, held the door handle with nervous anticipation.



I’d knocked.



“C’mon … it’s open,” I recall a man’s voice respond and, I’d entered.



Te classroom had been laid out in a traditional layout, with ‘teach’ standing with his black to a blackboard, a desk to his right ad before us, a class of about twenty or so, all dressed in disparate styles.



“Is this the comic class?” I’d asked.



“Yes,” I’d been told, by the fellow in the check shirt and blue-jeans. He had seemed all smiles, with a long face, big hair, long body, long legs and, a warm manner and very warm handshake, for a young man terrified, of so many people around him.



Ignoring everyone else, he had smiled that wide smile that endeared Ian Herring to so many and, then asked me, “So what brings you here?”



“I want to learn how to draw boxes,” I’d replied, not being able to recall what it was that constrained the action in Garth and Batman, at that very moment.



“You mean panels?” This genial giant had asked, the smile still smiling and, I’d just simply nodded and, then taken my seat, as suggested.



Crossing his long bluejean clad legs at the ankles, ‘teach’ had reached out with his long check-clad arm and pointed toward us, his arm moving slowly in a slow arc, to indicate each of us.



“It’s good to see so many new faces. But, look around… Each of you of you sit in your rooms, in the early hours of the morning, doodling away, or getting down your idea’s on a piece of paper, with brush or pen. Each of you sitting there thinking you’re the only one… Well, look around…” he continued, the long arm once more in an arc, indicating each of us, again; “you’re a class of ‘only-one’s…’



We had been writers, illustrators, comic artists and those who did caricature and poetry and, Ian Herring had welcomed us all, the teacher of the last of the comic classes, to teach the individual something of themselves…



And when London and Glasgow fell, the Liverpool Comics Workshop continued, with the memory of a man holding it together at times… and over the years there were those who thought they could do as he had; yet in truth, they were not and never could be anything but a facsimile of an original: my ‘teach’, Ian Herring.

Aiden Flint – The First Apostle



Almost two earth standard miles long, the large silver tube of metal rose quite majestically into the sky. The ship carried the DNA of man and, his planets many forms of Life, yet had one crew member.



Mainly run on automatic, the ship did have certain functions that needed to be carried out by a human. So the ancillary crew of the Ark 2 lay in stasis, each man or woman a volunteer, whose family would be well catered for, as the Earth’s final days finally came to pass.



Aiden Flint was the ships first crew member: a small wiry man, who sported pebble-lens glasses and wore his black thinning hair slick back. The coverall he’d been given to wear was standard issue on the fellow. But, such inconvenience meant little to Aiden Flint to Aiden Flint: his Mother would live out her last years in comfort, while he rode the stars, as the first of the Arks crew.



‘The Apostles’, the media had called them – spinning the yarn that these brave men and women would take the seed of Man to the stars, to begin Mankind anew, far from his old home. That much was true.



Yet, Aiden was quite unaware there was a subplot to the media story – one that he was unaware of. And, at that particular moment, even if Aiden was aware, he might not have been concerned.



For at that very moment the man’s mind was distracted; as he stared transfixed at the vertical hibernation unit, it’s glass frosted over, just one of the hundred and forty four, that lined the walls of the storage unit on level minus thirty, of the many layered colony ship, that soared toward the edge of the Milky Way and, beyond.



And, as Aiden sighed, he wiped at the frosted glass and he recalled how beautiful Meryn Thorn was – having seen her, that first day of induction. ‘Granted, a woman such as her would never look at me…’ he mused wistfully. But, here she was, the fourth to be revived, long after he died and, staring into her frozen sightless eyes, the hint of a smile touched the corners of two small mans lips.



‘Yes,’ he mused, ‘it is true, normally she would not look at me. But here, now… I can look at her.’ In cryo-stasis, the sleeper wore nothing and, Aiden Flint found Meryn Thorn most pleasing to look at, admire – ‘…and, perhaps touch?’ He mused.