PJ Holden To Launch ‘Null Space’, A New Weekly Webcomic

Artist PJ Holden, fresh off Fascinating Folklore with writer John Reppion, is launching Null Space, his new weekly webcomic – one-page strips written by a rotating who’s who of writers.

PJ Holden’s been busy. In fact, he’s always busy. More on that in a moment. But when he’s not drawing for 2000 AD, he does have a habit of making some great webcomics. I’ve featured his online work with Reppion, Folklore Thursday, in the Webcomic Weekly slot, and there’s now a collected book of those that I reported on a while back, the truly impressive Fascinating Folklore.

But now he’s starting a new weekly webcomic that begins 6th October – Null Space. And it looks and sounds damn good.

Each strip will be written by a different writer (usually genre fiction writers, many who’ve never done comics before) and each strip is standalone, with script and process notes.

Much like the Fascinating Folklore strips, PJ’s doing each one in a different style, a different look. And having seen the first few, examples of which you’ll see through this piece, I can safely say this is going to be one to watch.

Now, PJ’s a busy guy, with plenty of work going on – right now his great artwork can be seen in 2000 AD on Judge Dredd: Poison, where he and Rob Williams are telling the rather good tale of Dredd investigating just where the hell Hershey picked up the alien pathogen that killed her, who might have been responsible, and just why Hershey never investigated who it was and why. He’s also got some Devlin Waugh lined up with Ales Kot in the Judge Dredd Megazine.

So just why would poor PJ decide he doesn’t like having any free time and set up this new project?

Well, I fired over a message asking him just that and this is what he had to say…

PJ Holden: Haha – well each strip takes between 3-4 hours (less if I can help it) and single-page strips are great cause you you can just dive in and do something different with them and then forget about them immediately! I did try to do with John Reppion an ongoing strip and it’s so much harder doing continuity and remembering posture and body language of the characters from one page to the next. It really ramps up the complexity.

So this is a nice mental break from doing strip work. Plus I knew some great writers keen to do comics who had never done them before and this seemed a smart way to get them to write for me for free!

You see, when he puts it like that, it makes absolute sense, doesn’t it?

As for the writers involved, well PJ’s got six strips done and another six scripts in – he’s saying the 12 make up season 1 of Null Space, he’s shared a few of the names with us and it’s all looking damn impressive…

Adrian Tchaikovsky: British fantasy and science fiction author best known for his series Shadows of the Apt, and for his novel Children of Time.

Tade Thompson: Nommo Award and a Kitschies Golden Tentacle Award winner, John W. Campbell Award finalist, nominated for Shirley Jackson Award, British Science Fiction Award. A writer, illustrator, and artist, Thompson’s novella The Murders of Molly Southbourne has been optioned for the screen, whilst his novel Rosewater, the first book in the Wormwood trilogy set in Nigeria, won the Arthur C. Clarke award in 2019.

Chrissy Williams: UK-based writer and comic book editor on DIE, The Wicked + The Divine, and Superfreaks. Her debut Image Comics series with all-female creative teammates Lauren Knight, Sofie Dodgson, Becca Carey, and Joamette Gil is titled Golden Rage. She was also the editor of poetry anthology Over The Line with artist Tom Humberstone, and a published poet with her first collection making The Telegraph’s 50 Best of the Year.

Lizbeth Myles: Scottish writer and podcaster. She’s written Big Finish audio dramas on Doctor Who, Blake’s 7, and Survivor. Along with five other women from around the globe, she co-hosts the award-winning Verity! podcast, as well as the Hammer House of Podcast with Paul Cornell.

Geoff Ryman: Canadian author who’s won 15 awards for his stories and 10 books. Ryman’s novel Air won a John W. Campbell Memorial Award, the Arthur C. Clarke Award, the James W Tiptree Memorial Award, the Canadian Sunburst Award and the British Science Fiction Association Award.

Gareth L Powell: British author of science fiction. He is the author of several novels, including Silversands, The Recollection, Ack-Ack Macaque, Hive Monkey, Macaque Attack, and Embers of War. He has won the BSFA Award for Best Novel twice.

PJ Holden’s Null Space launches on 6 October. Go take a look.

And after that, be sure to get PJ and John Reppion’s Fascinating Folklore on 9 November.