The front cover and page layout of Shall We Take A Trip? haven’t been completed yet, but I’ve decided what I want my next comic project to be. It doesn’t have a title yet, I’m just calling it my Space Comic. But it has a premise and a few key scenes.

After being attacked by pirates a space transporter, and most of its cargo, crash lands on Earth. The ship accidentally swallows a farmhouse before recovering and the crew recruits the humans in the house- father, mother, early twenties son, teenage daughter and two of the son’s friends- to help them recover the cargo and convince the world’s governments to work together before the pirates get turned around and come back to lay waste to the planet and steal whatever they can. The battle with the space pirates will be book one, with enough left open for possible future tales.

After doing an adults only comic this one’s intended for most ages. In film rating terms it should fall somewhere between a 12A and a 15- some violence, a little strong language and a bit of innuendo.

I did a few sketchy bits of very early design over the weekend. Final versions will probably be completely different to what’s below. (I’m selling some of the pages from my sketchbook as I go. If you’d like the navigator or the space ship below they’re £5.)

The spaceship’s navigator/pilot. I’m working on the idea of the ship being flown by what looks like a box of worms. When they’re in close contact the creatures that make up the intelligence communicate very quickly. Different coloured worms would have different functions and they’d rearrange themselves depending upon what they’re calculating.

An early space ship design. It’s pretty, but not really what I want.

The humans- the younger ones at least- get power suits. The alien technology adapts to suit each individual wearer and evolves over time based upon how they pilot it and what it’s used for. These feel a bit generic, I’ll come back to them when I’ve done some character design.

I’m going to try to document the creation of this comic from beginning to end. It’ll be like a “making of” book about it.