I recently got a peek at a new comic called Barrel & Hammer, which is slated to appear in the next issue of the Judge Dredd Megazine. Drawn by Luke Horsman, scripted by David Barnett, and lettered by Simon Bowland, the strip is about a pair of slapstick-y space pirates who get drawn into a galactic scavenger hunt.
The first chapter is jam-packed with kinetic action, sharp humor, and, of course, space pirates. That’s all very cool, and if that wasn’t enough, the characters feature some of the best madcap designs I’ve seen in a good while, especially Barrel, who has a literal giant barrel in place of one of his fists (see below!). As a big fan of Horsman’s art, I jumped at the chance to check out Barrel & Hammer early and speak with him and Barnett about the new story and the creation of these characters.
You can check out our chat below…and you can read the first chapter of Barrel & Hammer in this month’s Judge Dredd Megazine 479, due out April 16 in the U.K…enjoy!
Luke Horsman and David Barnett talk BARREL & HAMMER
Q: So, this is a story about space pirates. Aside from space pirates just being inherently cool, what drew each of you to working on Barrel & Hammer?
Luke Horsman: In the beginning, Barrel & Hammer was just some silly, off-the-cuff morning character sketches I did as a daily warm up. Gradually, each time I returned to the sketches to finish them off I realised they actually might be worth putting some effort into and develop a strip and once the name ‘Barrel & Hammer’ materialised through designing the characters, I immediately thought they may work well in the Prog/Dredd Meg.
I contacted David (Barnett), as we have developed a good rapport working together over the years, and asked if he fancied getting in on the creation and work his magic. Then we fired it off through the atmosphere to Tharg for an approval, which was happily granted.
David Barnett: Weirdly, this is Luke and I’s first collaboration for 2000 AD, though we’ve been working for quite a while in the background on a fun thing that should see the light of day somewhere else this year.
I put together a few ideas, all of them riffing on Luke’s starting point of space pirates, and we sent them to Matt at 2000 AD. You’re right, space pirates are inherently cool, and we wanted to tap into that big time, with the broad canvas of space and lots of freakish characters to play with.
Q: The character designs are a lot of fun — from the heroes to the tentacle face lawman, who might be my favorite — and they also feel pretty unique. How did those come about?
DB: As Luke had come up with the character designs first and established the look of the whole strip, it was pretty easy to lean into his strengths whenever I came up with a new character for the storyline. To be honest, I left him to it, with just the simplest of character descriptions — he’d nailed the overall feel of the story so it was fun to just watch him go mad with each new character.
LH: Endless doodling, I generally feel like a conduit for character design when I’m sketching. I’ll have a kernel of an idea in my head and things kind of muddle together. It’s probably the 40+ years of absorbing cartoons and comics. It just falls out of my head. Which is helpful in comics! But very little else.
Q: I loved the tone of this story, with all the funny touches. How did you each approach incorporating humor into your work here?
DB: It just felt that this had to be at heart both a fun and funny story. I’ve always loved a caper, and those absolutely crazy ensemble movies like It’s A Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World, with loads of characters vying for a prize. So we’ve got a scavenger hunt across the galaxy for the right to be admitted to the Space Pirates’ Guild, which brings with it huge benefits. Barrel & Hammer really, really want that prize, because although they talk the talk they’re not doing too great in the space pirate biz, and need a bit of a break.
LH: I think the tone cemented itself as soon as the title was born – it’s daft and slapstick like most British humour, and a lot of the designs were crying out for jokes. I remember David writing the pitch pages and there’s a moment where Hammer, our janitorial droid, out of programming gets out his broom and sweeps up an unfortunately dismembered opponent. Which was genius of David. And the first thing I thought to do was have his giant hammer open up like a dustpan and sweep it away into it.
Little organic moments of creativity, bouncing off of each other. I like to think if it makes me laugh while I’m drawing it, it will give at least one other person a good chuckle.
Q: We got a little hint of it, but by the end of this adventure, how much of Barrel & Hammer’s backstories will the audience get to see?
LH: Oh, there’s a good amount of backstory we explore. I shan’t spoil anything here, obviously, but there’s some fun stuff that opens up in this first miniseries.
DB: Initially we’ve done four episodes to test the waters. If people like it and want to see more, then there will definitely be more. As well as the broader story of the scavenger hunt, which will take the competing pirates to ever weirder and more wonderful places, there’s a back-story about how exactly Barrel & Hammer came together.
Barrel is a career pirate, but Hammer is — as far as we know — a former service droid with a human brain floating in a jar on his shoulders. But is he really? That’s what Hammer thinks, but we do get hints that Barrel knows a lot more about what’s going on. Some of that is drip-fed out in the first four episodes, but to find out exactly what’s going on people will have to love it enough to clamour for more. And seriously, why wouldn’t they?
Q: Finally, what’s the scope of stories you all have in mind? When this first adventure is over, might we see more Barrel & Hammer?
DB: Presuming we get to continue, we might see the end of the scavenger hunt storyline… but there’s no guarantee that Barrel & Hammer will win. Whether they do or not, it’s a big old galaxy out there and there’s no end of trouble those two can get themselves in.
LH: I like to think there’s a good scope for a little more silliness and adventure. We left it as a fairly open story arch for it to keep going, I’d certainly love to continue their mishaps. They’re probably some of the most fun characters I’ve come with in years. I’d draw them forever.
Barrel & Hammer will appear in the Judge Dredd Megazine 479, due out April 16 in the U.K.
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