Full Throttle Fiction: Q&A with Comic Writer Rob Williams

The writer of SUICIDE SQUAD, JUDGE DREDD and DOCTOR WHO talks story-building and script-mechanics, as well as managing PETROL HEAD, his new creator-owned sci-fi project landing in November from Image

Mr Williams! You’re a veteran comic-book writer and you’re Welsh. What else do we need to know?
‘Veteran’ makes me sound decrepit and Welsh makes me sound… well, Welsh. I can’t deny the second one at least. I’m a writer, mainly of comics but also of TV and film screenplays these days. I’ve worked for 2000AD, DC Comics, Marvel, Hellboy, Kingsman, Star Wars, Doctor Who, Indiana Jones. I’ve been about a bit, comics-wise, I can’t deny.

Your writing on Petrol Head is as tight, witty, and fast-paced as anything I’ve ever read from you, while the artwork by Pye Parr is just this maelstrom of incredible design. I honestly feel like this book is going to take a lot of readers by surprise.

You’ll do a much better job than me of pitching the actual story. So, what’s it all about?

It’s the story of a very smart girl, Lupa, in a future domed city called ‘The O-Zone.’ Lupa’s dad thinks he has a cure to the environmental disaster that had destroyed the breathable planet, and so he and Lupa go on the run from the City’s terrifying administrator, ‘The O’, who doesn’t want that cure getting out into the world.
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And Lupa and her dad then run into a giant, defunct, gas-guzzling drag-racing robot called Petrol Head who has his own beef with ‘The O’. Together they go on the run, and from that point on it’s a pedal-to-the-robo-metal chase thriller with colours and art that’ll take your head off.

So why write Petrol Head and why now? Why not chase another high-profile gig in superhero comics instead?

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