BBCAMERICA.COM spoke with John Barrowman's sister, Professor Carole Barrowman, about their collaboration on an original Torchwood comic strip, Captain Jack and the Tale of the Selkie. We also discussed Barrowman's rather ribald sense of humor (which includes, curiously, neck-licking) and what it was like to grow up with the future Captain Jack. You can listen to the audio file or read the transcript below. You'll also find some panels from their comic, posted with permission from Titan Magazines.

BBCAMERICA.COM: So you are a professor?

CAROLE BARROWMAN: Yes, I am an English professor at Alverno College in Milwaukee.

BBCAMERICA.COM: That's very cool.

CAROLE: Yes it is, I like it.

BBCAMERICA.COM: Today we are going to be talking about your collaboration with your brother on an original Torchwood comic strip. Could you tell us how this whole idea started?

CAROLE: John and I, when we were working on the Anything Goes autobiography we were collaborating on, thought we should do something with Captain Jack the next time we work together. And we didn't really pursue that at all. It was always just in the back of our minds. Then, this last year, probably in the summer, we went to ComicCon out in San Diego, and we met Tommy Lee Edwards and Trevor Goring, the two artists that worked with us on the comic strip. They had done a limited edition poster of Captain Jack, superimposed over the Face of Boe, and they brought it over to the table where John and I were signing copies of Anything Goes. And [John] was just stunned. They just sort of laid it out in front of him. They had made it as a poster and were hoping John would sign it along with them, and then they were going to sell it for some charity organization that the two men are a part of. John was literally stunned. He sees a lot of pictures of Jack and he just couldn't believe how fabulous this was.



Then the two of us just looked at each other and said, "We should do something graphic with Captain Jack! You guys would be great!" We saw each other a few times during the convention and chatted a lot and realized that we had quite a lot in common. They were big fans of Torchwood and Doctor Who.

So, later in the fall, we got the opportunity from Titan Magazine to see if John and I were interested in doing something. We thought, well, let's see if we can pitch a comic. I think, originally, they were thinking, maybe, we would make a story - I'm not sure what they originally thought they might want from us - but since we just loved the work of those two artists, we said, let's do something graphic with Captain Jack and maybe we can sell them on a comic. [The people at Titan] were just as excited as we were to do it.

1   2   3   4   5   next ›   last »