Regular readers will know that I’m presently engaged in drawing Apeman and Monkeyboy stories for inclusion as backup features in an independent comic called Bubba the Redneck Werewolf, but what you might not know is that my first ever published comicky thing was a story starring the eponymous lycanthrope.

In late 2003, Mitch Hyman – the creator and writer of Bubba – invited fans to write and draw their own stories for inclusion in the sixth issue (or the Fan-Powered Issue, as it became known). The completed comic, which was printed in October 2004, contained three 10-page tales each produced by a different creative team – and the first of the three was written by ace wordsmith Larry Williams and drawn by myself. It was entitled “Close En-Cow-Ters”, it involved evil mutant alien cow people attempting to take over the Earth, and it included a sequence where Bubba and Angus (the leader of the evil mutant alien cow people) had a bit of an argument about the whole conquering-the-planet thing. Plonked above these words is an excerpt from that sequence, which should give you some idea of the level of debate.

Close En-Cow-Ters was the first project that Larry and I ever worked on together, and it was such tremendous fun that we immediately decided to do loads more collaborative stuff. We’ve got all kinds of ape-related things planned for the future, so keep watching for new developments!