GoodCopBadCop novel now on sale

GoodCopBadCop is a crime novel with a twist. It is a modern crime take on Jekyll and Hyde where both ‘good cop’ and ‘bad cop’ are the same person. This is not a story about a good man turned bad, or a bad man turned good.  Both good and bad arrived at the same time.

Cover by Alex Ronald

GoodCopBadCop was originally released as a Graphic Novel, which went on to win the True Believers Comics Awards. The novel delves deeper into the psychological trappings, black humour and surrealist overtones that made the title such a hit with readers. It really gets into the gut(s) and mind(s) of the main character.

Jim Alexander is an award-winning writer who has worked for TV (Metal Hurlant Chronicles) and for DC (Batman 80-Page Giant, Birds of Prey) and Marvel (Uncanny Origins, Spectacular Spider-Man). GoodCopBadCop is his debut novel.

Book is 300 pages and available far and wide. Some links to follow:

UK

Amazon (print & digital):
https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1916453503
Blackwell’s (print):
https://blackwells.co.uk/bookshop/product/9781916453500
Kobo (digital):

https://www.kobo.com/gb/en/ebook/goodcopbadcop

US

Amazon (print & digital):

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1916453503

Barnes & Noble (print & digital):

https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/1129823698

Kobo (digital):

https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/goodcopbadcop

A potted history of GCBC#1

The first issue of GoodCopBadCop the comic came out in 2012.  I came up with the idea a year earlier.  I was looking for an idea – a high concept even – for my next indie comics venture and I remember seeing an ad on a double-decker bus and suddenly it came to me.  It popped into my head more or less fully formed.  I have absolutely no recollection what the ad on the bus was.  I always assumed one day it would come back to me.  Now I’m not so sure.

GoodCopBadCop is a modern crime take on Jekyll and Hyde where the ‘good cop’ and ‘bad cop’ are the same person.

The same night I put together the pitch, everything came together beautifully, seamlessly.  On a wall in Sauchiehall Lane, I saw a piece of street art in the shape of a human-shaped chalk mark and I thought, that gives me an idea, and the opening story began to form.

 It was a Wednesday.  It had to be because I was attending Weegie Wednesday, a monthly networking event for Glasgow-based writers and all types of creative, held at Universal (as it was called at the time).  That was the night I bumped into artist Garry McLaughlin, who himself was catching a quick drink, having been to the cinema previously to watch Terence Malick’s ‘The Tree of Life’.  I knew of Garry, rather than actually knowing him, so I approached his table, introduced myself and sneaked in a quick pitch.  Garry was up for it and there it was.

Funny that, I can remember so much about that night, but not the ad on the side of a bus which in my mind sparked the whole thing off.

The comic featured three stand-alone stories.  It was a sort of ‘proof of concept’ issue.  I wanted to show I could take the idea and play it out.  Put some flesh on the bones.  Garry’s version of DI Brian Fisher remains the definitive one.  His version of BadCop is a brutish one, the character bulking up in front of your eyes.  His rendering of Mrs MacPhellimey with her ‘mushroom cloud’ hair (whose name I took from ‘At Swim-Two-Birds’ by Flann O’Brien) is just superb.  The cover he did for this issue remains one of my favourites.  It's a beauty...

 

Quit your jibber jabber…

…And tell us how long it took to write your first novel.

Okay good question, deep breath – 9 months writing it; 6 months in a drawer; another 6 months of rewriting it; 3 months of editing, proofing and publishing.  After a quick count of all my fingers, toes, and some other appendages, I make that 24 months in total.  Or 2 years, give or take the odd hastily eaten sandwich and dodgy haircut.

The book is still at the proofing stage, but once it’s in and the changes are accepted it’ll be good to go.  I’ve made myself promise myself there won’t be any hurried last minute changes.  I suppose it’s taking the adage to its logical conclusion that a novel is never finished, it’s just published.  Eventually you’ve got to let it go and unleash it onto an unsuspecting, but I hope deserving, world.

I've got a novel coming out

I’m about to publish my first novel.  It’s called ‘GoodCopBadCop’.  Some of you might already recognise the title from the brace of graphic novels written by me a few years back, published by Rough Cut.  The novel has given me the chance to really get into the guts of the mind(s) of the main protagonist.  This for me will be the definitive version.  Now I’ve done it, I can move on and write something else.

For those who don’t know, GoodCopBadCop is a modern crime novel in the tradition of Jekyll and Hyde where the ‘good cop’ and ‘bad cop’ are the same person.

The plan is to use this blog to dip in and out and provide a commentary on various facets of the debut novel experience.  If I was to sum up the process in a few bullet points, it might read a little like this: 

- Write the thing
- Send it out to traditional publishers
- Decide to go the self-publishing rout
- Redrafts/editing/proof-reading
- Publishing
- Marketing
- Lessons learned (in case I want to write another one)

Like any creative process, the one above isn’t strictly a linear one.  You can, for example, start talking about the book (which could come under marketing) before you’ve even written a single word. 

Also, now I’ve decided to go down one publishing route rather than another, I’m treating ‘sending it out to traditional publishers’ as a by-word for putting your ‘finished’ manuscript in a drawer for six months before taking it back out again, ready with fresh eyes for the final redraft, which is itself a by-word for another six months of rewriting.

As I type, the manuscript is with a proof-reader.  I’m hoping the book will be out before the end of the year, probably when everyone is skint in the lead up to Xmas, but I see this project as a slow-burner.  People will still be finding out about the book in six months’ time.

If this is a road trip (bear with me), then feel free to climb aboard.  We'll see where it gets us.

Wolf Country#8

Continue the journey and check out Wolf Country#8 out now.

Written by me, cover by Luke, art by Will, letters by Jim and edits by Liz & Eli.

On sale at the Planet Jimbot shop:

https://www.etsy.com/uk/listing/588346087/wolf-country8