Over the past few months I've gotten to know Daniel Clifford pretty well, either through listening to him lose his mind on his and co-host Lily's excellent podcast; North East Geek Feast, enjoying a Halo: Reach wild ride in true Mr Toad fashion or endless twittering back and forth. So when the opportunity came up to talk to Daniel about his latest project with the Paper Jam Comics Collective; Sugar Glider I jumped at the chance to delve deeper into that wonderfully weird mind:

So what is Sugar Glider all about?

Sugar Glider is a costumed crime-fighter comic based on Tyneside but like all the superhero comics I like best, it's more about the person in the costume than it is about the crime-fighting. And the person in the costume is Susie Sullivan; a teenager with no clue what to do with her life. Everyone around her has a clear path in life - her mam is a nurse, her sister is a mother and her best friend is a sports prodigy. But no matter what Susie tries, nothing ever sticks. She's done all the dead-end jobs you can think of and tried out fashion design, wildlife photography, filmmaking, judo, athletics, etc etc. But she can't commit. I really think this is a story people can relate to - everyone's under so much pressure to decide one thing to do for the rest of their life - it doesn't even matter that the 'one job for life' thing just doesn't happen anymore. But then there's the escapist part of the story - she's found herself with this gliding suit and is trying out something a lot less ordinary - super heroics!

Follow up:

If I had to compare Sugar Glider to other comics on the shelves I'd say it was like Batman crossed with Spiderman. I think of Batman because Susie doesn't have any super powers, lives in a gothic-looking city and has a tendency to swoop down on her opponents. There's also a bit of detective work for her to do - especially in issue one where she's trying to figure out who's responsible for some odd crimes around Newcastle. Spiderman comes to mind because she's young, isn't a very cool individual and a lot of her problems arise from having family members who rely on her.. For example, Susie's sister is a young single parent. She doesn't have any trouble with the parenting side, but she's trying to get everything else sorted out - social life and qualifications - so she needs all the support she can get.

Outside of the story, though, Sugar Glider is about presenting a fun and accessible comic that could help non-readers get into comics or help mainstream comics readers get into more small press stuff. The comic will look like a standard US comic (but with black and white interiors and no 'Got Milk?' ads) so it won't be too strange for mainstream readers and each issue will be self-contained but with an over-arching story. So if you pick up just one issue, it shouldn't matter which one it is - you'll still understand the story and get a satisfying conclusion, but if you pick up all three you'll get three satisfying stories that work together to create one bigger story. That's what I think makes something accessible to people outside of the usual comics readership - do they have to spend £15 quid on 6 comics to get just one story? Or can they get one whole story in one comic for £3?

Why Sugar Glider? What is it about that particular rodent?
This was all Gary (Bainbridge). I'd never even heard of a Sugar Glider until we started working on this. I just thought it was a fun name! One night we were at Travelling Man doing the usual Paper Jam Comics Collective meeting and Gary started drawing a female superhero character. I was trying to assemble strips for an anthology (A4 Comics Presents..., also due out at Thought Bubble) so I asked him to pitch me a story for the character. I was so excited by the design and the story idea that I asked if we could work together on a Sugar Glider story that lasted more than four pages. Gary had drawn my very first comics work - a story called That Cool Robot for a Paper Jam anthology - and we had agreed to work on something more substantial in the future. This seemed perfect to me. I'd always wanted to do my own superhero comic so I was very excited. Gary came up with the main character and we talked over a lot of ideas before I went away and wrote a lot of words while Gary drew a lot of pictures. We talked that over a few times and then arrived at some decisions that eventually became issue 1 of Sugar Glider.

The way I understand it, Gary's wife really loves animals and has been begging for a sugar glider for years. That's why Gary thought of that name. But don't get any ideas about buying yourself a sugar glider - they might be cute but Googling those two words results in 'Reasons why sugar gliders don't make good pets'! Instead, buy a copy of Sugar Glider issue 1.

So how have you found collaborating with Sugar Glider co-creator and artist Gary Bainbridge?

Like I said, Gary was the first artist who drew anything that I had written. So this relationship is important to me. It means so much for me that someone else would take the time to read my words and then bring them to life. Gary drew the Sugar Glider character and had a good idea of the world - she's a vigilante in an England that has some official heroes. But I knew that he wasn't as interested in superheroes as he is in historical, autobiographical and other 'real world' genres. So I went away and tried to make these official heroes as grounded in reality as I could and developed a lot of characters and ideas about the world. And Gary kept sending me fantastic pin-ups of all these potential characters. It's a bit of a weird collaboration. A true collaboration - there's no fine distinction between what Gary created and what I did. Even though I say that Gary created Sugar Glider, there's as much in the character that I came up with. And that's the best thing about this project for me. Nobody's dictating anything to anybody else - I trust Gary's judgements and I hope he trusts me too.

And to top it all off - the art is amazing. One of the important things for both of us was to make Susie's world seem real and that's one of Gary's major strengths as an artist. He draws the best scenery you could imagine. Anyone who lives in or around Newcastle - or even just visited the place - will be able to recognise the places visited in the first issue.

What got you into comics in the first place?

I'm really glad you've asked this question as this is a very important subject for me. It's really all to do with my Nanna and Granda. They took me to South Shields flee market and up to Newcastle all the time and bought me comics. My dad says he read lots of comics as a lad so that's probably got something to do with it but it was really my Grandparents and having an older brother - he left me a lot of random issues I could investigate. That makes him sound dead. He's not!

I've never been a prose reader - I just can't stomach long passages of black text on white paper (although this interview proves I'm not averse to creating such a thing!). When I was younger my laziness when it comes to traditional forms of reading made everyone think I couldn't do it. I was even in special needs reading classes. But outside of school I was in love with all these comics I had - especially Spiderman and Peter David's X-Factor. I suppose that shows how young I am. But, yeah, comics are such a great way to get young people reading. So much so that me and Jack Fallows run workshops in schools and libraries around Tyneside to do just that.

What are you reading right now?

I want to wax lyrical about Batman and Robin by Grant Morrison and GI Joe: Cobra by Mike Costa, Christos Cage and Antonio Fuso. I want to - but those creative teams are either leaving very soon or have already left! The same for the current run of Amazing Spiderman! I'll probably stick around for the next few issues of each, though. Especially Batman and Robin as Paul Cornell will taking over for the next 3 issues and I love Paul Cornell's work. I'm most enamoured with mainstream superhero books but I probably pick up just as many small press titles. In that respect, I'm loving what my mate James Cornell is doing at the moment. He's making very personal illustrated diaries with his friend Craig called Mutual Slump. He's also just done his first 'proper' comics work - Track 1 but I haven't read it yet.

Oh! And I'm going on a massive Arthur Ranson binge. For anyone who doesn't know, Arthur Ranson is best known for his incredibly detailed artwork on Judge Anderson for 2000AD. I've just read Shamballa and loved it so now I'm reading Button Man and going to dig out the X-Factor miniseries he did about 10 years ago.

If you could write any comic book, any character form any time period and any publisher, what would it be?

The way I developed Sugar Glider means that there are a massive amount of characters that could support their own comics or even TV shows. I'm also really interested in doing some other characters I've created. The fanboy in me says I could write a good Havok story and put him back on track. He's always been my favourite mutant. Whatever I do, I would really like to keep working with Mr Bainbridge - our working method is great and we seem to come up with good results so it's a team that I'd like to keep together for years to come. I think we could do a mean Spidey story. If Stephen Wacker is listening, give us a call!

So there you have it, the man himself, quite possibly the nicest guy in comics, at the very least the nicest guy that writes comics and lives in South Shields. Daniel will be debuting Sugar Glider at Thought Bubble 2010 in Leeds on Saturday 20th November with the rest of the Paper Jam Comics Collective guys and a couple of Sidekicks on tour too. If you can't wait until then to see that first issue, you can get your hands on a copy sooner by going to the Sugar Glider Facebook page and showing your support when they reach 100 'Like's' they'll give away a free PDF of issue 1 to a random page member