Cy Dethan: Comics Writer.
Cy Dethan
Cy Dethan is a British writer who began his comics career in 2006 on the Starship Troopers: Extinction Protocol strip for Mongoose Publishing.
In 2007, Cy was hand-picked to take over the reins of Markosia’s flagship ongoing series, Starship Troopers. He has subsequently written several creator-owned titles for Markosia, including Slaughterman’s Creed, The Indifference Engine and White Knuckle.
Cy’s first creator-owned book, Cancertown: An Inconvenient Tooth, was a major independent hit and a sequel, Cancertown: Blasphemous Tumours, was released in November 2012.
Recently, he has joined the writing team of the Unseen Shadows transmedia project. Before turning to comics, Cy was an award-winning freelance copywriter and editor. Prior to that he was a professional magician and, quite frankly, he’d rather not talk about that…
The best way to buy Cy's books is through his Comicsy Shop (payment by Paypal).
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Cancertown 2: Foreword by David Hine
In volume one of Cancertown, Vince Morley, the book’s narrator and lead character, is diagnosed with Cotard’s Syndrome, also known as Walking Corpse Syndrome, a condition where a person believes they are dead, rotting away, or in milder cases, have organs missing. I once worked as a porter in a psychiatric hospital and did actually meet someone who suffered from the delusion. This woman insisted that the doctors had removed her internal organs. I’m still haunted by her mournful whimpering at mealtimes as she pushed her plate away. “It’s no good. I can’t eat it. I’ve got no stomach.” In Vince Morley’s case he’s gained an organ, a tumour in his head that gives him visions of another world – a diseased world that lies beneath the surface of what we like to think of as ‘reality’ – the world known as Cancertown.
This time round Dethan has a new art team to share his vision of hell. Graeme Howard and Peter Mason have taken up the challenge of painting us the picture we probably would have preferred not to see, and they have carried it off with flying colours (mostly bile green and fecal brown with a spattering of bloody crimson). Cy Dethan’s prose has a wonderful stream-of-consciousness profanity. I envy his talent for coming up with brilliant names for his characters. Anyone writing comics will tell you it’s next to impossible to come up with original and appropriate names, but Cy does it repeatedly: Headrush, Bugfuck, Piecemaker, Corpsegrinder, Nemesister. He even has Vince affectionately refer to the tumour in his head as Baby Meatfist. My personal favourite is Papercut – so very appropriate for a comic where the pages will draw blood if you don’t handle them carefully.
Reading this book has been quite a trip. In his foreword to the first volume, Bryan Talbot gave a warning to potential readers, and I feel compelled to do the same. Cancertown is normally only visible to those who live on the margins of society - the addicted, the homeless, the destitute, the diseased, the pathologically delusional. Cy Dethan, charming fellow that he is, has made it his mission to make that world apparent to the rest of us too. The thing is that once you see it, you’re only a step away from being sucked into Cancertown. So I’m going to repeat Bryan’s warning in the hope that you’re reading this foreword before you actually read the book. Don’t go any further. Put it back on the shelf. Throw it away. Give it to your worst enemy. Got that? Do not under any circumstances read this book…
David Hine
South London
September 2012
Cancertown 2 Launches At Thought Bubble Sequential Art Festival In November
“Should’ve known better than to trust an angry, blinded monster with a spaz-hand and a grudge.”
Six months after the events of Cancertown: An Inconvenient Tooth, Vince Morley is a dangerously sick man. Bugf**k is in a psychiatric hospital, sticky fingers picking through the darkest corners of the mind that brought Cancertown into existence. The crossing points between Morley’s two realities are wearing thin and all the rules are changing.
“I got my hand bitten off trying to save the world’s biggest c**t from something worse than him. Don’t pretend you know anything about me.”
Within Cancertown, something new has appeared – a creature of horrific violence and limitless rage. The foundations are shaking and the old powers are falling, one by one. Papercut, deadliest of the Cancertown players, seeks out Morley to claim the favour he owes her – a favour that could cost him more than just his life.
We can no longer protect you. Cancertown 2: Blasphemous Tumours is coming...
Writer: Cy Dethan
Pencils/inks: Graeme Howard
Colours: Peter Mason
Letters: NicWilkinson
Read Free Previews of Cancertown 1 and 2 and find out more about pre-order special offers.