For the release of his book Traqué dans l’Espace » aux éditions AVENTURIERS D’AILLEURS 

1- J.D. Chris Baldie, hello and welcome to infospectaclesloisirs, you are both an illustrator and a designer. First of all, how can you introduce yourself to your French readers? 

• C.B. Hi, my name is Chris, I’m a designer and illustrator from Perth, Scotland. I’ve been working full time as a designer for 15+ years and in that time, I’ve also been self-publishing my own comics. 

2- J.D. You have just published your very first comic book in French « Hunted in Space » with Michael Park. What was the origin of this story ? 

• C.B. I had been reading a lot of Ray Bradbury’s sci-fi comics at the time, and when I read « Kaleidoscope », I was fascinated by the idea of a spaceman being flung into space and not knowing where he was going to end up.  
   
  I pitched this idea to Michael and a few days later, he had a fully written version of the script done! 

3- J.D. Who is this « Hunted in Space » ? 

• C.B. The original English title is « Space Captain: Captain of Space », but due to a conflicting book title, the French Version is labelled « Traqué Dans L’espace » !  Space Captain (as he is named in the book) is the last human to exist in the known universe.
  Due to a catastrophic event thousands of years in the past, Earthlings ceased to exist… except one human, who was buried deep under the ice in some distant planet. 

4- J.D. What were your literary and cinematographic influences ? 

• C.B. I’m a great fan of any genre of film and book, I tend to consume a lot of each ! 
    
  However around the time we were making these books, I was specifically reading some of the older sci-fi books of Ray Bradbury and Philip K. Dick, which might have influenced some of the story.  
   
  These days I’m reading a lot of Fantasy novels, ranging from Witcher and Wheels of Time, to Farseer trilogies and Tales of Earthsea. 

 
 5- J.D. Can you tell us about the choice of design? 

• C.B. My style tends to change a lot as the years go on, especially back in 2013 when I started drawing the first Space Captain stories.   
  You can see it changing quite dramatically from page 1 to page 250! I’ve been influenced by everything from early 2000’s webcomics, to Mignolia’s Hellboy.  
   
  I get a lot of comments from British readers that they think Space Captain reminds them of Tintin, but that might just be Space Captain’s coincidental resemblance to Captain Haddock. 

6- J.D. It’s not your first time with science-fiction, what do you like in this field? 

• C.B. Endless possibilities! Alien worlds, impossible technologies, infinite planets… they are all there just waiting to be uncovered.   
  I’m not one to enjoy realism or sticking to rules, so playing around in the science fiction universe is a lot of fun. 

7- J.D. In « Hunted in Space » you tackle difficult themes, such as death, loneliness, humanity? 

• C.B. The story was originally supposed to be a silly adventure through space, but due to the very idea of Space Captain being the last human in existence, the story takes some dark turns. 
   
   I’m not sure we really thought about it much at the time, but I think it makes the book much more enjoyable to read and lends a lot of weight to the narrative and gives readers something to be invested in. 

8- J.D. Do you think that comics are still a free medium? And what can still address all the subjects? 

• C.B. As someone who mostly self-publishes my own work, I believe that yes, comics are very much a free medium. You can say and do whatever you like!  
   However if you make something that’s intentionally antagonistic or hurtful, then you should expect push back from your audience and the consequences that come with it.  
   
  Comics can be beautiful, funny and touching. I don’t understand why you would want to make anything that hurt someone else. 

9- J.D. You are English. According to you, are there differences between French comics and English comics? 

• C.B. I am Scottish (Écosse)! But I do make comics in the English language, yes! 
  I recently did a small tour of France and Belgium and it was interesting to see how many BD books you have there compared to the UK.  
   
  We certainly get the big names like Tintin and Asterix, but for the most part our comics industry is dominated by the « superhero » category in our shops:  
  and while I certainly can see the appeal of superhero comics for some people, I would much prefer a wider variety of BD style comics over in the UK. 

10- J.D. Thanking you, what are your projects? 

• C.B. You can find all my books and what I’m working on at my website chrisbaldie  
  I have a number of different books including : 

• Rolled a one – a story about new friendships forming while playing Dungeons and Dragons.  

• Jacques – the story of a Parisian cat burglar 

• We said goodbye to gravity – a collection of short stories 

• Would you mind waiting a while? – a short story about some robots on a far-off planetary mission.