Ex Haverhill man drawing on Suffolk folklore for comic book creation

A Haverhill expat is hoping to raise the funds to publish his latest comic book story - one that draws on a legendary part of Suffolk folklore.

Mark Allard (now Allard-Will) moved to Canada five years ago at the age of 26. He had been assistant manager at the town's Cineworld.

With comedy comic book, Saskatch-A-Man, and graphic novel, Årkade. already published, he is now working on The Burning Black: Legend of Black Shuck.

However, as a part-time writer - his day job is being the assistant manager at Rainbow Cinemas in his new home town of Saskatoon - he needs funding to pay for a professional to do the artwork.

More details on this are at; www.kickstarter.com/projects/789760561/the-burning-black-legend-of-black-shuck.

Mark said: "Black Shuck always struck a tone of morbid fascination within me.

"The whole idea of a jet-black demon dog hunting down pious Tudor-era Christians inside their place of worship in the depths of rural Suffolk sounds like an idea cooked up in the easily frightened brains of Britain's early eras of Christianity...that is until you realise that the claw marks of what we're told are Black Shuck are still visible on the unchanged wooden doors of St Mary's Church in Bungay.

"I've also grown up into the adult I am today with a big fascination of England's, and Britain's as a whole, former Pagan civilisations that formed what our island is recognised as today.

"So, I've combined both fascinations for my telling of the story of Black Shuck; with The Burning Black: Legend of Black Shuck, not only am I giving people a dramatised recount of the events of the 4th of August 1577 in Bungay, but I'm giving people my theory as to a backstory for Black Shuck.

"That backstory is in essence this: What if a Pagan from the centuries passed came back in a different form to haunt the Christianity that suppressed them?"