The Greys

This is our second strip for “Aylesbury Town Matters”, our local Town Council’s quarterly magazine. This issue should start landing on doormats around Aylesbury from today, so we’ve posted this strip to coincide with the delivery, rather than sticking to our regular Thursday submissions.

For readers who are not familiar with Aylesbury, the local clock tower which presides over the Market Square is one of our best known monuments – and certainly a better looking icon for the town than the County Offices that we parodied last time. The new issue of Aylesbury Town Matters includes an article covering the history of the Clock Tower, so as well as providing a convenient place for The Greys to begin their exploration of the town, it’s an ideal subject to use in the comic for this particular magazine.

Aylesbury has produced two notable musical acts over the years (though “musical” might be stretching things for one of them). The first is the legendary John Otway, whose shows provide a unique combination of music and comedy. The second is the prog-rock band Marillion which was formed in the town and spent the early 80s going through enough drummers to make Spinal Tap proud. They first found success with a lead singer called Fish. Fish then left to pursue a solo career, to be replaced by Steve Hogarth – who wasn’t an Aylesbury local, yet had coincidentally formerly played keyboards for John Otway.

Fish-era Marillion was almost required listening during our formative years in Aylesbury. One of their most popular songs, “Market Square Heroes”, is a reference to Aylesbury’s Market Square. Although our scene is set a few years before Marillion’s inception, it seemed fitting to use that song as inspiration for the comic’s title.

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