Red Thorn: DC Comics has a new hero, with a distinctively Scottish temperament

​A new DC publication hits the stands this week. And while the themes may be familiar, the setting makes a change. So why does Red Thorn belong to Glasgow?

Red Thorn: Northern exposure (Kelley Popham)

When the Scottish writer David Baillie pitched his idea for a new comic series to the industry giant DC Comics, he thought the biggest hurdle he'd have was the fact that his story was set in Glasgow.

DC, after all, is the publisher of such characters as Superman and Batman, and its comics are usually set among the soaring skyscrapers of Metropolis or the down-and-dirty mean streets of Gotham. But as it turned out, Baillie's choice of his home town for the location of his comic series Red Thorn won instant approval from Shelly Bond, the editor-in-chief of DC's “mature readers” imprint, Vertigo. “She was like, 'Oh my God, brilliant! Glasgow is so cool!'” Baillie says, with some satisfaction.

Now readers across the world are going to get an insight into the Scottish city's darker corners as the first issue of the monthly Red Thorn makes its debut. Today sees the culmination of years of hard work for Baillie, 37. Getting a series green-lighted from Vertigo is a big deal; it's one of the most respected – and best-selling – contemporary comic-book imprints, which eschews the brightly clad superheroes of the main line and concentrates instead on edgier tales that sit more comfortably in the crime, thriller and horror genres.

Baillie has had a colourful career: he worked for a while with British Aerospace and even spent time with an investment bank, which he hated and packed in to fulfil his dream of writing for comics. He cut his teeth writing for the long-established British science fiction weekly comic 2000 AD, and before that handmade his own comics, which he took to conventions in the hope of getting noticed.

“It's been a long slog,” he concedes, but his hard work has now paid dividends: Vertigo has this autumn undergone something of a relaunch with a clutch of brand new titles it's pushing, and Red Thorn is one of them.

So what's it about? “The premise is that there's a pantheon of Scottish gods and there was a falling-out between these gods and the newer gods. The Scottish gods were usurped and one particular god was trapped underground beneath what became the city of Glasgow. The first storyline is about how this particular god tries to escape, and what that means for the world.”

The story unfolds through the eyes of Isla, an American character with Scottish parents who returns to the old country and becomes embroiled in this age-old war of the gods. Presumably that's a nod to the fact that Red Thorn has an American publisher?

“I was asked if I could include an American character,” Baillie says. “I said I could go better than that and make the main character American. But she has Scottish parentage and has a very Glaswegian temperament and outlook.”

While Baillie writes the series, the art is done by an American artist, Meghan Hetrick. To help her to get the look of Glasgow exactly right, Baillie took hundreds of photographs for her. “It was vital to me that the details were spot-on, so I took pictures of things like lampposts and buses, because those are the sorts of things that if they look wrong it spoils the story. I grew up in Glasgow and all the locations are based on places I've seen and walks I've taken along the streets.”

Starting in a perfectly rendered Glasgow Necropolis, 'Red Thorn' plays on the city's folklore (Kelley Popham)

Baillie also got under the skin of the city by reading voraciously books about the city's myths, folklore and legends, to build up not just a credible picture of Glasgow as it really is, but also the psychogeography of the city. Given the rather dark subject matter, should the city's tourist information board be a bit twitchy about his portrayal?

Baillie laughs. “I don't think they'll have too much to worry about. Glasgow and the people of Glasgow come through really well in the first issue.” He pauses. “Unless they really do have monsters in the river Clyde they're not telling anyone about.”