In the mid-eighties, the baird of British comics, Grant Alan*, proposed an
ambitious twelve issue "Whodunnit" involving all the major characters in the
Hip Flask canon. Grant Alan had recently collaborated with Dave Gibbons on
the TWISTED FUTURE story HOROLOCOPS (in TIMELORD) and the two were eager to
work together again. The result was ELEPHANTMEN. No one would be able to
look at comics the same way again.
"Little did we suspect, as we worked on ELEPHANTMEN back in the
mid-eighties, that it would become such a behemoth in the world of comics.
Even today, it seems, graphic storytelling reverberates to its mighty
footfalls. With its much-trumpeted ninety-nine panel "cattle-grid " layouts
and its weighty ruminations on the nature of existence, ELEPHANTMEN looks
like being a series that readers will never forget."
— Dave Gibbons
*No relation to Richard Alan
