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We have average, mediocre days in which we aspire to something greater. We sit in movie theaters imagining ourselves as the super heroes, with destinies, super powers, and epic sex lives.

But, how can we be sure that telepathy or the ability to fly would improve our lives?  More likely, we would be ordinary people who could use heat powers to warm up our dinners without using a microwave.

Drew Pearce has created the amazingly hilarious world of “No Heroics” to examine this exact thought. For those who are unfamiliar with the story; it’s very simple, but very funny.  Inspired by his time as a musician, Drew crafted the narrative of four friends who happen to be super heroes: The Hotness, Electroclash, Time bomb, and She Force who all commiserate at the local heroes-only pub—The Fortress—about their struggle to rise above mediocrity…all with hilarious consequences.

Amidst the mass of caped convention attendees,  I was lucky to sit down with the hero himself, “No Heroics” creator Drew Pearce and talk about the UK version of the show, the unaired US pilot, and the super-power he’d most like to have.

What inspired you to write a show of this nature, with such dedication to fans of the comic genre?

DP: I came up with the idea of a bunch of off-duty capes in a London superheroes-only bar about four years ago. It’s been the first big scripted project that I’ve written, shot etc so it took an age to drag it onscreen. And truthfully, the fact that superhero comedies are usually a bit shit didn’t help. But I always felt that the way to play it was almost straight – that the matter-of-factness about their job is the key.

The actual feel of the show isn’t based on superheroes at all – it’s actually based on my time being a loser-y musician. Basically, if you’re in a band, you tend to rehearse for one hour then go to the pub for four hours and sit around a copy of the NME bitching about how everyone else is more famous than you. But I’m a life-long comics fan, so at some point, those two ideas just fused (like Wusion) and became No Heroics.

The aspect that is fan-centric in the show is that, because I was setting up my own universe, and I didn’t want to parody existing characters directly, I didn’t have ay space to reference the 50-odd years of comics that we all care so much about. But that’s when I decided that every brand in the show’s pub would be a reference to comic characters, creators etc. It works like a whole layer of Easter-egging. There’s basically egg all over the show, and that’s how I like it.

What was your favorite part of the US pilot vs. the UK original?

DP: Well, for those who don’t know, after finishing the first series in the UK I came over to America to make a “sister’ version of the show for ABC and Disney. They didn’t pick it up, but I had a blast making it. The favorite parts are too many to mention, but having 200 extras rather than 4 was nice, as was having the budget to shut down entire streets in Vancouver, do stunts, actually have that second cup of tea etc.

But probably, overall, it was getting to create a parallel bar in New York that’s part of the same pub “chain” as the Fortress in London. And who knows – maybe we’ll get that Lower East Side version of the bar might be up and running again some time soon…

Just like the US pilot vs. the UK original, who would win in a fight Captain Britain or Captain America?

DP: Well, I have to say, Captain America and Captain Britain both kind of annoy me. They’re both so uptight and repressed. So I’m going to say that, in my version of the Cap-based cage-fight, halfway through the bout they both breakdown, Bruno-style, and start ferociously making out with each other. As to which one’s the “top”, and which one’s the “bottom” – I’m afraid I’m not qualified to answer.

(Also, seeing as they can both come back from summer-event-deaths, it’s hard to even care. Please insert my generic “nobody ever dies in comics” fanboy grumpiness here. )

Where can we get a copy of the US pilot?

DP: Nowhere. It’s disappeared. It’s not even on the internet. And anyone seen with it is instantly dispatched by Disney-trained snipers in Mickey Mouse masks.

You have expressed interest in a US DVD release for the 1st season of the UK show. What has been your biggest hurdle to this desire?  What “special feature” would you love to include on the DVD?

Well, for starters, though there’s a bunch of extra material on the Region 2 British DVD we never had the money to do any commentary tracks. So I’d love to do that. And there are some cool people, particularly in America, who are fans of the show, so I’d kind of love them to maybe join in too. I always wanted to put the original pilot and the re-shot ep one together to do a contrast-y thing. Plus, if we could ever make it past those Disney snipers, we might even get the chance to pop the ABC pilot on there somewhere too.

It has been said in the May 18 2009 interview with io9 that the US incarnation of the show was to feature more “geek detail”?  What were some of the extras that we were to see?

DP: There was just a shit-ton more of it, and all focused on US comics. So as well as my favorite existing brands – Logan’s Rum, Shazamstell etc – I had a beer called American Flagon. I just got the chance to be even geekier, and I loved it.

The gauntlets have been thrown and the recent economic downturn appears to be your arch-nemesis. What super power would you use to fight the economic downturn?

DP: Well, if No Heroics gets a second series in the UK it will be a back-from-the-dead moment of Captain America-sized proportions. The channel we made it for simply cannot afford to do another series, even though it was as cheap as chips.

But you never know – after all, superheroes never stay dead. So maybe Merlin’s resurrection magic would be appropriate. If it can bring Brain Braddock back from skrull-tastrophe, maybe it can do the same for No Heroics UK.

When can we see a 4-pack merch of heroes’ pins/rings?  And then, Action figures?

DP: Well, I may start a crafts company making them by hand. I can whittle. In fact, I’m quite the whittler. Action figures can be made from balsa wood, right?

The wake of all this “comic con” hoopla, and the host of comic references on your show, what’s your favorite comic book, character, etc?

DP: Well, I always say that Grant Morrison’s very first superhero – a British character from 2000 AD called Zenith – is my favourite ever comic. And I think that still stands. But honestly, there’s just so many that it’s hard to pick one. Has anything been smarter than Y: The Last Man? Weirder than Miller’s Elektra? Funnier than Dan Slott’s She-Hulk? Cooler than Bendis’s Alias? And is anything, ever, better than Watchmen? Probably not.

So I’ll just stick with Zenith, not least because the TPBs are now so ridiculously expensive on Ebay that it’s virtually impossible for anyone to see how good they were now, and maybe that tiny drop of support will help get them re-issued.

Interview by Bob Suicide

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