Janet has a cybernetic arm and there are slidey metal doors; otherwise, there isn’t a lot that makes this squad room recognizable as something not of this Earth. So, the aliens had to be really alien to get across the intergalactic nature of Grey Squad.

When John and I first conceived of Grey Squad at that awful Mexican restaurant (sorry, but you don’t throw everything together uncooked in a tortilla, fold it over, bake it, and call it a quesadilla), we talked about having a Greylien on the force.

We didn’t know if he’d be a good cop or a bad cop, we just knew his name would be Bob. Why? No other reason than we think a Greylien named Bob is funny. Plus, neither of us can say “Bob” without the entire conversation degenerating to rattling off Black Adder quotes.

Detective Tulla came about a bit differently. The rest of the cast was already set in place, but with the exception of Bob, the main players were human. I wanted something really alien. My first thought was a guy with tentacle arms, but we’d already done that with Mr. Ccchh in Intergalactic Law.


The idea to make the last detective arachnid came when I found close up pics of spider faces. Visually, Tulla came together pretty quickly after that. At least, for me he did. All I had to do was write “spider head and arms from the waist up, man legs from the waist down”.

Then I let John figure it out.

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