Where to Now?

My comments yesterday and a few days before seem to have stirred up a few responses. Some people are telling me that there might still be a future for comics outside of 40 year old men. I even had an e-mail from a young girl who collects comics, when she can afford them. But I do stand over my comments. However, I'm going to reply to Paddy who says that his nephew loves comics but the problem is that they're too expensive. I think it's slightly more than that. I think there has been a change in the culture. I grew up in the late 40s/early 50s when comics were part text, part cartoon strip - I'm thinking here of Wizard, Victor and so forth. Comics from the States were practically unheard of in my part of the world, although when I went on holidays to Newcastle I was able to buy the Lone Ranger and an early Green Lama drawn by Mac Raboy as well as repints of Mars, God of War and Space Ranger which I think might have been in Planet Comics. I would take some of them into school and swap for comics with some of my friends who got different sorts of comics too. But there was a real interest there and we talked about comics and took an interest in the stories. I don't get the same sense now. Children may like comics but they need some sort of incentivasation to buy them. I stopped in a petrol station the other night and saw the Beano on sale and it was nothing like what I remembered - or worked for . It was slick and glossy with a free gift attached to it. It was seeling for far more than I remember. So I take Paddy's point about cost. My 15 year old son likes comics too and any time I'm in Belfast I usually buy a couple of comics or him and his sister - for Michael it's the World of Marvel or Iron Man - but I can pay over £5 for two comics. But this is what's on offer and what the children expect now. Paddy is right when he says that production costs have made the production of a comic expensive. I'm sitting here with a copy of Heavy Metal here in front of me and goodness knows how much it took to produce that. But does it sell - even by a subscription outlet. Lately I've taken to buying some of my magazines through Newsstand Online but I notice how limited certain sections - such as SF - are and how high-level some of the magazines are. But Paddy if you want to produce a worthwhile comic which children will want you have to meet the production values of your competitors - and that includes Heavy Metal - and you have to sort out distribution. You have to ask yourself "Why should somebody buy my magazine and not the new Dr. Who comic?" and are you going to cover the costs with sales, even online. As you say Paddy, some comics aren't making it. I'm also sitting here looking at somics such as Jet from 1959 which a friend of mine, Des Shaw, reprints. They're 6d which is only a couple of pence but my son wouldn't buy them because they're not flashy enough and they don't have some sort of free gift. And even if you were to print one issue would you make enough to cover another issue? The only way you're going to fund it is through maybe a grant and you're not going to get that here in Northern Ireland I would think - no way! So where to now? I'm still willing to sit down and talk about production of something. I've agreed to meet with Andy Luke sometime in October and while I would like to go to the Belfast Bar Camp I'm going to be on Rathlin Island. But maybe sometime. I'm off to watch some television. I was right about Arsenal yesterday - especially with Gervinho being sent off. My wife was furious! But get back to me on you ideas about comics. I'm always open to offers!

Any Future - Children's Comics

A couple of further thoughts on what I wrote yesterday. I was wondering if children read anything like the British comics I used to read as a child and as a younger man. All my friends used to read them when I was at school and we used to bring in comics to swap when we'd finished with them, I used to buy two issues of one comic so I could do this in case I didn't get them back. I had thought at one stage of course of doing a black and white comic in the style of the old Lion or Valiant or Buster and then dismissed the idea as it would never sell. This is not the 1970s. However, just to see what was selling I happened to be in town this morning and called into Easons, which is really the only newsagents in our high street and had a look at the children's section. Do you know they didn't even have the Beano and the Dandy - these were the staples of childhood reading. They had a number of franchise comics like the Simpsons all done up in plastic bags and some others with a free gift. The only thing that actually "looked" like a comic was a Dr. Who publication and it wasn't even a comic more of a magazine with features. I think there was one strip in it. And no other comic publications. Plenty of Tattoo magazines though. Where have they all gone? Are the only ones now interested in British comics solely 60 year-old men? I rest my case and it's a frightening thought. Where's all the creativiely gone when all we have is formulaeic Dr. Who magazines? I'll go and watch the football. Arsenal are drawing with Newcastle which'll not please my wife who is a huge Arsenal fan. Still as I point out her, it could be worse. She could support West Ham!

Is There Any Future?

A number of people have approached me about starting some sort of comic here in the United Kingdom - they say I'm too cynical about the comis scene and we should try to get together and bring something out in the style of, say, Heavy Metal or Eppo. I'm really worried that some of the younger creators are starting to look at me as a grand old guru of the comic world or even believe that I know what I'm talking about! Yes, I did work on my own comics in the late 60s and early 70s producing things like Tales from the Shunned House and Mincemeat Pete for Fool Moon and yes Dark Matter is coming out in Italy next month carrying one of my early strips with David Lloyd but the world has changed a lot since those heady days. As I said in my last blog, American comics are dead and I suspect they are in Britain as well. As I hinted in the last blog, the culture which allowed those publications to happen has fundamentally changed. Even in British comics. I was talking to Adrian the other day - who does Space 1949 - and we were speaking about the comics we used to buy when we were growing up. I'm old enough to remember when comics were still part text but even the British black and white comics I used to buy don't exist any more, except in nostalgia sales. Lion, Valiant, Wizard, all have gone. The only ones who are interested in them now are 60 year old men. And the comic shops are full of 40 year-olds on their lunch break - surely that can't be right? I had thought of pulling Fool Moon together again - Adrian and I had seriously talked about that - but there's no way that we could produce something like Heavy Metal. We had thought of producing something less ambitious but where would we get the money for it, how would we distribute it, how would we compete against the likes of Marvel and DC? Because that's who we'd be up against. Another option was to produce something like Lion or Valiant that I used to buy as a young man - a black and white magazine-comic in the style of the old IPC publications. It might be possible to scrape together enough advertising - because no government grant is going to fund it, we've learned that through bitter experience -to print a limited edition but then what would we do with it, how would we sell enough to produce a second issue? It's all very well to say "I did that" but another to do it as a sustainable business option. I'm not giving up my day job. A friend of mine reprints very old comics which used to sell in the 1950s for around 6d - Swift Morgan, Star Rocket, Space Heroes etc. and it might be possible to certainly print something like that, as they could be done in black and white very cheaply but again what to do with it? And who would buy it? You're up against Kindle, iPads etc. all of which Marvel and DC use and have cornered the market. A couple of years ago we talked about something like that and applied to the Creative and Innovative Industries Fund, partly run by the Northern Ireland Arts Council. It didn't take us long to realise that the Council wasn't really interested in anything even vaguely creative or innovative - certainly not a graphic format. Much of the money is handed out to statutory bodies, the rest to people like established businesses, goldsmiths and that sort of thing. We also approarched the educational department to use comics in education but they didn't even bother responding. Children aren't really interested in comics any more is their idea. So I suspect that British comics, like the American comics is dead. So is there any future? Maybe - I've still never given up. There has to be something but maybe now isn't really the right time to go looking. Of course if there's a millionaire reading this with some money to give away - it doesn't have to be all that much - I'm still up for writing a few graphic novels! We live in hope!

The Death of Comics

American comics as we know them are dead! Writers and artists with anything creative do write or draw had better start looking elsewhere. That's the message that I'm getting from a lot of my friends in America especially those who have attended the recent San Diego Convention. I suppose I shouldn't be surprised. Alarm bells really started ringing for me when Marvel and Disney got together, although by then the rot had already set in. Several of my friends in the US have simply confirmed what I already suspected. Comics as we knew them have gone and the big companies are now moe interested in films, merchandising and franchises more than they are in producing innovative and experimental comics which mightn't sell but which were worth doing anyway, Marvel seems to have thrown all its interests into producing films of which comics are but an afterthought and a way to make more money. And DC likewise. I wouldn't care all that much - well I would if I'm honest - if the films were any good. I looked foward for months to the new Green Lantern movie - I used to read the comic - and was vastly disappointed with it when I went to see it. The best thing I could say about Thor was that it wasn't as bad as I expected it to be. X-Men First Class was one of the better ones but only because Michael Fassbender gave an excellent performance as Magneto. And as for Iron Man 2 - well most of it was roughly the same as Iron Man I. Where was the Mandarin? One thing about all of them was that the CGI was great - but terrific imagery does not a terrific film make. Many of the plots have been rather lame and predictable and to my mind anyway have lacked any real creativity. And films really place the power in the hands of the corporation. My son has desperately been waiting for Fantastic Four 3 featuring the Sub-Mariner that was promised but that's not going to happen. And I keep waiting for the Dr. Strange moie which was talked about but I doubt if that will happen either. Because everything is now being channelled into movies the cost is prohibitive and the choice is limited. Back in the 1970s and part of the 80s, Marvel and others tried a lot of new and interesting characters just to see how they did. Some failed but others were terrific. The 60s themselves produced a lot of creative stuff - I know, I worked on some of them - much of it one-shots but some of it went on. I like to think there is still something of that era in me but it's getting tougher and tougher to bring out. There was a feeling that we could achieve anything - that feeling was probably knocked out of us by the Reagan era in America and certainly by the Thatcher era in Britain. And it has culminated now. My friends in San Diego went there to look for what the "next big thing" might be and found nothing worth talking about. There are certainly some of the smaller companies looking for new stuff but their budgets are severely restircted by the recession. The Marvel/Disney axis has more or less killed any creative stuff off; the Manga which swept the world a few years ago also tied comics into the gaming merchandise market through things like Pokemon. At one time my children could tell me more about Japanese culture than they could about Irish. But the link was formed between game merchandising and comics. So where's the future for the ordinary comic? Some of my friends seem to suggest that it might lie in Europe. However Europe is such a closed shop and there are language problems - each country does it's comics in its own language which makes sales in other countries difficult. But there are interesting strips happening in the Netherlands, Italy, France and even Poland which is producing some very good stuff. It'll not happen in either Britain or Ireland I wouldn't think. Another area might be South America - there are some stirrings in Brazil which always produced some intersting artists along with Argentina. But all in all the future looks grim unless you want to storyboard for films. I've stopped buying comics - they're bland and without any real creative spark. There's nothing that you'd really want to sit down and read, nothing which would challange you. Where's that "Wow" moment when you need it? That's what 1949, Darke, Doc Lazarus and Hal McLean are all about but the process is slow and there's little outlet for it. So where's the future of comics? You ask me?

The Comics Scene

A number of people have been writing to me regarding my comments on the Quick Questions in the Ireland Comics website and agreeing with me on the need for some sort of co-ordinated mechanism for the comics scene here in Ireland - and possibly in Britain as well. Thanks Andy for your invitation - I've replied to you and I would love to sit down and talk with you and the others about this. Just get in contact with me, you have my address. Basically I think there's a lot of talent out there but it's all very disparate and what is needed is some sort of mechanism, whether it be a general comic, a website or simply a forum in which creators can show their work. Ireland, and in particular Northern Ireland, is something of a cultural backwater as far as comics and a number of other media ventures are concerned. I sense that the climate is changing slightly but it will be glacially slow and it will never achieve the level which occurs in places like the Netherlands, France or Italy. Of course they receive some support from their respective governments - Metal Hurlant used to recieve a grant directly from the French Culture Department. I think Eppo in Holland might get something but I know that Rob van Bavel who edits it had drawn down monies from elsewhere. Here in Northern Ireland the situation is very different. True, the Department of Culture, Arts and Leisure here is getting slightly excited over recent filming here in the Province - witness Game of Thrones and Your Majesty which was filmed at the Paint Shop in the Titanic Quarter as well as City of Emerald but how far their enthusiasm will take them is open to question. Probably not down the graphics road. About a year and a half ago Adrian Lutton and I applied under the aegis of Fool Moon Graphicks for a grant from the Creative Industries Innovation Fund to see if we could start and educationally based graphics package. The Minister for Culture then was the DUP's Nelson McCausland who was famous for his interference and rigid views on culture. Consequently the process kept getting delayed as the Minister kept getting involved and in the end we were turned down. The money went to all the usual suspects - such as Borough Councils and formal Arts bodies and we realised that the Government here were not interested in any form of creativity at all - at least a form of creativity which they couldn't directly control. Although Minister McCausland has gone to another department, I would assume that his Sinn Fein successor will be more interested in pushing through an Irish language bill than looking at graphic proposals. I did try another project, relating to comics in education but this too was turned down and I was directly told by a public representative that young people would be better served reading their Bibles than comics. So if we are looking for some form of public funding similar to the Continent then we are facing I would think an uphill struggle. That doesn't mean that such a struggle shouldn't take place and maybe other people know of other funding sources. I also think there has to be a change in mindset both here and in England - here comics are simply viewed as material for children, on the Continent they are not. In France and the Netherlands they are viewed as an important artform, hence the government funding. And it's the same in England - why else did the great Don Lawrence have to go to Amsterdam to have his work recognised and why is Sidney Jordan's work more popular in Italy than it is in England? - that sort of thinking has to be changed and it will take both time and effort to do it. But I think it is achievable. I'm willing to talk to anyone about it and see if we can work out a way forward and I would thank everybody for their interest in 1949 and Joachim Darke - I think there is the basis of something solid in Ireland and i these contribute to it, then I'm happy. They seem to be stirring up some debate anyway which is always good. O.K. soapbox over - I just had to get that off my chest. We're thinking of putting more comics up but as I said earlier there have been technical problems which aren't fully resolved. But keep looking. If you want to make any comment about the above then feel free. The ball's in your court!

Going Dutch

It's a while since I've written a blog - there are a couple of reasons for this. First I've been really up to my eyes in work, trying to get a number of projects cleared before the summer and I've also been in Amsterdam. My family and I decided to take a bit of a break when the children got school holidays and the Netherlands seemed a good place to go. My daughter has been doing Anne Frank at school and so we took ourselves off to see the house. It was a bit of a nostalgic trip for me as I lived in Amsterdam at one point. On the way back home I picked up a copy of the Dutch magazine EPPO which is sitting right in front of me as I write this. I remember the original - in fact I dropped them a couple of scripts - back in the 1970s. It went bust but then was relaunched in 2009 and it still looks well. I see that they still have Storm which was originally done by the late Don Lawrence but looks just as interesting today. Some of us over here had talked about doing something on the Continent but the Continental markets, as well as the Continental comics scene, is notoriously hard to break into. And of course in Britain, we're in the wrong place entirely. Comics in Britain are always regarded as children's material and in Northern Ireland it's even worse. Indeed I was told not long ago by a Northern Ireland politician that children would be far better reading their Bible than reading comics - so that gives a flavour of the general perception. Having said that however, I should be appearing in an Italian comic called Dark Matter sometime in October/November, although I'll be in Italian. The publisher involved is in Lucca, Tuscany and the strip is an old one which I did many years ago with David Lloyd who did V for Vendetta. I don't know how widely it'll be circulated but I'll let you know when it appears. We had hoped to have some more 1949 and Joachim Darke up - there are pages waiting to be uploaded - but we've been having troubles. I haven't been in touch with Adrian for a while as both his phone and computer are down - he lives in a rural area of County Down - and I haven't been able to talk to him since I came back. However, there are pages waiting to be put up so we'll get that done asap. So the Netherlands was great but back at my desk and I'm sure that it won't be so long until I do the next blog. See you then

Hal McLean

I've been very busy over the last two or three weeks as well as suffering from a nasty cold which my daughter kindly brought home from school and which turned into a kind of flu thing. As well as that I've been working on the publicity for The World's Creepiest Places - which is done and being proofread - as well as a new feature for New Page books which you'll see in their blogs very soon but I can say no more. And a new book on American Vampires which may well be forthcoming next year - we'll see. With all that and a lot more going on I haven't been talking to Adrian or David recently although I've been endeavouring to keep in contact with them by e-mail. Adrian's been in Poland recently so little more 1949 done but David has done another three pages of Joachim Darke for the blogsite, which many of you like, and we'll be posting these very soon. The response to Darke "The Spaniard's Bell" has been exceptional - this is an adventure which we did specially for the blog and it's different for the script we have for the comic which is "Something Wicked This Way Comes" and deals with Darke when he's back in England and is called to a village to root out a witch. But that's coming. Keep watching the blog. On the 1949 front Adrian and I are hoping to meet up at the end of the month and work out something for you. I have done another adventure in the 1949 series based around Hal McLean and we're thinking of turning into a Jeff Hawke-type strip which might be able to be downloaded. In this McLean goes to the Jupiter moons where he encounters something unusual which is not exactly an alien lifeform, or is it - but I'll leave you to decide. We';re also thinking about introducing you to Doc Lazarus. But as I said that's around the end of the month and then I'm off to Amsterdam around the beginning of July to take a break with my family. But there's plenty coming up so keep watching. This of course is the new House of Ideas and we've got plenty of them. See you soon