Comics in Northern Ireland

Yes, it's been over a month since I last looked at thse blogs - things have just been so hectic. I've been working on a number of new projects which have really nothing to do with either writing or comics. It's part of my other persona in community work and a lot of it seems to be taking over my life. And I'm struggling to get some writing done on two books at once - and do television and radio work as well. So comics I'm afraid has come slightly down the pecking order. We're finding it very difficult to advance with the comics - plenty of ideas but few outlets. There's another tranche of CIIF money coming up here in Northern Ireland - this is the Creative and Innovative Industries Fund which is designed towards setting up creative new businesses - but none of us are really considering applying. It's co-funded by the Arts Council who in my view and the vierw of many others are not all that interested in the arts at all. We applied both to the Arts Council and the CIIF, who said that they didn't really fund comics as it was too risky a venture for them. This does not appear to have been true as they have just funded a comic - which sells at £6 for about 30 or so pages - run by the Greater Shantallow Community Arts. Now I have absolutely no problem with a community group producing a comic - and this looks to be a one-off - and genuinely wish them all the best. But is it something that the Arts Council under the CIIF should be involved in - are they setting up a business? They may very well be and if so I would love them to get in contact through this blog because I can then meet and discuss strips with them. However, I doubt that many other groups will get any money out of the Arts Council - I know of groups in Belfast who ar involved in graphic work have been trying for years without even the remotest chance of success. Under the last CIIF granting the money went to all the usual suspects - local Borough Councils, who are hardly creative businesses, Government agencies, a firm which made greetings cards and a jewellers shop. Of course the Minister in charge at that time was Nelson McCausland who is well known for his rigid views and meddling in various aspects of life, the new Sinn Fein Minister doesn't seem to be making much of her post either. So I think we're in the wrong place at the wrong time - and will remain so for some time. In the meantime we'll have a meeting around the start of December and see where we go from here. Maybe a move to the US is in order and get out of Northern Ireland?Too old for that now. Anyway, still have the blog - that's always something!

Hal McLean

I know! I know! I promised that I'd keep up to date with some of these blogs and do them a bit more fequently but things have just been pressing all month. I have a couple of new books out and I've been truly snowed under with requests for interviews. And the time difference is getting to me - living in Northern Ireland means that you have to be up at all hours of the morning to do interviews in America. There have been a couple of nights that I've been doing so many it's hardly worth my while going to bed so I sat up. And that doesn't make for pleasant going the next day I can tell you! However, I'm still able to write and I think that the new comic Dark Matter in which I have a section is coming out at the end of this month. I have to check with David Lloyd but I've really been so busy that I haven't had time to do it yet. And I've been approached by a comic artist in Poland to do some stuff. Very small time but I seem to be easing back into the world of comics. I had planned to meet with Adrian at the beginning of the month and see where we could take Fool Moon Publications from here but he was sick and the meeting's been deferred to the end of the moth. The 25th. I think that the route that we'll be going down is digital. As I said in my last couple of blogs, I think that comics as we knew them are finished. Particularly as you can now download all sorts of comics onto an iPad for about half the price. Some people have said that the quality isn't as great through and that you can't move back and forth in an iComic with the same freedom. I'm such a dinosaur that it'll take me a while to get used to this. I still like the paper comics where I can scoot about back and forth but digitial looks the way things are going and I'm always willing to learn. It's a pity that all the comics I grew up with are moving on but there it is. I was on a train the other day and spotted somebody reading comics on their iPad - it didn't look right but then who am I to judge? A lot of you have been liking 1949 and Hal McLean and would like to see more. I'd like to give you more believe me - I have lots of ideas - but it's trying to find a way in. They say that there's big plans for Northern Ireland to become the creative centre for the British Isles but I can't see that happening anyway soon. Things move with a glacial slowness here, so we'll see. I was talking to Adrian on the phone today and we're trying to put up more pages of Darke for you - I still think that Savid is excellent in black and white. He hasn't been too well either, a lot of old things going round. But we'll try and get them up. I know I've been promising but we will. Anyway, that's where things stand. off to get a bite to eat before I do another interview. Is this the life of a star? I don't think so!

Joachim Darke

Like my other blog I've been neglecting this one a bit. The last few weeks have been extremely busy and I haven't really had time to catch up on things. So thanks to everyone who wrote to me and my apologies for not replying so promptly. Things have been taking off in the community sector and I've been trying to set up a number of project - almost to the detriment of everything else. Some of you have written asking is there any more Joachim Darke and indeed there is. I know David has done a lot more from the scripts that I sent him. He had sent Adrian a lot of material only I haven't been in contact with Adrian at the moment. He himself is extremely busy and when I happen to be free he's not. So contact between us has been difficult over the last couple of weeks. However we do have a meeting scheduled for the beginning of October and hopefully we'll have something up for you to see. Also we're still thinking about 1949 and where we can take it - it's difficult to find time to do it o the standard that we'd like, along with all ou work. I'm slightly more flexible than either Adrian or David and even I'm finding it difficult at the moment. We all have to earn a crust and comics don't really pay. Hopefeull after we've had a meeting things will shape up and we'll see where we go from here. Given the interest that we've generated - and we seem to have generated a lot - it would be a shame to abandon everything. Maybe it's the climate we're living in. But keep watching and some more Darke will be up nd I know that Adrian still has ideas for 1949 so let's see where that goes. Although I've said that comics are dead, there's a part of me that maybe doesn't believe it. Do you? Answers on a postcard please.

New Comics?

I've been getting copied into a lot of e-mails of late in which my name is mentioned. That's great, keep 'em coming. It seems to centre round a correspondence I had with Paddy Brown in which I was reminiscing about some of the old comics that I used to read - The Valiant; the Lion; Buster etc. and how it would be great to bring something like this out over here in Ireland. This seems to have generated a lot of interest and people are actually talking about the possibility - which is terrific. However be aware that the whole process is fraught with problems. There already seems to have been a bit of a spat about the CIIF, the Creative Industries Innovation Fund, here in Northern Ireland as a possible source of funding for such a project. As one who has been through the process let me add a few thoughts. Firstly, the background - the Fund was set up as a regular tranche of European money designed to promote creative industries in Northern Ireland. Under the Direct Rule nobody knows what happened to it - may have gone into funding Government sponsored projects. However, under the new Assembly it suddenly lit on the desk of the then Northern Ireland Culture Minister, Edwin Poots. He didn't know what to do with it so he sent it to Arlene Foster, the Business and Enterprise Minister. She didn't know what to do with it so she sent it back to a new Culture Minister, Gregory Campbell. He didn't know what to do with it but set up the CIIF to dispense it. By this time Campbell had ceased to be Culture Minister and the brief was taken over by Nelson McCausland. The new body charged with evaluating projects and disseminating the money was composed of representatives from the Arts Council for Northern Ireland and several business-based bodies. Some of those who have contacted me have expressed an interest in approaching the Arts Council. That's fine, only remember one thing. The Arts Council have a rather limited view of what constitutes art. This doesn't mean that it doesn't count comics as art - obviously it is and the Council have funded at least one comics project, the Holy Cross Comics - but it does not attach a high priority to it. Secondly, it is alleged that the Council is incredibly susceptible to political interference. This protects the Council's own main grant from Government which goes to fund things like the Lyric Theatre in Belfast - and why shouldn't it? However, it's alleged that such interference was particularly rife during McCausland's tenure - he is reputedly well known for this and for imposing his own point of view on matters. I applied against this background with buisness plans, strategy documents, long-term plans etc. and having jumped through diverse hoops, some allegedly set up my the Minister himself and sat through a period in which the Committee "re-examined it's terms of reference", the project was eventually turned down. On inspecting the successful applicants I discovered that they were the usual suspects and statutory bodies - Ards Borough Council, the Verbal Arts Centre etc. as well as several established commerical bodies, such as a commercial greetings card company and a jewellers - all of whom I would stress were entitled to apply. However, there were no what I would term "innovative" companies or organisations and certainly no comics. The word "innovative" would therefore tend to be a misnomer. There is of course a new round of applications for the CIIF coming up in December and there was talk in my e-mails of applying for that to start a comics project. Again I would advise against it. The television series Game of Thrones and the film Your Majesty now has certain sections of the Assembly slavering at the prospect of turning Northern Ireland into another Hollywood. I would guess - and it is no more than a guess - that the next round of CIIF money will be channelled towards video and production companies as well as subsidiaries of BBC and UTV, who are entitled to apply. And from what I can gather the scoring system for this new round will be more "rigorous" than the old. There is neither the artistic or political will to promote comics except solely as a by-product of video and film. A bleak picture indeed. Paddy raised the possibility of producing something for the newspapers - a kind of comics supplement such as used to run in the American press. An intriguing idea but, I feel, a non-starter. I can't see papers like the Belfast Telegraph warming to this and even if they did, they would want a massive slice of the profits and total editorial control. In other words if they by any remote fancy decided to run with it, they would own it and all those working on it would have to be National Union of Journalists members. A depressing scenario. However, nothing would give me greater pleasure than to work on a such comic if it could get off the ground. And one step forward is to identify the difficulties. Despite all that I've said above, there is a way - isn't there?

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!