Indeed, I returned home that evening incredibly disheartened. I have never been naive enough to assume that working in comics would result in making much money. Nor do I feel that comics owe me a living. I enjoy communicating in this medium and will continue to do so, I believe, until I can no longer hold a pen due to RSI. But the unrelenting pessimism had an effect on me. To the benefit of no-one, I shared this feeling on twitter and received a message from a close friend moments later. It read simply:

“New paradigms mate”

It was a call to arms, a comforting missive and a short, sharp slap in the face when I needed it.

I mention this because it provoked me, in part, to write a manifesto with Matthew Sheret which laid the groundwork for what we both wanted to see happen with the UK comics scene – and comics in general. It was nothing groundbreaking. The points being fairly self-evident to those who paid attention. But it gave us an agenda. The anthology I was working on – Solipsistic Pop 1 – and Sheret’s We Are Words + Pictures soon began work addressing that agenda with an energy and enthusiasm which I continue to find astounding.

Cut to a couple of weeks ago. I sent an email to Sheret reading:

“May 1st is Free Comic Book Day. Paper Science 2?”

It was an idiotic idea. A good one. But idiotic. I was getting Solipsistic Pop 2 ready and was thus broken, exhausted, and penniless. There was barely any time to put it together. This just couldn’t happen.

Seconds later, Sheret calls me. After a fair amount of swearing and abuse in which I could just about make out the words “10 days to get it to the printers”, he quickly started to map out exactly how this could happen. Within minutes, there was a plan. Within days there was a print file being sent to Newspaper Club.

“New paradigms mate”

Whenever I visit Canada or America I am always envious of the comic scenes I encounter. The positivity and exuberance that those I meet have for comics is infectious. Inspiring. The can-do approach is not viewed as blind or hubristic naivety. It is simply what you do. While there may be a million reasons why you can’t, won’t or shouldn’t do something – all you really need is that one reason why you should. There are times when I feel the absence of this frontiersman attitude in the UK. Not just with comics. The focus often turns to the million reasons why something shouldn’t be attempted. But Sheret’s attitude reminded me that’s changing. Paper Science 2 – conceived, printed and distributed within less than 16 days – and the very existence of SP, is evidence of it.

Looking through Paper Science 2, SP2 and the email submissions I’ve been receiving for SP3 it’s hard to feel anything but overwhelmingly optimistic about the UK comics scene right now. Artists old and new alike are offering some of the best work I’ve seen in the comics world this year. Note: no qualifiers. No alternative comics. No UK comics. The work is just that good.

This would be happening with or without me – but it’s an honour to have the opportunity to publish some of it and give the work a high quality platform from which it can work comics magic.

Now of course, there are problems that still need solving. The big ones, for me, being the distribution and funding of SP. The release of SP2 sees the culmination of the first year addressing the manifesto and attempting to provide a solid infrastructure for alternative comics in the UK. The second year needs to build on that. I want to look into digital versions of the book being available once printruns are sold out, I want to start addressing some new ideas and thoughts about where the UK comic scene is going, and I want to make a start on an exciting new SP publishing imprint.

My own comics work has had to take a bit of backseat during all this. I can’t, in all honesty, afford to publish my own work and SP. Plus, with most of my time being taken up with the editing, publishing and marketing side of SP – there just isn’t as much free time to sit down and do what I enjoy most – drawing comics.

Thing is – it’s all worth it. I don’t think I’ve ever felt this optimistic about comics. Anything, it seems, is possible.

“New paradigms mate”

Solipsistic Pop is a new anthology of alternative UK comic artists that I have been preparing for a few months now. I wanted to create something similar to RAW!, Mome, Sturgeon White Moss, Kramers Ergot and the comics issue of McSweeneys – something that would give some of the amazing small press work out there a platform. Those of us wanting to create alternative comics in the UK don’t have a whole lot of options when it comes to publishers so this seemed like a perfect way to kickstart something that I think most people interested in comics would like to see.

With the carefully picked contributors busy working on their comics for the first volume (due for release in November), I’ve been preparing the website and working on my own contribution. Here’s the logo, PR, and self-portraits of the artists involved:

Solipsistic Pop is a biannual anthology designed to spotlight the best in alternative Comic art from the UK.

It features diverse, beautiful, twisted and peculiar Comics that you won’t be able to find anywhere else. Comic artists old and new are encouraged to contribute. Solipsistic Pop intends to provide a support structure and outlet for UK alternative Comics.

Each book of Solipsistic Pop will be a boutique, tactile product. An interactive, unique artefact designed to suit the content of each edition with an extremely limited printrun.

This website will be updated with previews of artwork from the first book, essays, news and related live events.

Book one arrives November 2009

The website went live last week with a manifesto that I wrote with Matthew Sheret which was written as a brief statement of intent for the anthology and for what we want to see from comics in the future. For many creators and readers of comics, the points will be blindingly obvious but it felt worthwhile and useful to gather our thoughts about the state of comics like this.

Some people will undoubtedly get rubbed up the wrong way by it. That’s what manifestos do. Obviously it is intended to provoke debate but I genuinely agree with every single point on there. The manifesto is not attempting to dictate what anyone should write or draw. Rather, the manifesto is intended to be inspiring – to urge people to feel that there are no rules to creating comics and that we should reclaim the term from those who would have us be embarrassed by it. Anything that is rejected or denied by us is specifically designed to open the possibilites – not reduce them. It’ll sadden me if people read it differently but I imagine I can’t do much about that.

The manifesto and announcement of the anthology aside, I’ve been working on a new eight page, full colour comic for the anthology called Special Guest Appearance. It is my first proper attempt at fiction and I’m really excited about how it’s coming together. Here’s a sneak peak:

“Where do you get your comics printed?” is a question I often get emailed or asked at comic shows…

I’ve been thinking a lot about printing recently (I know, all aboard the fun train of Tom’s mind! Calling at all stations to Boring Pontificating) as I’m trying to figure out how to handle an anthology I want to put together.

This seemed a good place to collect some of my thoughts and maybe help those of you looking for a bit of advice on printing your small press comics.

Keep it simple

You know that famous illustration that appeared in a punk fanzine (Sideburns I believe) with the immortal lines “This is a chord, this is another, this is a third, now form a band”? That’s essentially how I feel about starting a comic. If you have a story you want to tell, an idea you’re dying to express, a feeling you need to communicate – all you really require is a pen, piece of paper (or fabric, or tissue paper, or whatever you can draw on) and access to a photocopier. Anybody who tells you different is lying and doesn’t know the first thing about why comics are so amazing and thus, shouldn’t be trusted.

Am I comparing the DIY small press comic scene to the boundless enthusiasm, excitement and creativity of punk in the late seventies? Yes. Yes I am. And I’ll fight you if you disagree. My limping, bruised and crippled corpse will still be right.

So. Draw your comic, get it out there. Make mistakes. Find out what works.

You can do amazing things with one sheet of photocopied paper. Folded several times, you’ve got an eight page comic. At the very least, by finding out what photocopiers end up doing to your artwork, you’ll have an understanding of what it was like for those early comics pioneers who had to deal with poor printing quality. Heavily inked linework and halftone isn’t just an aesthetic preference at this stage – it’s a neccessity.

Boutique comics

Eventually, you may want to produce a book with higher production values.

One of the many advantages of doing this yourself is that you’re not having to try and publish twenty two pages on a regular monthly schedule. Similarly your print run, at most, will likely be in the low hundreds. This offers some interesting options for how you choose to print your comic.

Matthew Sheret has started a fascinating conversation over at Ellis’ Whitechapel board regarding the comic book as an object of graphic art (choice line: “But can it still be a fetish object if you can only get it at obscure shows in small college towns?”). This is the right way to go I think. The decline of print media – or the death of print or whatever you want to call it – will only be limited to that which can be reproduced digitally. So make your comic impossible to read online. People always want something tactile. Artefacts. A beautifully designed comic will always grab a reader’s attention.

Even DC are returning to the roots of the newspaper funnies with their Wednesday Comics to breathe a bit of life into the monthly mainstream titles.

Here’re some ideas about how to achieve your own boutique small press comic:

1) A key factor is format. Mike Allred’s Red Rocket Seven was made to resemble a 7″ Vinyl record, Chris Ware’s Acme Novelty Library is a different size and shape with each issue, the Fantagraphics Ignatz series are published larger than the traditional American comic book size… Think about what your story is, how best the format can service it, and don’t let your comic be boxed in by any pre-existing sizes.

2) While you may print the material out on your computer at home, on a photocopier, or at a printers – you can still play with the paperstock. You could experiment with 3D, have pull out sections, use paper that only display illustrations when held up to the light… Just make sure these things are helping you tell your story or get your point across and don’t stray too far into novelty territory.

3) You can have the best interior work anyone’s ever seen but it’s meaningless without an interesting cover. Ware’s McSweeney’s #13 comes with an illustrated poster that details the history of comics and folds up into a gorgeous dustjacket with pockets for tiny mini-comics that fit inside (in fact, all the McSweeney’s are uniquely published and packaged objects. Seek them out). Adrian Tomine’s hardcover edition of Summer Blonde has a peephole cut out of the dustjacket which reveals a part of the illustration underneath.

You could print your main interior artwork on your home computer and screenprint your own covers on thick, matte paperstock to give it that hand-made feel. Or even draw a different cover by hand (we are talking small print runs here).

I tend to hand number each comic and offer the first 50 issues of a printrun with a screenprinted envelope. It’s worth checking out Philip Spence’s work to see some of the lovely boutique comics he creates.

Finding a printer

There’s no real easy answer to this one. Set aside a couple of days. Make sure you know what you want – how many pages your comic is, how many copies you want, and whether you want a full bleed etc. etc. – and then start calling around printers for quotes. Browse the internet for numbers of printers nearby. It’ll take some time but you’ll find one that is right for you.

You might be lucky enough to know someone who can recommend a good printer, but if not you want to make sure you find one you can trust. One that is friendly and helpful and happy to offer advice on any of the issues you may not be an expert in.

A couple of the main things you’ll want to find out is whether they deliver the comics to you (if not, how close are they? Can you pick them up with some help from friends? If they do deliver – how much does it cost?), and what the unit cost will work out at. You’ll most likely want to sell your comics at double the unit cost so that if you sell out, you have enough to pay for another print run, but if you don’t you’ll hopefully have made your money back. If the unit cost makes this price seem too steep then start looking elsewhere or inform the printer what you were hoping for. By and large, printers will do their best to help you cut costs and secure themselves the job.

Preparing for print

Most printers will prepare your comic for print if you ask but they usually charge. If you want to save the money and have complete control over the way your book will turn out, it’s generally best to layout the work in InDesign or QuarkXPress. This is fairly easy, and if you’ve drawn your pages with bleed and live art in mind, you shouldn’t have any problems. You don’t need a design degree to know all this – the basics are online and you’ll most likely pick a lot of this up through trial and error. Don’t let the rules and jargon put you off. At worst, ask a friend with the software to do it for you in exchange for a drink or two.

When using colour, the main thing you need to be aware of is staying in CMYK mode as that’s what printers work with. Try to stick to pantone colours if possible (and various strengths of those colours) so you can tell the printers exactly which colours to print in. Another useful tip is to reduce the saturation slightly when you’re finished – the colours always end up being a little stronger than you expect.

Print-on-demand

I’ve never used this sort of service, but from my understanding, you can get your comics printed out as and when someone orders a copy. This is not really something that really fits into the way I like to distribute my comics but I can see a lot of advantages to the idea.

I’m not entirely sure what the results are like with the various POD companies. Some specialise in comics, but I have no idea whether you can work in formats outside the traditional ones. Many people I know swear by these sites though. Clearly, I just haven’t done my research.

Lulu are the biggest POD company out there right now. With Ka-Blam and ComiXpress specialising in the four-colour-funny medium. There’re also some UK based companies out there too such as Fallen Angel Media. I have no idea who produce better quality work.

Get in touch if you use print-on-demand. I’d be interested to hear what it’s like. Can you use POD but still create a unique, boutique small press comic?

Distribution on the web

Alternatively, you can try and find a way of selling your comic online somehow. Scott McCloud has a lot of ideas about this. But really, you should go and check out this Clay Shirky piece about the death of print media and the internet revolution – it’s a must read.

The screenwriter John August has offered his short story The Variant on his website as a Kindle formatted file and PDF. He’s written some interesting thoughts on how this works as a way of self-publishing. As I don’t own a Kindle or any kind of ebook reader, I have little idea on how one of these devices might deal with making comic artwork readable on the go but I’m told it wouldn’t really work. I’d like to try and make My Fellow Americans work for a Kindle though so will look into that and let you all know how I get on.

Longbox – the “itunes of comics” – seems like a good way to go (read Kieron Gillen’s ideas on Longbox for an explanation and sensible reaction to the application) in terms of getting work seen by as many people as possible and I don’t think it would damage your chances of people buying a physical version of your comic at a later point (see all the previous points for reasons why). But only time will tell if Longbox has staying power and if it will be easy to sell your work through it.

And that’s that. Phew… I can go on sometimes… Hopefully someone, somewhere will find this helpful.

Get in touch by email or leave a comment if you think I’ve failed to mention something particularly crucial or there’s something that I need to clarify.

Any other small press related questions you want answered in the future? Let me know at ventedspleen@hotmail.com.

Occassionally, for reasons best known only to themselves, a few small press comic artists email me to ask for advice about materials, printers, and what to do with their comic when it is published. I usually try my best to reply but sometimes I just don’t have the time.

But then I also love to procrastinate…

With this in mind, I was looking over John August’s fascinating screenwriting blog and thought that perhaps I could, like him, compile a few blogposts that cover frequently asked questions. One of which being:

Where do I sell my small press comics?

There are several options available to you. Mostly, small pressers rely on their local comic book retailer to stock their comic and encourage their customers to take a chance on new material. Sadly, this sort of thing can be rare which is why some of the more successful self-published comic artists are using the internet and monetising it in a way that is working for them (see Octopus Pie and the TopatoCo collective). So…

1. Sell through your website

It’s easy enough to set up a website using blogspot or wordpress or any of the other million ways in which having a website has been made simple. Paypal or Etsy are probably the best ways of making it easy for you and the customer to exchange goods for money but I’m sure there are, again, several different ways to do this too.

2. Attend comic conventions

There are lots of local, national and international comic conventions throughout the year. Along with all sorts of alternative zine symposiums and DIY events that would suit a small press publisher. Working out which ones suit your material and are helpful to you is trial and error, but most will certainly provide an opportunity to meet other creators. Perhaps the most pleasant aspect of these events is getting a chance to meet people who are interested in small press work and, hopefully, your own. Having said all this, I tend to find these things completely exhausting and have yet to feel totally comfortable when sitting behind a table.

3. Use your local comic store

Most comic stores will probably take your comics on a sale-or-return basis and take somewhere between 20-30%. I can’t speak for the rest of the UK but in London, with McForbidden Planet generally only taking comics distributed through Diamond (which is an entirely different headache) and places like Comicana focusing more on back issue trade, the only viable, centrally located shops are Gosh! and Orbital Comics. Here, in my experience, is how they treat small press material:

Gosh! are well known for their support of alternative and independent comics. They have a great stock and are located opposite the British Museum so receive a great deal of passing traffic. They used to take small press on sale-or-return and offer a 70/30 split but, with the departure of one of their staff who used to oversee the small press section, they have opted for firm-sale (buying the stock from you on the spot) with a 50/50 split. This means they may not take your stock if they don’t feel it is appropriate and will probably buy 3-5 copies in based on whether they think it will sell.

Now, firm-sale is a policy that The Beguling (in Toronto) and a few other stores have for small press. I understand it simplifies the paperwork for the staff and makes things that little bit easier, but predominantly these stores offer a better deal than a 50/50 split. That, for a lot of people, may not even cover printing costs and makes taking comics to Gosh! a choice between getting your comics to a wider audience or making your printing costs back. Which is a shame. The small press scene and local comic stores have always had a natural symbiosis and work together to create an exciting artistic community. This policy doesn’t strike me as something that encourages that.

Which brings me to Orbital Comics. Who have, since day one, had a sale-or-return policy with 100% of the profits going towards the creator. The idea being that if they offer this deal, more creators will use Orbital, and more people seeking small press material will patronise the store (hopefully picking up a book that the store will make profit on while they’re there).

There are other bookstores and art/design shops that your work may be suitable for in London, which leads me neatly into…

4. Target your audience

A lot of the material in my comics focuses on very specific subject matter (art school, music, relationships, auto-immune diseases, american politics) which I’ve always tried to address by getting my books in the relevant places. Taking boooks to independent politics bookshops, to gigs/record stores, to private views/exhibitions… whatever gets my work into the hands of those who may be interested but may not walk into comic stores regularly. It’s always worthwhile trying.

5. Organise a book launch/exhibition

Finally, one way to sell your book and get people to see your work is to do it all yourself. Organise a book launch, hire a venue, get bands to play and then advertise or market it in your own way. It can be stressful, it can be a lot of work, but it can also be a lot of fun. One of the positive aspects of the continuing decline in printed media is that more people are taking it upon themselves to do things like this and it goes a long way towards creating a vibrant and diverse alternative scene.

So there you have it. A small, and by means compressive list of some of the many ways to get your work seen. I’m sure there are better, more viable avenues for you but these are the methods that work for me and might prove useful as a starting point.

Get in touch

Leave a comment if you think of some obvious alternatives I’ve neglected to mention. And if you have any pressing questions you want a rank amateur like me to answer then by all means email and maybe I’ll blog about it in the future.

I recently took part in a questionnaire designed for comic artists attending TCAF for Toronto’s National Post. In one of the questions I was asked what my guilty pleasures were when it came to comics and I answered by suggesting a couple of mainstream superhero comics. You can read the full thing here.

This bothered me – belatedly – for two reasons:

1) I have a problem with the concept of guilty pleasures. I’m comfortable enough with my likes and dislikes these days to accept that if I enjoy something, there are genuine reasons for doing so. Guilty pleasures are an odd concept and I dislike the inherent acknowledgment of embarrassment it implies.

2) I want to take a moment to clarify something about the nature of mainstream and alternative titles. My apologies if this all ends up sounding like a manifesto.

You see – for those of you not overly familiar with the comic industry, readers and creatives alike are often found on opposite sides of the medium’s intellectual and artistic spectrum. By and large there are those who read mainstream comics. Generally published by Marvel, DC, and Image. Generally involving superheroes. And then there are those who read alternative or independent comics.

Those who read the alternative comics view the mainstream with contempt. “They are power fantasies. Juvenile soap operas” they will say. “The art is terrible and there is little of artistic value” they might add. “They do nothing to highlight and nurture the intrinsic potential of the medium” they may well conclude.

Meanwhile, those readers of the mainstream similarly view the alternative press with the same crippling contempt. “It is all badly drawn tales of working in a record shop” they might counter. “It is all unreadable and pretentious arty fare or self-indulgent angst” (quiet at the back – I’m trying to make a point here) they may argue.

Of course, both arguments may well have elements of truth behind them but they are both missing the point.

The point being that we all love comics.

It seems that the smaller and more niche the interest is, the more zealous and polarising the opinions become. Just take a look at any online music forum. Or any kind of counter-cultural movement in fact. People who feel that their likes and dislikes are suitable replacements for an absence of personality are the worst offenders. And they’re ruining all the fun for the rest of us.

Comics that teeter too close to the end of the spectrum on either side become bizarre cliches of themselves and their past. Be they a terrible Robert Crumb clone that betrays the author’s lack of understanding of the original material or a superhero comic so bogged down by continuity and nerd-porn that it becomes unreadable.

For the alternative artists, distancing themselves from the mainstream was an important aspect of their development. Like teenagers rebelling against their parents in order to discover their own identity. They wanted the wider artistic community to take them seriously, and for that to happen, they had to show what the medium could be capable of and somehow remind people that superheroes were but one genre within a larger, more diverse medium possible of achieving anything the artist put her mind to.

Which is fine, but it is now 2009 and most intelligent people accept that comics are a viable, exciting art-form and we can stop calling them graphic novels in that horribly insecure effort to sound more grown-up. Maybe once upon a time this pompous term and this alternative vs. mainstream argument were necessary to getting comics accepted. But it’s done. The battle, for the most part, has been won. If people are so myopic as to not see what a glorious medium comics are, then I’m frankly pleased to have saved myself some time in not having to get to know them.

With that out of the way, can we all now just accept that sometimes one wants to watch incredible, heartfelt arthouse films that change the way we think about cinema and/or ourselves. Discover something true and honest and real. Yet sometimes we may want to watch the latest blockbuster, turn off our minds and simply be entertained. The same is true of comics. Perhaps it is more accepted with films than it is with comics because we can view the narrative of a movie in the company of others, whereas comic reading is a more personal experience…

But you know what? Comics do blockbuster themes, high concepts and action with more gusto, imagination and boundless insanity than the latest big-budget multiplex fare. To ignore that would be to ignore some wonderfully mad and exciting storytelling by incredibly talented creators who were years ahead of their time. If you want some proof, go and check out the original artwork of Jack Kirby, Gil Kane, Alex Toth, and Wally Wood in Orbital’s gallery this week.

Mainstream comics? Alternative comics? This is not what we should concern ourselves with anymore.

There are good comics and bad comics.

And guilty pleasures…