Overspill

2008-05-29T07:56:00.001-07:00

A special No Bar Codes promo : guest-blogger David Baillie has a quick chat with small press superstars Ben Powis

Hi Ben, hope you're well! We haven't met, but I've read and admired your work, and can't wait to say hello. How would you introduce yourself and your work to someone at NoBarCodes next Saturday in Camden Lock Market who has never heard of you before?

Hi, I am very well thanks and really looking forward to next weekend! For an intro how about...
'Hello my name is Ben and I like to draw pictures' - that sums me up pretty well, even if it does sound like I'm about to host a cheesy gameshow!

You've had your comic Turtle Guitar on the LondonUnderGround Saturday comics table - how has that been for you?

It's been a fantastic, I have received some lovely messages from people who picked the comic up at the LUC tables, but its also been a great learning opportunity. Turtle Guitar is my first comic and being able to get it out to an audience who know what they like and aren't afraid to say so has been invaluable. It's also really exciting to hear about the great things the London Underground Comics guys are doing, I'm proud that my work has some small part in that.

What are you looking forward to most next Saturday?

Meeting everyone who comes along, including all the creators of the comics I have been staring at for so many months! The Internet is great for news and keeping up to date with the latest small press releases, but I am really looking forward to meeting people face to face.

Anything you're dreading?

Being asked to draw something, then getting exposed for the fraud I am! No really...I do draw...honest!

And finally - any message for the people out there, reading this, wishing that they too were a young, cool and sexy comics creator?

Don't do it, don't throw your life away!! Just kidding! If you have something you want to say, a story to tell, just do it.
Looking back, I wouldn't have imagined a year ago that I'd be doing what I am now. I really love it, its the best job in the world.
Oh one final thing, to anyone who is wondering when my next comic 'Where Grows The Bitter Herb' will be out...its finished and (depending on the printers) it might just be premiering at NoBarCodes next Saturday at Camden Lock Market - the only way to be sure is to come along!

Thank you very much, Ben Powis!

No, Thank you! :)

STUFF AT THE BOTTOM

No Bar Codes is a one day indie comics event taking place at Camden Lock Market this Saturday. Click here for more info.

Ben Powis can be found at www.benpowis.net and No Bar Codes next week. His Turtle Guitar comes highly recommended as does his Lost in the Woods illustration blog!

David Baillie is over at www.davidbaillie.net and the awesome new hardback edition of his fantasy adventure Tongue of the Dead debuts at No Bar Codes. Click here for an exclusive discount voucher redeemable on the day

2008-05-28T17:27:00.000-07:00

A special No Bar Codes promo : guest-blogger David Baillie has a quick chat with indie superstar Paul B Rainey

Hi Paul, hope you're well! I've been an admirer of yours since someone first said to me 'Have you heard of Paul Rainey? You should read his comics, I bet you'll like 'em!' How would you introduce yourself and your work to someone at NoBarCodes next Saturday in Camden Lock Market who has never heard of you before?

I usually have a little summary of each of my comics worked out which I recite at potential customers. Then I stand back and look at them longingly hoping desperately that they'll buy something. Sometimes they do and sometimes they don't but whatever the outcome I always feel I could sell my stuff a little better. I always feel that if I was a contestant on The Apprentice Alan Sugar would fire me the first week.

You've been a mainstay of the UK Indie scene for many glorious years (even though you're still in your first spurt of youth) - how have things changed since you first dipped your toe in?

Thanks to desktop printers and more affordable printing, production quality is significantly better and more affordable these days, and more shops seem receptive to carrying stuff (although not enough). Also, there are a lot more bald men, which I like, but too many young men with long hair, which I find disconcerting.

What are you looking forward to most next Saturday?

I haven't had the opportunity to visit the Camden stall before so I have absolutely no expectations from a sales point of view. I am looking forward to seeing friends there, making new ones perhaps and having a couple of drinks after. Any new readers would be great.

Anything you're dreading?

There not being any chairs there... I'm at an age now where I need to sit down every now and then. Losing my glasses... I worry about that a lot. Splitting my trousers when I bend over... Which is why I always carry a spare pair.

What's next for Paul Rainey, man of comics?

Part 8 of my long comic strip, or "graphic novel", There's No Time Like The Present, which I am currently writing and hope to have finished by the end of the year. Of course, like every good comic creator, I have a few ideas for other strips as well which I'm keen to have a go at.

And finally - any message for the people out there, reading this, wishing that they too were a young, cool and sexy comics creator?

Yes! Don't be intimidated by anyone out there! Draw the comics you want to draw, print them up, staple them together and get them out there!! Alternatively, whack 'em online. Whatever, the important bit is, get your stuff out there!! Now!!

Thank you very much, Paul Rainey!

I love you, Dave.

No Bar Codes is a one day indie comics event taking place at Camden Lock Market this Saturday. Click here for more info.

Paul can be found at www.pbrainey.com, The Book of Lists, 2000AD Prog Slog and No Bar Codes next week. Go on - click on one the above links and the surrender the rest of your day to Mr Rainey!

David Baillie is over at www.davidbaillie.net and the awesome new hardback edition of his fantasy adventure Tongue of the Dead debuts at No Bar Codes. Click here for an exclusive discount voucher redeemable on the day.

And thank you very much to Matt for allowing to hijack his blog for this!

A chat with...Kenny Penman

2008-04-23T06:58:00.000-07:00

This year sees the first releases from new indie publishers Blank Slate. I caught up with Blank Slate's Kenny Penman to ask him about the company and its plans for the future.

Who are Blank Slate?

Blank Slate is basically myself and my original business partner James Hamilton. We've owned Sci Fi Bookshop in Edinburgh since around 1986 (it started in 1975) and later tied up with Mike Lake and Nick Landau to open Forbidden Planet stores in a joint project. Those are now the Forbidden Planet International stores around the country as well as in Dublin.

Alongside us we have Isobel Rips who is doing much of the editing and translated the Mawil book and my friend Duncan Bullimore who is a graphic designer by trade and is handling the look of the books. That's all of us.

What made you decide that there was a need for Blank Slate?

In truth, I'm not sure there is. I think the small press has shown it is capable of getting a lot of good material to consumers on its own - look at the likes of Dave Sim, Sam Hiti, Eleanor Davis in the US - Bob Byrne, David Hitchcock, Simone Lia and many more in the UK. They are all producing excellent comics and producing their own books through self-publishing. I think if you want to do it and can find the financial wherewithal to print it, you can produce great work without a publisher.

I guess Blank Slate is here for those who don't want to go down that route and for some foreign comics unlikely to be translated otherwise. Ultimately though it is really because both James and myself have been comics fans since we were about five, have spent a lot of our adult life around comics, are still big comics readers and fancied having a go at publishing stuff we liked which we hoped others would as well.

What is Blank Slate's objective?

You know, I don't think we really have one as such - except to try and get our books to the widest possible market. We hope to put out as many comics as the company can afford from the revenues each release brings in (the start-up capital has come from our own individual pockets), to print some interesting material, to try and nurture some home grown UK talent into finding a readership.

Of course we'll hope for a 'big' hit amongst it but as we all have other jobs we aren't looking for the publishing initially to pay wages. Any profits will be going back in to print the next project. Hopefully we will be able to establish a big enough titles list to allow us to be seen by book stores and comics stores alike as someone whose books you should be carrying.

I think the slight advantage we have is that we have a lot of connections in the business having both worked in it for over 20 years now and we'd hope to be able to pull some of those strings to get the books a chance they might not get coming from a start-up business where the owners were new to the comics world.

Please tell us about Blank Slate's first two releases.

Slate 1 is a collection of the first three issues of Oliver East's comic Trains are...Mint. Oliver has self-published the first three issues. Both Jim and I were taken by it right away and wanted to collect it. It's being done as a nice-looking hardcover and we think it has a chance of finding an audience outside the comics market.

(Above: art by Oli East)

It should appeal to the local Manchester and surrounding areas market, being it is essentially a travel diary about Oliver's walks in those areas. But I think it has a much greater appeal being both an assured and unusual piece of comic art and a piece of social commentary also. Oliver has become a bit in-demand since we agreed to do the collection, having just provided all the artwork for the latest Elbow album The Seldom Seen Kid. It won't appeal to everyone, but leave your preconceptions of what a comic should be and read it and I'm sure you'll love it. It's 100 pages with a new cover, endpapers and chapter sheets.

Slate 2 is a translation of German cartoonist Mawil's second book, We Can Still Be Friends. He has six books in print in Germany and seems to win their independent comics creator award practically every year. Isobel who did the translation is one of Forbidden Planet's buyers and a huge comics fan. Her normal taste is Spider-Man and superheroes mostly, but she LOVES Mawil. She translated it for us and I thought it was fantastic also, and I was delighted to find a book that appealed to Superhero and non-superhero comics fan alike.

(Above: art by Mawil)

He's a fantastic cartoonist, one of those guys who just looks like he could always draw without having to learn. His comics are funny and charming. We sent a few proof copies out for review and got some great responses from people like Joe Matt and Jeffrey Brown - Isobel met Scott Mcloud at the Frankfurt book fair and he's a big fan - so we know the book has appeal if we can get it to people. Mawil did have a previous book, Beach Safari, published by Top Shelf, many years back, but we think this is a better book with much wider appeal.

If you ever fancied someone who didn't fancy you back then you'll love this. It's a 64 page softcover and if successful we'd hope to do more Mawil in future.

What is the Blank Slate ethos when it comes to new work? Are you open for submissions?

I think we hope that we truly are a 'blank slate' - we'll consider anything, with the possible exception of Superheroes or really out-there avant garde work the likes of which people like Le Dernier Cri might publish (not because we don't like those ourselves - in many cases we do - we just think there are a lot of publishers who can do those sorts of books better justice than we'd be able to).

We are always open to submissions and we have had quite a few already, one of which, from UK artist Richard Cowdry, already has us talking to him about a possible future collection. I can't promise we are the great hope for ignored comics creators but we are certainly interested in new work. I'll reply to every submission though some of those might take me a little while - I owe a couple of people replies right now.

How many titles do you plan to release a year?

I'd like to say, with some certainty, about 12, but it has taken us a fair while to finally get the first two to the printers. Whilst we had printed magazines before printing books was a whole new learning experience; doing a translation was an interesting but quite demanding task and just liasing with the artists to try and get the books as close to their vision as possible all took time. So it might be less, but lets say we hope for 12, probably two books every two months or so. If we fall short it will be due to inexperience or the fact no-one likes or buys the books. If we find we can do more we gradually will.

Do you think that the comics industry in this country is in a better or worse state than it was 10 years ago, and why?

I think in terms of it's finances - comic industry UK PLC if you like - probably a little better. Manga has obviously reached into the wider bookstore market and increased the potential for a widened comics readership. Comics are taken more seriously by 'real' book publishers than before (although I personally have some reservations about some of the stuff they are choosing to print) comics-based movies have supported sales of Superhero comics through the traditional comics shop network.

Tesco seems to have more comics on its racks than ever. Some of them, like Shaun the Sheep and Cartoon Network, providing good new outlets for UK-based cartoonists, which must be a good thing. Most comics fans learnt to read comics as kids, so it's nice to see a new audience being built [through all-ages comics]. I do think where things have suffered is in the adventure/adult market. 2000 AD is still a hot bed for new creators and is still producing some exceptional material but it's power has certainly waned. I see it as showing only 20K in sales these days when at its height it was five or six times that.

There are no major magazine publishers willing to take a risk with older age comics. Certainly no-one looking to produce the next Crisis or Deadline. I don't think this is unique to the UK though. The comics mag has pretty much died out in countries like France and Spain as well. I'm quite excited about things like Self Made Hero and their Manga Shakespeare as a great attempt at building new readership and the new David Fickling comic has some talented creators like Kate Brown working for it and looks like it might be very good.

On the other hand the small press scene seems to me more healthy than it has ever been since the days of Paul Gravett and Peter Stanbury's Escape. I think there will be many new stars emerge from what is a revitalised do-it-yourself ethos. All in all I'm personally seeing more stuff I want to read year on year (as a guidepost I'd probably rate Love & Rockets as my favourite all-time comic) in both the UK and US markets, in comics generally.

Kenny, thanks for your time.

A chat with...PJ Holden and Al Ewing (part one)

2008-04-22T12:28:00.001-07:00

(Above: Dead Signal art by PJ Holden)

Earlier this month I interviewed artist PJ Holden and writer Al Ewing via Google Chat. We were supposed to be talking about Dead Signal, their new series for science fiction comic 2000 AD. Instead, we rambled on like lunatics.

Enjoy.

Al Ewing is an up and coming young writer who works mainly for 2000 AD, although he has also written two novels. In this interview he also talks about Tempest, his 'ninja judge' strip that has been running for the last five months in the Judge Dredd Megazine.

PJ Holden is a comic artist who has worked for 2000 AD, Image Comics and Fantagraphics.

MB: Tell me about Dead Signal.

AE: The original idea for Dead Signal was basically as you see in the first episode, televised bounty hunters driven by debt in a world that has a lot of insane and black-humour twists on our own.

MB: What happened?

AE: Matt Smith, editor of 2000 AD, took a look at it and decided it was a bit unoriginal, or it needed something. The original plot was very... it was kind of a buddy movie. He suggested the cliffhanger for the first episode, the debt I was threatening the lead with being called in. At this point I decided that this didn't really go far enough, so without spoilering it I decided to blow up the whole thing.

MB: Do you mean that you rewrote it?

AE: By the end of the first series it'll be at a very different place, and hopefully if the readers like it we'll be launching something more ongoing from that. By episode five you'll know exactly what I'm talking about. I blew it to pieces. Tell him, PJ!

PJ: I can say nothing. Except. I had to laugh when I saw that someone pegged it as a typical 2000 AD bounty hunter series. I thought 'hmm... not nearly by half it isn't...'

MB: OK, chaps. Rewind a bit. Give us a Dead Signal pimp. Why should we read it, in art and script terms? You've gone all postmodern aintcha!?!

AE: It's basically the furthest Matt's allowed me to go so far.

MB: In terms of content/style/both?

AE: He's really let me do whatever I wanted, both in terms of story and art. By which I mean that I've been given PJ, who can do anything and cheerfully agreed to. Best artist I've worked with and I'm not just saying that because he's here.

MB: Are we talking a mix of art styles then, PJ?

PJ: The art. Well, I'm trying my little heart out. I thought long and hard about how I was going to get this series to look unique and how I'd be able to play with the art in the different levels of... well, I can't say too much.

But, you know the flashback panel in the first episode where the series goes from noir to cartoony and back to noir again (drawn in a very weak approximation of the style of Little Nemo in Slumberland)? Expect another change in art to reflect the difference in the story. It was easily the toughest thing I've drawn, and, I think, for a typical 2000 AD reader the episode with that change in will be the most difficult episode.

MB: The first episode is a good set-up. I wanted to read more

AE: I'm a bit paranoid about reader reaction. They like it now, but...

PJ: Al, I don't think there's any point in worrying about it. I've never really managed to peg how readers react (I thought they'd love Warzone*, they didn't).

MB: At first glance Dead Signal looks like a satire on celebrity culture and reality TV, but you're saying that it's going to go off in mad directions.

AE: It is both of those things. There's a lot of satire, but there are other levels that it's going to go to.

MB: And these are formal levels, in terms of how it's presented and the mechanics of a comic strip? In terms of the grammar of comics?

AE: Kind of... it's a bit hard to talk about this without setting up a massive spoiler. But yes, we do play with the formal aspects in a couple of places.

MB: How challenging was that for you as an artist, PJ, or was it fun?

PJ: It's been tough. It's my first completely new thing for 2000 AD, so every part of that world is out of my head, and you make decisions, sometimes, that don't play out as well as you like, but it's allowed me to push myself. There're some interesting things in episode five that on paper were really simple, but, when you go to draw them, are insanely difficult. I think that episode is nearly my favourite because it's so radically different.

AE: What's your actual favourite?

PJ: Looking back over the art, irritatingly episode one, I think, looks the best. Page one, especially. We're looking at a kind of gritty ‘70s New York with a character that's loosely inspired by Brendan McCarthy’s sense of design. The level of grit is about where I'd like every episode to be.

AE: I love the chase in episode two. I thought that came out really well in the black & white art.

PJ: Actually, anything with the city in it I like. I just like this made-up ‘70s New York we’ve got in the strip (not really what it's like, but kind of filtered through the brain of me, age 11).

MB: Given that we risk spoiling Dead Signal, let's talk a bit more generally about 2000 AD and your art and writing? Where do you see yourselves in terms of your comic careers? What has Dead Signal allowed you to do in terms of taking yourselves to the next level? And what's your next career move (horrible term)?

PJ: Well, we're both off to the New York Comic Con and I'm taking about six months off cus of my new baby, so career on short-term pause.

(Above: advert for I, Zombie)

AE: Well, personally it's given me more confidence about what I can pull off, which I'm translating into a Dredd ten-pager at the moment. Next career move is going to be to write another novel, for myself this time - plus I need to talk to Dom Reardon about doing something for Image. We talked at the New Year about that but nothing happened. I need to get some old files off an old computer, and what with writing I, Zombie [a novel] I've not had a chance to dig out all the cables and the old monitor etc.

MB: What's I, Zombie about?

AE: I, Zombie is a bonkers story of a zombie detective learning the mystery behind his origins. It involves shooting, werewolf chases, the end of the world and giant man-eating worms, and one of the characters is very clearly Philip Glenister.

MB: This trip to New York is a bit of a networking opportunity...

PJ: Maybe something will come from the New York trip, maybe it won’t.

AE: It'll be nice just to see the Americans, and their ways. They tip their bar people. It's madness. You eat peanuts right off the bar and drink out of bottles instead of proper pints. Or so I hear.

PJ: Al's emailed me about where he can push the envelope of Dead signal next. So, if it goes down well (and if the website is any indicator it seems to be) there'll be more Dead Signal.

Go to part two, three, four or five of this interview.

*Warzone is a Judge Dredd strip by John Wagner and PJ Holden that received a mixed response. Here's a review of the first episode (scroll down slightly).

A chat with...PJ Holden and Al Ewing (part two)

2008-04-22T12:27:00.001-07:00

(Above: the cover to Fearless issue 1 by PJ Holden)

This is the second part of an online chat that I had with artist PJ Holden and writer Al Ewing earlier this month. Part one is here.

MB: How frustrating is the lack of domestic markets for new writers and artists? It feels like you've both spent a long time getting this far (for that reason).

PJ: It's more frustrating that, in the past few years, I've only been able to ramp my productivity up to a fairly steady 10/15 pages per month. There're plenty of (non-paying) markets that are non-domestic.

Al: I think to be fair it's more because I started off being rubbish, and I'm still fairly crap at pitching to people who aren't Matt Smith at 2000 AD. To be honest, I'm finding myself doing a lot of non-comics stuff; radio panel shows, that sort of thing. If I could make that pay, that would be nice.

PJ: Work is out there. It's just finding the time to do it. Image comics, especially, I'd spend a great part of my career just drawing creator-owned comics via Image if I could find the time.

Al: There's no shortage of work, it's just unlocking those doors.

MB: But you need to get paid, surely. Aren't you at the stage where you should be paid?

PJ: Well, I approach work in two ways: unpaid? I need to own it. Work for hire? Thank you, I'll take that cheque. But, I think, for the long term (and I mean, 20/60 years) I want to have built a sizable portfolio of creator-owned work, otherwise I'm just gonna be toiling in the trenches in perpetuity making someone else’s comic.

Al: I think Phonogram is probably the big success story with regards to UK folk at Image...

MB: PJ, are you hoping that one of these creator-owned comics might be the next Star Wars/Harry Potter?

PJ: Nope, but I can't help noticing that the happiest creators, the ones enjoying what they do are the ones that have created something totally new that they own - Frank Miller, Mike Mignola, Warren Ellis and others. And too many comic artists spent the rest of their lives chained to the drawing table drawing Batman/Superman/whateverman.

MB: Would you prefer to be rich or revered?

PJ: Revered, but it's easy to be revered, just meet lots and lots of people, keep the ones that like you and dispatch the others. As long as I can pay my bills, I'm happy (but then I'm in the enviable position of having a well paid, part time job).

MB: Have you guys left the small press behind?

PJ: I think I've done the small press as much as I can. I don't think I'm reaching anyone new there, at least not in the UK.

MB: PJ, any more of your Image comic, Fearless on the horizon?

PJ: If there is more Fearless it won't be for at least a year (or two). Back to Dead Signal. I have to say - episode one is, I think, he first thing I've been really proud off in some time.

MB: What, in terms of your own work, hasn't been working for you?

PJ: Most of Fearless. The whole thing took too long, and the storytelling suffered because of it. Also, some really crap drawing.

MB: Al, you said earlier you were crap? PJ, you've just said that about Fearless? Why so down on your abilities, or is it to make sure you don't get complacent?

AE: I don't think I am any more. But I am very slow at the moment, which is bad. I need to increase my speed now. I can't rest on my laurels, since I've barely got one leaf of a laurel. And also because I'm being accused in the letters pages of being the boastingest boaster in Boastington Hall.

MB: Ah, our interview for the Meg’...

AE: Well, I was boasting, to be fair. It was the drink. And, frankly, there's nothing wrong with being proud of your work.

PJ: I think I've a fairly realistic opinion of my work, it's hard to be sure, but I do think I know when my art is just not as good as it could be. (And I have drawn other stuff that does look really good. I just haven't finished it yet). Also I did quite like the little Future Shock I did with Alec Worley.

AE: I'd be just as damned if I said something like 'yeah, this is a bit rubbish' because then nobody would bother to read it. You've got to develop a persona and sell it. I think what you've got to do in terms of self-publicity is just be confident about what you do and not flinch or back down from it. Which can make you look very hoity-toity to some people, especially if they don't like what you're doing.

Go to part three, four or five of this interview.

A chat with...PJ Holden and Al Ewing (part three)

2008-04-22T12:26:00.001-07:00

(Above: Dead Signal cover for 2000 AD by Nick Percival)

This is the third part of an online chat that I had with artist PJ Holden and writer Al Ewing earlier this month. Here are parts one and two.

MB: Are you both proud of how far you've come?

AE: Guardedly, yes. What really helps is my brother being proud of me. That was a good moment when I heard that. Mum and Dad are very proud as well, but Tom's the person who got me into 2000 AD and he really understands the significance of me managing to actually achieve what I've wanted to do all my life, whereas my parents are just glad I've made good with my foolish hobby.

PJ :I'm amused at how about 80% of the reviews of my work say 'this is his best work yet' or 'seems to have really improved since the last time'. Which means I'm either fucking great now, or I was really, really shit to begin with! I'm proud of my reputation within 2000 AD of the go-to guy for deadline crunches. And, despite that, the work isn't shite.

AE: PJ's more than just the go-to guy for deadlines - he's the go-to guy when you need something done exactly the way you wanted it. I firmly believe he's our generation's Dave Gibbons.

PJ: Cheers, though I seem to be drawing comparisons to Brett Ewins a lot. Brett Ewins on Rogue was one of my favourite things. The episode with Venus Bluegenes where she's looking down (I have no idea which issue) is just a gorgeous drawing.

Al: Brett on Rogue was absolutely gorgeous...

MB: Is comics a foolish hobby?

AE: I've been advised that what I should really do is become a factory inspector. My Dad came at me with that once. Apparently it's a job with a future.

MB: PJ, Is it tiring being the go-to guy? Presumably, there's no room for error if your guy who pulls everyone's fat out of the fire.

PJ: Not tiring at all, I worry that maybe being a speed freak my art would suffer, but since I'm actually fast (and if I have a six week deadline or a one week deadline the work doesn't look any different) and not just crunching for deadlines I don't think that's the case (in other words: if it's rubbish - it's no reflection on the time it took).

All I really want to do - and the point of my drawing - is to make me at 11 happy. That's it. I figure if I can make me happy at 11 then I'll be doing something similar for others. It's just a shame that the average age of a reader is 30. Not much my artwork can do to help you out of a mid-life crisis. Also, when you have deadline crunches you can do more work and if you do more work, you get paid more and there’s more chance of comics becoming a proper job.

MB: What do you guys think you need to do next to develop as creators?

Al: I need to be doing what I do now in half the time.

PJ: I dunno, I keep hoping something I do will suddenly propel me into the stratosphere (or at least let me leave my day job) but I'm not sure that overnight success really happens to many people. But I've just gotta keep drawing and making sure the next drawing is better than the last.

AE: I'm just slow. I spend hours working out how to do things, and then more hours getting the dialogue into the perfect shape, although it's nowhere near perfect enough for my liking. I'm fine with that very methodical, perfectionist way of working, but I need to organise it more and just improve my working practices and make myself more efficient. Cut down on wanking, for example. Twice a week is enough for any man.

MB: Which is your wanking hand and which is your writing hand? Maybe you can wank and write. Or wank straight onto the page.

AE: That's a set-up I'm not going to dignify with a punchline.

MB: PJ, would you like to carry on doing completely original strips or do you see the benefit of doing Dredd et al?

PJ: I think doing both is best. Warren Ellis has talked before about how he went off to do creator-owned work only, got called in to do some Marvel work and found that the Marvel work was creating a completely new audience for his creator-owned work. The George Clooney idea (I think it's him) of one worthy film to one blockbuster. Besides, who in their right mind would turn down the chance to draw Dredd!?!

MB: Ok, pimp some creators worth watching. Up-and-coming and established. Who should people read/observe artwise if they want to learn their comic craft?

PJ: I have no idea, I rarely get to comic shops, so ... you know, I know no-one.

(Above: Iron Fist 'brings the awesome' courtesy of Brubaker, Fraction and Aja)

AE: I'm loving Matt Fraction right now. I think his Iron Fist is a perfect comic.

MB: What makes it perfect?

AE: It's taking a character and using him or her to the fullest, boiling it down to the basics and then... I mean, you've seen the martial arts sequences.

MB: No.

AE: You have to read it. It was a huge influence on Tempest, in that I decided 'I will make this series as awesome as humanly possible’. In fact, I was going to call the first series 'Bring The Awesome' but Matt Smith wouldn't let me.

PJ: Heh.

MB: Is that an Iron Fist quote?

AE: No, but The Awesome should be brought and Iron Fist does bring it.

PJ: I think that's a quintessentially Al Ewing thing. He ramps everything up to 11.

MB: Will Tempest return?

AE: Yes. Matt is open to more, although not this year. If I can get permission, the next arc will be Tempest vs. The All-New Deathfist.

MB: What would you guys like to do if you broke the States?

PJ: Not sure, I don't have any dream project and I can't think, for the life of me, what my artwork would suit. I figure an obscure ‘70s DC title, resurrected. That's what most 2000 AD droids end up doing, right?

AE: REVERSE AQUAMAN.

MB: Turn him round or The Reverse Aquaman?

PJ: He he.

AE: Like the Reverse Flash - Reverse Aquaman can control everything that's not in the sea. I want to work on the kids’ titles - Marvel Adventures, the Animated books.

MB: Reverse Aquaman controls everything?

AE: Yes, even Superman. And Aquaman has to fight him with his finny friends.

MB: Why do you want to do the kids’ books?

AE: Because they're unsullied by continuity. They have their own, simpler continuity, which makes them a giant playground for fun ideas. Look at what Jeff Parker's been doing! If I worked on the Hulk, I'd need to get involved with Skrulls and Red Hulk and so on... but if I could work on Adventures Hulk, it'd just be a 24-page one-off full of Hulky fun.

Go to part four or five of this interview.

A chat with...PJ Holden and Al Ewing (part four)

2008-04-22T12:25:00.001-07:00

(Above: Tempest cover art for the Judge Dredd Megazine by Jon Davis Hunt)

This is the fourth part of an online chat that I had with artist PJ Holden and writer Al Ewing earlier this month. Here are parts one, two and three.

MB: You're a bit of a Lee/Kirby/Ditko man aintcha, Al?

AE: Yeah, I do love my Kirby and Ditko. Lee, less so, but he was a vital component. And Lee did do that jazzy True Believer talk that I've got a lot of mileage from pastiching over the years.

PJ: Me and Al on 'Mr A'.

Al: I'd have to read so much Ayn Rand to do that justice.

MB: What can we learn from those '60s Marvel bods?

AE: Three words: Done In One.

MB: Done in one issue? Continuity - lots of fun or the Devil incarnate?

PJ: Continuity - fun when you can keep it fuzzy, otherwise just a giant pain in the ass.

AE: The sheer amount of genius they regularly packed into those very early issues - I'm thinking Fantastic Four around the Galactus period, the Ditko Spidey and Dr. Strange... and it was before they just started recycling their old concepts - which I'm guilty of in the Dreddworld - so it was all new and all mad. And all pretty much done in one issue! Three episodes was an epic. Galactus took fifteen in the Ultimate universe.

(Above: interview with Jack Kirby that I stumbled across while looking for a Galactus image)

PJ: There is /was a sense that anything could happen - new characters exploring new worlds and meeting new giant universe-eating aliens. Now, it feels like the readers already know everything that has/will have happened.

MB: I wondered about that, Al. You reference Dredd continuity a bit in Tempest. Necessary or the fan boy in you?

AE: The thing about Dredd that makes it work is continuity. Barring those early episodes with fat policemen running around it's a really structured world, and it's the only comic universe that operates in real time. Whereas Spidey isn't 100 years old or whatever he would be by now. With Dredd, John Wagner basically created a perfect storytelling machine, and delving back into the past is one of the many, many ways of bringing water up from that well, and it's the one I'm most comfortable with. On the other hand, I'm conscious that that's the exact thing I don't like when a lot of American writers do it with their childhood heroes, so I'm trying to do other things.

MB: How is a Dredd strip the perfect storytelling machine?

AE: Dredd as a whole - the whole world. You can tell any stories with it. It's a beautiful machine made out of a million parts, all of which you can pick up and play with or examine in detail. Although to actually drive the Dreddworld you need to be fully qualified and I'm not that. In fact, a story in itself is a kind of machine - a machine for taking people places. And the variables of the machine are how many people you want to take with you and how far you want to take them.

MB: Tell me about Dead Signal in terms of those variables.

AE: Obviously I'm trying to take as many people as possible as far as possible, but we're taking the machine through some strange territory and we're probably going to lose some people, who will remain drifting forever in idea-space. But with Dead Signal I think getting to that faraway place is the important thing. People can always catch up if they need to.

MB: But that's a sacrifice you're prepared to make for an interesting comic strip?

AE: Yeah, whereas with Dredd I want to drive a big bus to a fun, seaside destination.

MB: Dredd should be familiar?

AE: It should be a fun day out for all the family and not a harrowing trek into the unknown. I think it should be surprising in what it does but familiar in what it is. It's a big, wonderful world, but it has rules. I can't have Dredd be a Skrull.

MB: OK. Some silly questions. Hulk vs. Tharg, chaps. Who wins?

PJ: Easy. Tharg.

AE: Tharg, obviously. He'd just turn his thrill viewer on maximum and make the Hulk fight a miniature Blackhawk.

MB: What's the worst thing about comics?

PJ: The Internet.

MB: PJ, are you referring to message boards?

PJ: Alright, not the Internet, message boards

MB: I agree.

Al: Worst thing is that there aren't enough good comics and too many rubbish ones.

MB: Best thing about comics.

AE: They're still around.

PJ: Blimey, where to start?

AE: You can do anything with comics. Literally anything.

PJ: They can do ANYTHING. They can be ANYTHING. You can create one with thousands of pounds worth of equipment or with a pencil and some paper.

MB: Is that what Dead Signal is about? Pushing the boundaries in terms of comics and 2000 AD?

AE: No, Dead Signal is about people shooting each other. Zarjaz!

Go to part five of this interview.

A chat with...PJ Holden and Al Ewing (part five)

2008-04-22T12:24:00.001-07:00

(Above: art by PJ Holden from Dead Signal. NB: The finished strip is in colour)

This is the fifth and final part of an online chat that I had with artist PJ Holden and writer Al Ewing earlier this month.

Go to part one, two, three or four.

MB: Tell us about forthcoming projects, chaps?

PJ: I have to finish a 12-page script called IMAGO that's been on my drawing table for over a year (the shame) and do a six page sample for a series, which hasn't landed a publisher yet. And I'll be doing that when I take six months off starting from the end of Dead Signal. The baby’s due on the 11th of June, but this is our second and it's been the most difficult pregnancy, wife has been off (doctor’s orders) and unable to look after our son, so a lot of looking after both of them has fallen to me and I haven't been able to get back on top of the Dead Signal deadlines since episode 2. So I figure, meet my commitments, take some time off, regroup and start back again.

MB: Al, what are you up to?

AE: 'Odessaland', a murder-mystery set in the Ukraine, but not the one we know. That'll probably take me two years to write, followed by schlepping it around publishers. And more comics, of course.

MB: Tell us about the comics.

AE: For 2000AD... as much Dredd as I can sell, plus a putative five-episoder called 'Disaster 2010'. But that one's not even at the plot stage so by the time it comes out it'll probably be called something completely different. And it'll be about space foetuses or something.

MB: Any plans to try and break America?

AE: Yes - I reckon the best way forward is Image, and I'm freed up enough to start working on that now that I, Zombie's finally done.

MB: Anything else you guys want to say?

PJ: My column for 2000 AD Review will continue - 12 episodes in total, I've written the next couple. I thought I'd find it difficult but I've been tempted to make them a weekly feature. But 12 is a good number, gives me a year of it and then I'll bung them all into a LULU self-published book.

MB: Will that be a sort of how-to book?

PJ: Yeah, take those 12 columns, 500 words a piece, add some more, and then a little how-to, a kind of 'Drawing comics as a professional: what to do in year two' (almost all advice I've ever seen is about getting your foot in the door, this is about keeping it there)

(Above: more art from Dead Signal by PJ Holden)

MB: PJ, should we expect weirder and weirder art from you a la Dead Signal?

PJ: Well, I don't do weird - I can try, but it's just not in me. I'm not Brendan McCarthy, Bill Sienkiewicz or Dave McKean. You get cartoony realism from me. But, with that said, I'm hoping to keep up with where Al is taking us all and the weirdest episode is probably the most straightforward in terms of the way the art is drawn. (In fact, in many respects that's what makes the art in that episode weird)

MB: I'm so confused about Dead Signal.

AE: You say that now...

PJ: Well, Al, Matt Smith and I, I think we're all tentatively prepared for the reaction to be appalling. It's been good, but knowing how it's going to play out means that the only way people will get a sense of how they feel about it will be when the first episode is done and dusted. And, based on the some preliminary ideas Al has sent, if they liked that and feel comfy in that world, well... they shouldn't put their slippers on just yet.

MB: I’m intrigued. I liked the wordplay in episode one a lot. If wordplay is the right term? Debtcopter, abortron. Is wordmash a better word?

AE: 'Abortron' is a pun. If Debtcopter's a pun it's a happy coincidence. Wordplay's as good a word as any, but I'm not as into it as other writers. Si Spurrier loves words. You can tell. I know Alan Moore enjoys a good old-fashioned punfest occasionally.

MB: Al, I know that you’re into the idea of revamping old characters. Any in particular that you’d like to bring back from the Brit’ comics graveyard?

AE: Revamping things... one day I will bring back Harry Angel.

MB: Harry Angel is...?

AE: Harry Angel - a man who crashed an experimental computer plane and had the computer embed in his shoulder. The computer now drives his body, which means he can essentially fly. If you drop him from any height he can 'glide' to earth. Basically he's remembered as this dreadful character, and he's someone I'd like to rehabilitate.

MB: Where would you both like to be in terms of your respective careers in 5 years time?

AE : I'd like to have won an Eagle Award. Too late this year, but maybe next year...

PJ: A 2000AD old hand, who's working for Marvel / DC while forging completely new works for Image while drawing damn well. (Oh yeah, I want some awards too, maybe that'll be the year I win a newcomer award!)

MB: Do the Eagle Awards mean anything?

PJ: Only if I'd been nominated :o).

AE: They do to me. It'd be like winning an Oscar. I can honestly say, because I have no children, that winning an Eagle Award would be the proudest moment of my life.

PJ: Well, to this day, being told I could get some work for 2000AD (even after one child) still ranks up there.

MB: Thanks, fellas, for a fun interview.

PJ: Right, Al, now he's going, let's talk about all the mad things about to happen in Dead Signal. I loved that bit where he turns into a giant radioactive ham sandwich

AE: Hush! I hear breathing at the keyhole.

PJ Holden and Al Ewing's new comic strip Dead Signal is being serialised in science fiction comic 2000 AD now.

Make Mine Manga!

2008-04-15T14:19:00.000-07:00

I approached the How Manga Took Over The World exhibition at Manchester’s Urbis museum with some trepidation. I’m not a massive manga and anime fan and certainly don’t know my shonen from my shojo. However, perhaps because I’m not a fan, I found that I got a lot out of this exhibition, which, despite being relatively small, is densely packed with information.

Urbis itself is a massive glass ski-slope of a building that sits just across from Victoria Station. It houses all sorts of exhibitions, from retrospectives on music and street culture to showcases of local graduate work. On the day I attended the museum, the foyer had been given over to a youth information festival with stallholders handing out flyers about subjects as diverse as housing and sexuality. There were also some children doing various arts activities, which, I’m informed, is a regular weekly event. It was nice to see Urbis doing its bit to encourage young people to come into the museum. I hope that as they get older, they’ll visit again.

Anyway, one ride later in Urbis’s rather unique lift*, constructed, I kid you not, by Italian rollercoaster engineers, and I was thrust into world of manga and anime. Fortunately for me, Urbis had come up with some nifty ways of combating my ignorance of both.

The first was a rather stylish comic strip introduction to manga drawn by Dave Siddall, which not only gave a brief history of Japanese comics and animation, but also presented both in terms of their cultural context and their growing impact on other countries’ media. Thanks, Dave, for holding my hand as I took my first faltering steps as a potential mangaphile…

Dave’s comic strip was accompanied by a definition of manga, which, if I were nitpicking, I would say should be the first thing in the exhibition, and some text that gave a potted history of the form. There was also information about Japanese artist Hokusai, who apparently coined the term manga, alongside examples of his work.

The second nifty thing that Urbis had done was to split the exhibition into separate sections that each dealt with different types of manga/anime. Each section was prefaced by a little introduction from Umeko, a manga character specifically created for the show by artist Sonia Leong. Depending on what subject she was introducing, Umeko, or ‘Plum Blossom Child’, was presented as, amongst other things, a vamp, a little girl or an action heroine. The various types of manga and anime covered by the exhibition were adult manga, manga for commercial and educational purposes, action and horror manga, and cute manga. There was also a section in the exhibition about Japanese fashions and trends, a manga lounge where you could read comics and draw, and a mini-cinema playing anime.

And so the first thing that I did was to venture into the adult section (stop sniggering at the back…). To be honest, this was more out of a desire to get this section out of the way. Items inside included a bondage Hello Kitty, a brief guide to love hotels (Google it, actually, maybe not…) and some rather disturbing anime. Suitably sickened, I stumbled back out past the attendants, it’s 18s only, and, journalistic duty done, started to relax and enjoy the rest of the exhibition.

And I really did…

Enjoy it, I mean.

To my mind, a good exhibition is all about context. You don’t just want to know what something is; you want to know its context. So not only did I get information about Naruto and Studio Ghibli, I also got an insight into and information about Tokyo street fashions and cosplay.

And if the above is gibberish to you, then you’ll probably enjoy the exhibition too. However, if you’re a big manga and anime fan, a word of warning, it may well be that everything in the show is old news to you, a snapshot of a sub-culture that you’re already immersed in.

For this old fart though (in his 30s and losing his hair), it was a real eye-opener and a tantalising glimpse of a vibrant medium (or media, perhaps – manga and anime do tend to get shoehorned together) that I've previously failed to appreciate fully.

My highlights were pretty much everything except the adult manga. My lowlights…well, it has to be bondage Hello Kitty (shudder).

But there was so much to take in that I feel the show warrants a second visit and, despite her whips and chains, even Kitty won’t stop me from returning.

*If you want to know why the lift’s unique, then I’m afraid you’ll just have to visit Urbis.

How Manga Took Over The World runs until 27 September 2008. And here are some photos of the show.

A Chat With...Jim Medway (Part One)

2008-03-20T14:00:00.000-07:00

Jim Medway is a self-published cartoonist whose comics might best be described as anthropomorphic, all-ages fun. He has recently been invited to pitch ideas to the new anthology comic, The DFC. He's also a much-in-demand educator who teaches cartooning to children and adults in both formal and informal educational settings. In this interview, he talks about his influences, balancing teaching with making comics and why less is sometimes more when it comes to cartooning.

MB: You’re a working artist aren’t you? How long have you been a working artist?

JM: I’ve from a fine art background, so I’ve been exhibiting drawings and paintings since I left college in 1996. 10 years of doing that and in 2006 I found that I was getting a bit frustrated with it. I’d reached a point where exhibiting wasn’t very satisfying and although I was selling the odd artwork, it wasn’t money that I could ever rely on. It wasn’t a regular income. I was aware that I was going to have to find some way of earning a living. I‘d been framing, I’d been hanging exhibitions and doing all sorts of part-time jobs, labouring and things.

It was just exhausting and very unrewarding, so I put together an Arts Council application based on this idea of professional development, teaching myself how to make comics but also how to teach comics to fund my own creative stuff. After six months of writing and tweaking this application and bouncing it back and forwards, I got this grant that was enough to keep me going for a year. It meant that I could do things like get a new laptop and do various experimental projects with groups.

I partnered up with Manchester Art Gallery and they gave me access to their space. I went to the Centre for Cartoon Studies in Vermont to do their summer workshops.

MB: As someone who studied and worked as an artist, how conversant were you with the culture of applying for Arts Council money?

JM: I know how the applications work and the things that they’re looking for. I was quite keen therefore to emphasise the educational angle.

MB: Is Arts Council funding something that self-published cartoonists should and could be tapping into?

JM: I’m not sure. It’s hard to say. I think they like applications from people who have already established themselves to a certain point. It’s not just someone who’s going, ‘Oh, I think that I’d like to have a go at this.’ You’ve got to prove that you’ve got as far as you can without their support, but now, in order to develop your practise, you’re making this application. You’ve also got to show the benefits for the Arts Council, for audiences; things like that. You’ve got to list them. It’s quite a complicated process.

It took me about six months to get it right. They don’t usually give large grants to individual artists. They give them to organisations. Maybe applying as a collective is an idea.

MB: And things to focus on are?

JM: How your project’s good for the region, good for your own professional development, for the other people who will be involved…you can explain how it’s going to be professionally relevant. Make sure it’s not a half-hearted project.

MB: Think it all out properly.

JM: Yeah. Also, pay yourself right. That’s another big thing that they’re really quite keen on, that artists are getting paid properly for the work that they do. Whether that’s £175 a day or more, you know.

MB: So, if you are asking for money, don’t try and improve your chances by skimping on your own pay so that the amount you’re asking for is lower.

JM: Sure, sure. They’ll instantly reject it. There are different kinds of grants available. I think that there’s money for first publication. They give money to artists for overseas travel, if they have meetings or particular events that they have to go to. I’m not aware of them funding any other comic artists, but then I am from this fine art background so they knew my work from that. They knew my practice. They could see where it was going. They could see that children were responding well to my commissions and the workshops that I had run, so…

MB: Was that because of the anthropomorphic angle?

JM: Yeah, maybe. Also the fact that I try to keep the characters as realistic as I can. They’re all based on observation or extrapolation. They’re not superheroes.

MB: So, you applied for the money and then went to the Centre for Cartoon Studies in Vermont. What did that do for you?

JM: That tooled me up with loads of different exercises, skills and techniques that I could put into practise myself as an artist and as a teacher. But I’m not sure how much you’d like me to talk about making comics and how much about teaching.

MB: I’d like you to talk about both. How much does teaching comics facilitate making comics or not, as the case may be? Maybe talk about the projects that you’ve got ongoing…

JM: The main teaching that I’m doing at the moment is through Manchester Art Gallery. They’ve got a scheme called Artists in Schools, which involves seven or eight different artists. There’s dancers, there’s drama people, there’s people doing all sorts of different painting and whatever. Instead of schools coming into the gallery and exhibitions and doing activities, what happens is that the gallery lends artists to the schools for a day, two days, four days for set projects.

I’ve got a four-day project that I do with two classes, Years Five and Six, that’s 10 and 11 year olds. I work with one class in the morning and one class in the afternoon, four days spread out over a period of four weeks. On the third day we go to the gallery and we look at different ways that artists have depicted characters. What can you tell about someone from the clues in a picture, the props, clothes and body language, things like that?

MB: What are you trying to achieve?

JM: I think that a lot of kids do comic-style doodling anyway. Perhaps they sometimes get told off for doing it. I think they do respond quite well to the project, because it’s something that they can all have a go at. I try and emphasise all the time that it’s about simplicity and clarity. I’ll show them diagrams and I’ll show them in-flight safety cards. You know, why isn’t this a comic? It’s giving us information with pictures.

I show them Ernie Bushmiller’s Nancy, which is very diagrammatic and simple. You can’t help but read it. You stare at it and before you know it, you’ve got to the end of the page. You don’t even notice that you’re reading it because it’s so beautifully put together. Stuff like Persepolis. I show them excerpts of that. They respond well to that because the artwork is so simple. They think, ‘Oh, I could have a go at that.’ And, in a way, that works a lot better than if there’s kids that are into comics, like Spiderman or something. They’ll just sit and they’ll draw all these muscle structures and these action figures, but it’s very frustrating for them because it never looks how it should. It’s better to start from scratch.

You know, let’s try and do something that’s a bit more like, say, Charlie Brown than Spiderman. It’s a lot easier for the to get their head around designing that kind of character.

MB: Your experience then is that if kids are into comics they tend to be into superheroes and manga, which can distract them from the basics of storytelling.

JM: There’re usually one or two kids that read Japanese comics. There’s usually a couple that recognise Asterix. One or two might recognise Tintin. But the others, they’ll know The Beano, they’ll know…they all read The Simpsons Comic and Spongebob Squarepants of course. On the whole, it’s all film tie-ins, which is a bit depressing.

(Go to Part Two)

A Chat With...Jim Medway (Part Two)

2008-03-20T13:59:00.000-07:00

(Part One is here)

MB: You make half-jokey comments about teaching comics getting in the way of making comics. What’s the reality of that?

JM: Well, working gets in the way of making comics. I could be doing anything. I could be pulling pints in a bar and that could be getting in the way of making comics. Teaching is tiring. You’ve got to be enthusiastic and you’re on your feet all day. But it’s great fun as well and you get great ideas.

This last school that I’ve been working in I actually used them as a bit of a focus group for this DFC contribution thing. I showed them the character sheet and asked them to look at what the characters were wearing and the props that I’d given them, and asked them what kind of adventures they might get up to. What they’d do after school and what might happen if one of the characters had a birthday party and they all attended. I asked the class to write down their ideas and jokes and things…

MB: Are they going to get a credit?

JM: Well, they might do. They came up with some terrible titles as well.

MB: So, back to making comics. What skills, as a fine artist, did you already have for this and what skills have you had to acquire?

JM: I was quite confident with characters and with composition as well.

MB: Maybe you should describe your paintings?

JM: Pretty much like my comics.

MB: They’re like snapshots aren’t they?

JM: I’ve described them before as a cross between magic realism and social realism and kitchen sink. They’d be black and white drawings, urban and gritty…

MB: They portray people as cats. Where did that come from?

JM: It’s something that I’ve always done, since I first started drawing when I was four or five. It comes from Richard Scarry, but also Janet and Allen Ahlberg. There’s so many kids’ books where it’s animals doing human things. That just really appealed to me.

MB: It’s like a through-line.

JM: There’s something that Richard Scarry said. He was talking about how his books get translated into other languages and kids everywhere respond really well to these animal characters. He said that a drawing of a little bunny rabbit girl will be related to more easily by a black girl than if it was a drawing of a white girl. He said that because it’s an animal you can kind of project yourself into it more easily than if it was someone specific and human.

MB: This is maybe this thing that Scott McCloud says about the simpler the representations of human features the easier that representation is to empathise with.

JM: Sure. There’s a Chris Ware quote as well where he’s talking about Charlie Brown and Tintin and Jimmy Corrigan all just having dots for eyes. When you start to make them more detailed and more human, then you lose something.

NB: Jim later sent through the exact quotes:

The Scarry quote: "If you have a picture of a little girl with long blonde hair, a darkhaired girl won't relate to it as well as to a picture of, say, a young girl bunny rabbit."

The Chris Ware quote: "If you draw, say, dots for eyes, in Jimmy Corrigan's case, or in Charlie Brown's, or Tintin's, or Skeezix's, it instantly creates this sense of empathy. Where if you draw a 'real' eye, there's not as much of a sense of empathy...if there are too many different eyes, it muddles the story somehow... maybe I'm nuts. Someone who see's the knots in plywood looking at them."

MB: So, you’ve got a combination of the two in your drawings: anthropomorphised animals with simple features.

JM: There’re so many people who have done this in the past. It’s not a new idea at all. One of the advantages of drawing these anthropomorphic characters is that because they’re not really humans, you don’t have to get the human figure right. They’re not really cats, so you don’t have to get the cat figure right. It gives you a bit more flexibility. It doesn’t have to look entirely correct.

MB: I suppose you’re going for a sense of movement and gesture more than anatomical accuracy?

JM: I guess so. Going back to Vermont (the Centre for Cartoon Studies). I learnt three courses there.

I did Making Comics, which was five days, and I was the oldest person there. Everyone else was 16 (Jim is 33). I was the odd one out, but it was fantastic. The tutors included James Kolchalka, Steve Bissette, James Sturm and Aaron Renier, who did Spiral Bound. I learnt new skills about how to make comics, but I also saw how they taught that age group.

There was also a course called History of Comics, which was taught by Steve Bissette. This was a course that he’d normally spend eight weeks teaching the regular students, but it was all crammed into three days. It was pretty intensive, but it was amazing.

The other one was called Comics for Educators, and there were lots of schoolteachers and school librarians, and it was a partly about choosing the right material for your school libraries, stuff that’s appropriate for kids. It was quite a well-rounded course, so I came away from there dreaming in panels.

MB: Do you think that you could be making the transition you’re making from artist to cartoonist without having had that experience?

JM: I don’t think so. I’m sure I would have eventually got there, but part of it is that you’re paying so you value it. And also you’re committing your time to focus on that one thing. It’s like you don’t really value something unless you’ve paid for it. I want to teach myself Illustrator and I’ve got the book, but I’m not ever gonna get through it. But if I’ve got a day devoted to an Illustrator course, well then I’m going to make the most out of that.

(Go to Part Three)

A Chat With...Jim Medway (Part Three)

2008-03-20T13:57:00.001-07:00

(Part One of this interview is here. Part Two is here)

MB: You also, on top of the cartooning and teaching, ventured into editing with the anthology Garden Funnies. Tell us about that.

JM: Some of the contributors are friends. A few are friends of friends. I’m pleased with the finished product. I think that the next one will be better.

MB: What are you going to improve?

JM: I’m going to make it twice as big in terms of its physical size. It’ll be A5 or A6. I’m doing this UK Web ‘n’ Mini-comix Thing, but because my comics are so small I’m going to struggle to fill a table. And also it’s just nice to have something a little bigger. I think that Teen Witch works fine at mini-comic size. It’s a nice thing for a child to handle. I’m very aware that I want my stuff to be all ages. All the best kids stuff is stuff that parents will feel happy buying and enjoy reading as well. The best kids’ films are those that have jokes in there for the adults as well.

MB: You’ve done Teen Witch and you’ve done Garden Funnies. It feels very ‘walk before you try to run’. Don’t make the mistake of diving straight into a longer form piece of work.

JM: It’s trying things out.

MB: And Paul Gravett and Nick Abadzis mentioned your name to the people at the DFC and you’ve been asked to pitch to that, which is nice.

JM: It’ll be great for the teaching, because I’ll be able to have something for the kids that shows that I’m a comic artist. They ask me what I’ve been in. Did I draw Shaun the Sheep or Dennis the Menace? But, of course, I haven’t. I’ve done Teen Witch, but I made it myself.

MB: I don’t think that it makes the lessons any less valuable if they’re delivered by a self-publisher. I am more impressed by self-publishers, when they’re good, because of the broad skills-set needed to self-publish.

JM: When I’m working with older groups, I tend to have more time and we do look at self-publishing. I show them my collection of mini comics and ‘zines and stuff, and they can see the diversity of material and the spontaneity behind it. You know, you can make something in the morning and it can be out there by evening.

MB: Self-distribute by hand in the cafes and bars…

JM: Sure. I show them the templates for how to cut, fold and staple their own comics.

MB: Are you yourself still evolving as a cartoonist?

JM: I’m testing stuff out. I’m seeing what interests me.

MB: Do you have a final goal in mind?

JM: I do feel that there’s a real absence of any kids’ stuff on the comics market. There used to be all these articles about comics growing up and comics being for adults. And that’s true, but it’s actually gone further than that. There’s actually nothing for kids any more. You go into a comic shop and you can’t even get Tintin or Asterix. That’s one of the things that the teaching does, to show kids all these fantastic books. Books like Fred by Posy Simmonds…

MB: What do you think the future holds for comics?

JM: I agree with Paul Gravett that we’re entering a new golden age of comics, where there’s academic attention, there’s more vintage stuff available in reprints, there’s European stuff being translated…it’s quite an exciting time for comics and people are realising the kind of issues that can be dealt with and the different ways comics can tell stories.

MB: Recommend some cartoonists that people should keep an eye out for.

JM: Oliver East’s Trains are Mint stuff is fantastic. I’ve known Oli for years and seen where his work’s come from and how he’s arrived at his current stuff, so it’s nice to see how it’s all developed. He did the same course as me, Interactive Arts at Manchester Metropolitan University, but he was a couple of years below me. Neither of us were doing comics at that point. It was much more experimental. We did sculpture and printing and all sorts. Anything except drawing really. It was like an extension of a foundation course. You had the chance to experiment and collaborate in groups. In that way it was good. There wasn’t a huge amount of teaching. We were left to it a lot.

But back to cartoonists. I really like Stuart Kolakovic. He’s got a really good sensibility. He’s a great designer. There’s also a guy called Rob Bailey, who’s decorated the walls in Common, just round the corner from here. His work is very graphic, very simple and very bold. Wonderful stuff.

MB: Is there much of a ‘scene’ here in Manchester?

JM: I have started meeting cartoonists around Manchester. Adam Cadwell is a really nice chap. I met John Allison a couple of weeks ago and he was great. I’m slowly meeting these people, but just because they’re all into comics doesn’t mean that they’ve got anything in common. But it’s definitely nice to talk to people who are in that same kind of realm.

MB: To me it’s like there’s a scene that isn’t a scene. The thing that all these local cartoonists most have in common is an appreciation of the mechanics of comics.

JM: Yes…but then I don’t necessarily want to meet someone else who’s drawing cat comics for kids.

It would be like talking to myself.

Jim, thanks for your time.

A Chat With...Sean Azzopardi

2008-03-12T06:25:00.000-07:00

Sean Azzopardi is a self-published cartoonist living and working in London. His comics have received positive attention from the likes of Redeye magazine and the Midnight Fiction website. In this interview Sean talks about his DIY ethic, what's good and bad about the small press, and just what's going on comics-wise down at Camden Market.

How did you first get into this small press malarkey?

Around 2001 I had been writing and drawing some material and trying to work out how to make a comic. With some help from Jessica Abel's website, I had it figured eventually. Then, taking advantage of my offices photocopier, I printed my first comic Grey Sky. This was then distributed via a plastic bag at the Bristol Comics Con in 2002.

Which artists/cartoonist do you find particularly inspirational?

Loads. It varies from day to day. At the moment I am reading manga, and Osamu Tezuka is my current favourite.

Twelve Hour Shift seems to have a lot of autobiographical content, but you've decided to make it a fiction with Steve Jones, the main character, almost like another you. Why is that?

Simply that I wanted to put some distance between me and the material, to prevent it spiralling into a self-pitying, whinge fest. When I started Twelve Hour Shift, I was feeling pretty miserable about a lot of things. Developing a story around this would maybe become very boring quickly for the person reading it. If I had a character I could speak through, I thought that it might curb this excess. Quickly the character developed it's own personality and voice, and ran the show. I'm not sure I like Steve Jones, really.

Tell us about your comic Ed.

Ed is an attempt at balance, or trying something different, a light story. Up to the first issue of Ed I had been wallowing in the grim and gritty introspective gutter. I found it difficult to present this to people as it was all a bit miserable. So, I thought about it, about what the life of a cheery character would be like. I looked at my home life and the normal events that surround it, and made this Ed's world. I projected a sort of idealised reality onto him, in the hope that one day this will shape my life. He's a stay at home illustrator, enjoying the day feeling fulfilled.

Will there be a similar collection of Ed mini comics when that series is finished (Sean collected Twelve Hour Shift into a trade paperback recently)?

Yes. I have finished issue 4, and two more issues are scripted and storyboarded. When they are completed, hopefully this year, then I will collect them into a book. I would like to have it ready for the end of this year.

Have you approached any pro' publishers? Any luck there?

No. I don't feel my self-published work is of a standard that a monthly comic demands. I did have a brief experience where I was drawing a book for NBM, but it fell down because I felt I wasn't up to the task. Which was the right decision.

What other projects are you involved with at the mo'?

Two. One with Daniel Merlin Goodbrey And one with Douglas Noble. Two fine writers, who will announce what's happening when it's time, I guess.

What's going down at Camden? How are you involved?

The Camden Comics Stall is great fun. I turn up every two weeks and help sell comics. There is a bit more to it than that, though. There are a lot of ideas floating around, and various individuals choose which of these ideas they think they would like to handle. For instance, we needed a website, so I set that up, but it needed a banner, so Oliver (Lambden) and Phil (Spence) designed that. David (Baillie) decided to design some promo stuff. Then there is Oli who seems to have a very good grasp of promoting stuff.

It is really inspiring, something I have always wanted to be involved in. A group activity that everyone can contribute to, and benefit from, while remaining an individual creative.

What are the good and bad things about the UK's small press scene?

The good things?

The good aspect of the small press is that there is a ready-made platform to launch your work from. The people are very friendly and will help you with any difficulties you have, will publish your work (in anthologies) and review it. The social side of things is excellent. It's a very vibrant, happening environment.

The bad things?

Cheerleading everything in small press. The idea being that all small pressers will benefit from this, which I'm not sure that they will.

I don't see anything bad, but there are a few things that maybe I feel uncomfortable about. I sometimes think that there can be a bit too much self congratulatory back slapping in small press. This can extend to slightly ridiculous claims for the merits and achievements of some publications. This also extends to an industry-in-a-bubble attitude.

Now, I'm sure I will get a good kicking for this, and these are my own views, so there we go. I have been to a lot of UK cons, read a lot of stuff on-line, spoken to a lot of people and the one thing I hear again and again is that we are the industry when it comes to comics in this country. This is quickly followed by a verbal beating up on the big two American comics companies.

This worries me on some level. The output of self-published material has increased over the six years I have been involved in the small press, and due to digital equipment, the full colour comic is no longer expensive or difficult to produce. Distribution is also more sophisticated. These are all good positive developments.

But there is still a healthy percentage of shite produced. And anyway, I believe outside of self publishing, there is a comics industry in the UK. Shouldn't this be embraced in some positive way?

My attitude has maybe come about because of making Twelve Hour Shift. Putting together a book, getting involved in other stuff around publishing, has changed my viewpoint. I am a lot more appreciative of the effort that goes into producing a book. Even a mediocre one. My attitude when I was grappling the office photocopier, for my first issue, and my attitude now, is DIY. But I want it to be fucking brilliant DIY! I don't want the shelves falling down in my house and someone telling me I have done a good job.

What next for Sean A?

Probably hiding from angry self-publishers at Bristol. Just remember, I have curly hair, and go under the pen name Oli.

Go on, recommend some good small press comics for my readers.

Ninja Bunny by Phil Spence, Tales of the Flat, written by Laurence Powell and drawn by Oliver Lambden, who is getting better and better. Anything by David Baillie, who is an excellent writer, but is also a much-improved artist/Illustrator. Oli Smith writes and draws some good stuff, but his upcoming projects, Brick (with Oliver Lambden), Fish, and some unnamed sc-fi epic all show a departure from the autobiograpical stuff, very interesting indeed.

Also Roger Mason, The Goodman brothers (Dave and Arthur), Karen Rubins is producing some good manga work (check out the Best New Manga 2) , and Andy Winter is one to watch too.

Sean Azzopardi, thanks for your time.

Because I wanted to talk to...Ellen Lindner (Part One)

2008-02-03T03:38:00.000-08:00

Ellen Lindner is an artist, cartoonist and art historian. In this interview she talks to Overspill about her influences, her current projects and her love of the lo-fi, DIY ethic in small press comics.

Edit to add (09/02/2008): A few years ago I interviewed Jeremy Dennis (who appears with Ellen Lindner in the anthology Whores of Mensa) for ace comics magazine Redeye. I thought that it was worth mentioning that the original transcript for Jeremy's interview can be found here. It's very long and rambles all over the place. Enjoy.

Now, back to Ellen's interview:

Please tell us a little about your art education and about your work outside of comics. I understand that you work as an illustrator and also exhibit in galleries.

Until a few years ago my art education consisted mostly of figure drawing. I studied art history for my undergraduate degree…my university in the States, Smith College, was fantastic, but the studio art department was very traditional, and trying to work comics into my coursework was always a struggle. This was a fairly ironic state of affairs, considering that I chose my school because the town where it was located, Northampton, Massachusetts, had such an amazing comics scene. At the time it housed the Words and Pictures Museum of Sequential Art, where a lot of cool local artists worked as support staff. I became a volunteer there as soon as possible after arriving.

While at Smith I studied in Paris for one year, where I discovered the European comics scene . I also did my first complete mini-comic, an adaptation of Christine de Pizan's proto-feminist The City of Ladies into comics form. When I left university and moved to New York City, I started taking classes at the School of the Visual Arts, where the staff include American indie cartoonists like Nick Bertozzi, Matt Madden, Jason Little and Jessica Abel. At some point I took the somewhat radical advice of an elder comics statesman and quit my job, moving to a suburb of Philadelphia so I could do comics full-time. I started hanging out at the annual Angouleme festival, where I met my husband.

We decided I'd move to England, where I applied to Camberwell College … I studied for one intense year under Janet Woolley, the head of MA illustration there, and met cool folk like awesome illustrator Sarah McIntyre. I often feel uncomfortable putting my comics pages up on a wall – to me, they're works in progress, always – but I love creating new work for gallery shows, especially stuff like painting or model making which isn't part of my day-to-day routine. Most of my gallery work has been at an amazing place in Queens, New York, called Flux Factory….the people who run Flux come up with really mad concepts for shows and then devote every waking hour until the opening to insuring that they are amazing. The last one, NYNYNY, involved artists from all over the world re-imagining the five boroughs of New York City in a million different media (including fabric and ice cream, though thankfully not in the same piece!).

I made a cartoon billboard, telling the story of my great-aunt coming to New York in the thirties in a series of advertisements. I can't wait to see the catalogue…. I do work as an illustrator, but strangely most of my paid 'illustration' work has been doing comics projects of various kinds. I have done a lot of educational comics for children, which is great because I get to use my art history background quite a bit; I definitely know my way around a library. I just this week finished a 120 page book on the American civil rights movement, drawn from a script by a university professor in the US. It was a really great project – I love drawing the fifties, and it's an important story to keep telling to new generations. That'll be out from Aladdin Paperbacks in the States in July, as part of a series called Turning Points.

How did you get into comics, both as a reader and a creator?

Growing up in the New York City suburbs, the boys in my class at school were big fans of mainstream comics, stuff like Viper, Punisher, Wolverine….they used to hang out in the back of the class and obsessively re-draw the characters. Basically, they were the first people I ever encountered who wanted to be artists – they probably looked silly to adults, but I admired their artistic fervour!

Anyhow, I started to buy comics, and fell totally in love with the X-Men and Wolverine. (Even these days I'll occasionally meet another person who loved Marc Silvestri's artwork and nerd out. But it's unfortunately quite rare!) From there I followed the fairly predictable path of becoming a teenager, deciding Marvel was crap, getting into Sandman and Tank Girl…still two of my all-time favorites. Now I've evened out…I like the best of everything, mainstream stuff like Y The Last Man and indie stuff like Gabrielle Bell's comics, or Dan Zettwoch, who, in my opinion, has one of the most rewarding artist's blogs on the internet!

Please tell us about your work in progress, Undertow.

Undertow is the graphic novel I'm currently serializing on Web Comics Nation. It's the story of a young girl growing up in the 1950's in Brooklyn. The heroine, Rhonda, has problems – her mother is an alcoholic, and so Rhonda thinks that's how you solve problems, by drinking them away. She's dealing with the death of a friend, and a crush she has on a seemingly unattainable guy, and she does some really foolish things. In the end, though, she figures things out – I promise! It's inspired by the films of Fellini and Godard, people who thought that you could have a good time even when things were crashing down around you. That image of Anna Karina dancing in the bar in Her Life to Live, or Guilietta Masina at the end of The Nights of Cabiria, smiling despite everything that's happened, being swindled in such a cruel way…that's so powerful. People who know me well know that I've been working on Undertow forever, redrawing, changing the ending….it's become this organic thing. I always meant it to be a learning project, so I've taken a lot of time to get feedback and make changes accordingly. But with online serialization, the end is swiftly approaching…stay tuned!

(Go to part two of this interview)

Because I wanted to talk to...Ellen Lindner (Part Two)

2008-02-03T03:31:00.000-08:00

(Part one of this interview is here)

Please tell us about your work for anthology comic Whores of Mensa.

I really love working on Whores of Mensa. It's like a zine, or a no-censors verion of a girl's annual…we have a lot of fun with the stories. I actually became involved with Whores of Mensa because I wrote Mardou, the editor, a fan letter. She, Jeremy Dennis and Lucy Sweet were already working on it. I loved the mix of styles, and the humour of their strips…there's one Mardou did about Mr. Miyagi of Karate Kid fame that made me laugh for days. Anyhow, I think it's important to keep the DIY aspect of comics going in the glossy graphic novel age, and Whores of Mensa is great if you like witty, intriguing comics by girls. We're hoping to do an anthology…I think an art show would be really good, too…Jeremy's originals are pretty neat. Mine are a mess but maybe I could knock up some new ones! I think the next issue will be really fab…it has a Parisian theme, and I've got lots of ideas, some autobiographical, some involving my current obsession with mystery stories. Maybe we could publish a French edition! "Les Putes M.E.N.S.A"…

You have a clean, crisp art style. Who are your influences and how did you arrive at that style?

I remember once going to a friend's house when I was fairly young, and some relative had just brought a giant box of old EC comics out of the attic…Tales from the Crypt and such...they were amazing! I think they made a big impression on me. Even the newspaper strips I liked were more in the realist vein, though I loved the stylized look of Dick Tracy, for example. Marc Hempel, who drew some of the later Sandman stuff, and Dan Clowes were both big influences when I hit my teens…though, I have to say, some of the artists I like the most nowadays have a more cartoony style, like Dominique Goblet or Pauline Martin, two French artists whom I really like. A big influence in the last five years or so has been American romance comics from the fifties. I have a friend in New York who has a mammoth collection, and she was kind enough to let me go through and scan some for reference. They have a reputation for being dashed-off and sloppy looking, but there were obviously some illustrators who very much enjoyed working on them…the level of detail is amazing! I paid tribute to them in a strip I did for a Camberwell show called WAVE…I love taking the old melodramatic images and writing my own stories.

What are your thoughts on the small press scene in this country? What's good and bad about it?

I think the level of enthusiasm is really great in the UK comics scene…I love local festivals like Caption. And stuff like the Observer prize is totally unique, I hope it'll go a long way towards making people respect comics as a literary form. Plus there are people like Paul Gravett who serve as really invaluable ambassadors for comics..all of this is so important. My only complaint is that I miss the drinks nights Gosh! used to organize in Central London…bring 'em back, boys!

Where can people find your work?

My graphic novel, Undertow, is online at Web Comics Nation. I'm currently posting the third chapter, so it's not too late to catch up! Whores of Mensa is available from the Forbidden Planet shop, and from Ted May's It Lives! shop if you're outside the UK. I've also been in a bunch of American anthologies: Scheherazade, published by Soft Skull Press, and Hi-Horse Omnibus, published by Alternative Comics, are two I would recommend. Or you can check out my website and blog.

What next for Ellen Lindner?

At the moment, I'm just relaxing…getting my Aladdin book done on deadline meant a lot of long nights, and I'm nursing a terrible cold as a result! That said, I have two April deadlines, swiftly approaching…I am working on a new Whores of Mensa story, for our Paris-themed issue, which is planned for release during the summer festival season. Robyn Chapman, who is an amazing cartoonist and Center for Cartoon Studies lecturer, invited me to be in her Hey, 4-eyes! zine, which is dedicated to the culture of spectacles. I am writing a story about the daft things people have done through history in order to stop wearing their glasses. And I'm adapting an E.M. Forster sci-fi story for the Graphic Classics line of books. Also I have some comix-themed travel coming up – I'm visiting Mardou in her new hometown of St. Louis, Missouri, otherwise known as the most up-and-coming city for comics in the US.

I'm excited!

Thanks, Ellen, for taking time out of a hectic schedule to talk to Overspill.

Because I wanted to talk to...James Nash (Part One)

2008-01-16T10:33:00.001-08:00

It's all gone a bit mainstream round here. To balance that, here's a chat that I had with James Nash. James is one of my favourite cartoonists.

Please tell us a little about yourself.

Sure, my name is James Nash, I’m 25 and I currently live in the West Midlands area since graduating from the University of Brighton about three years ago. Basically I do a bit of work as a freelance illustrator as well as personal work that has mainly come to fruition in the form of making small press comics that I’ve been showing and distributing via various means during this time…

How did you first get into self-publishing?

I became interested in comics at university, in particular the science of comics (narrative structures, simplistic imagery as a subjective visual language, Scott McCloud's stuff etc.), whilst also being influenced by loads of amazing leftfield American comics artists such as Gary Panter, Ron Rege Jr, Gabrielle Bell, Martin Cedendra, Mat Brinkman etc…

I started making a daily diary drawing during my last year just to explore the idea that the subjective language of comics could communicate something as objective and personal as a person’s diary. About a year later I began putting the drawings together as a collection and along with some friends similarly interested in comics began exploring the idea of self-publishing our work and distributing it via the small press community.

Isn't a person's diary a subjective rather than an objective document and that's what makes it personal, that it reflects their subjective view of the world?

I mean objective on behalf of the reader. Maybe I'm misusing the term, but I mean in the way that you could read someone else's diary or look at their holiday photos or whatever and those things might bare no frame of reference to you, you look at them objectively.

Whereas I think there’s a goal in the visual language of comics to make something readable, that refers to the reader as well as the writer. My favourite thing is having someone tell me that something feels exactly like it had happened to him or her, or that they thought it was only them that thought about something a certain way.

So, just to clarify, it's about the reader being able to locate themselves within the diarist’s perspective, to fully empathise with the diarist? Is that correct or am I missing something?

(Also, please expand on this statement a little: 'Whereas I think theres a goal in the visual language of comics to make something readable, that refers to the reader as well as the writer.')

Yeah, that’s exactly what I mean. It brings about a different way of thinking about what to write and how to make certain subjects or events readable and relatable to someone else. It was only really a while after starting the project that I became aware of how big the spectrum of people making comic diaries or auto-biographical work that was similarly about nothing in particular is (I suppose as a reaction to the perception of comics as a medium synonymous with fantasy). But it was good to examine a lot of stuff and find out what I liked and what I didn't and why that was.

For example, I really like Vannessa Davis' really loose and beautiful artwork and the way the narrative is pretty focused on one point, and Gabrielle Bell's minimalist drawing complementing the larger focus on words, plus I really related to the subjects in their comics. I feel a bit more negative towards stuff by Jeff Brown and Jeff Lewis. The latter I don't think even needs to have any drawings because of all the text. I don't feel like it uses being a comic to its full strengths.

Even with such a seemingly unfocused and ephemeral drawn record of a day like this I think there are still a lot of choices to be made if you want to collect something communicative and meaningful as the end product. I'm not saying my attempts are effective examples of this, but I think its good to have a vague idea of why you're making something otherwise, well, why are you doing it?

Anyway, as I mentioned above, I started doing it as an explorative project, it was also a reason to actually just make an unselfconscious set of drawing and writing. I think because there’s a point in an education of visual communication where it becomes impossible to make or do anything without questioning yourself impotent, so it was a good way to set a tight self-initiated brief where the object was to just do something, anything, because that’s what’s real at that time and that’s what is going on.

The rule is simple: I do it on the day or not at all, so that the drawing itself would maybe reflect what the drawing was about. Over the period of four and a bit years that I’ve been doing it certain qualities have become more and more uniform, to the point where one would recognise it as a deliberate style or cartoon type quality: i.e. its structure has developed into something a lot more ‘readable’ I suppose. The subject is simple, its usually something small; just something someone has said or some thoughts on something or someone.

I try not to make too many self-reflexive drawings such as writing about what a ball-ache it is to have to draw it, although many have been committed to paper… My other favourite thing about it is experimenting with the three panel narrative structure. If something worthwhile of writing occurs, how do I fit it in communicatively? The same of the opposite: how do I stretch nothing over three drawings? The possibilities still seem really infinite and I hope to carry it on as long as possible.

(Go to Part Two)

Because I wanted to talk to...James Nash (Part Two)

2008-01-16T03:13:00.000-08:00

Have your diary comics, which, I assume, are read by people who know you, ever gotten you into trouble? Has anyone ever objected to the way that they have been portrayed in the comics?

Yes, but not as much as you might think. Though that’s the trouble with the instant nature in which it’s done.

I also think that if certain people don’t wish to be demonised, maybe they should try and not be such demons…

Looking back, is there anything that you regret putting in your diary comics? Have you ever revealed yourself a little too much?

I don’t think I really regret anything in particular, I think that because of its nature, certain qualities are exaggerated; also, maybe it can get a bit teen angsty. It’s funny when I meet one of the handful of people that have read it and they openly comment on their surprise that I’m quite a jovial person…

I remember that I got a really lovely email from Simone Lia ages ago about the comic telling me to stop drinking so much…But then again its not like I’m doing that all the time. I just choose to draw about that rather than anything in the other 15 hours that day I spent not drinking, if you know what I mean?

My memory of reading your comics is that they dealt quite a lot with your dad's illness. Was this ever difficult or, conversely, was it helpful to get your feelings/thoughts on the subject down on paper?

I suppose that I do use it like a vent for that kind of thing on occasion. I was asked to put all the strips about that stuff together and compile it for a story in Bad Idea and I heard from a few people that the main interest was probably not on the event itself (obviously thousands of people suffer all kinds of life-altering illness every day), but probably the cold and unsympathetic way that I treated it in those drawings. Again, I think it’s all editorial on my part. When drawing those things individually it was just how I felt and what was going on at the time.

I understand that you've moved away from self-publishing and you're now working in galleries/exhibition spaces. Please tell me about that.

Well, not really. Last year I was less focused on putting them together as comics, mostly because of getting disillusioned. Comic shops that I had previously had stuff in weren’t really interested in taking any more stuff, and second time round doing some comics fairs had a bit of a back-scratching air about them. But I found new avenues for people to see the work in a couple of exhibitions I was part of, and that it could be of interest as an ‘art’ project, which, I guess, is what it was originally meant to be.

I’ve always felt that the quantity of the work was important and so I put a few months worth of drawings on large pieces of paper and was really surprised to see people standing for a really long time reading them all through one by one...

It’s good to explore more than one avenue, but I’m definitely still into making comics. Paul Gravett asked Matilda and I to do the Comica Book Fair a couple of months ago and that was great.

Please tell us about your work as an illustrator.

I’ve been fortunate enough to do drawings for some magazines and people that I really like. It’s quite few and far between at the moment but it’s nice to do when it does come along. The work I do is informed by my comics stuff and vice-versa, stylistically at least.

I’m really interested in text stuff, concrete poetry and that kind of thing…I’ll always enjoy making that kind of work as there’s probably nothing better than thinking up a conceptually pleasing image especially in a time of increasingly inescapable visual vomit!

Where can people find your work? Can they still order diary comics from you?

Yes, definitely. I’m currently getting a website put together that should be up soon, and will be producing some new comics early this year, which, hopefully, will be in a few shops round the country. Currently the only place is a great new store at the Custard Factory in Birmingham called Platform, I’ve also done a couple of T-shirts and prints that will be available there.

What's next for James Nash?

As I mentioned before I’m putting together the last two years of my diary into two comics. I’m going to throw it around and see who’s interested. Hopefully I should have a website done soon. I want to do some more paid illustration work, get out of debt, get a job that doesn’t inspire suicidal thoughts, possibly a move somewhere and work on some new comics projects. I’m currently thinking about maybe an adaptation of something, although I don’t think I’ve ever seen a comic literary adaptation that didn’t suck, and who am I to change that?

James Nash, thanks for your time.

Because I wanted to talk to...Matt Smith

2008-01-16T02:32:00.000-08:00

The other day I posted a short Q&A with writer Rob Williams that I had conducted for an article about writing comics. Here's an even shorter one with 2000 AD Editor Matt Smith. Matt gives us the inside track on what he thinks makes a perfect Future Shock (the five-page shorts that are usually the entry point for writers new to 2000 AD) and various other top tips about writing comics. If you're pitching to Matt, then it's worth taking a look at what he has to say:

What, in your opinion, makes the perfect Future Shock?

An original idea, with exciting visuals, a strong plot that will hook the reader, and a twist that feels natural and has some ironic bearing on what has gone before, rather than just throwing something in that won’t mean anything to the reader.

What are the most common mistakes novice writers make when submitting comic scripts to you?

Not formatting a script properly. Thinking that an idea makes a story, and stretching what should be one scene into five pages. Too much dialogue, or characters that are insubstantial. Thinking that nobody’s done an alien invasion or a virtual reality prison story before.

How detailed do you think a comic script should be (is your personal preference John Wagner or Alan Moore in terms of level of detail)?

It entirely depends on the what’s happening in each individual panel, but generally panel descriptions shouldn’t really be much more than about five or six lines. I think artists like to be given a certain amount of free rein. My general preference is for the terse, Wagner-style script – you can usually tell enough of what needs to be contained in a panel simply by the dialogue.

What role do you think the small press can have in developing a writer?

The difference between a written script and seeing it realised as a comic strip can be quite big. What might look like an exciting story in script form could become clumsy and disjointed once its rendered visually. So the more practice you get writing scripts and seeing the finished product can be invaluable in showing you what works and what doesn’t, and where things can be improved. The practical experience of working on small-press titles is something that should be considered by anyone who wants to write comics.

Matt Smith, thanks for your time.

Because I wanted to talk to...Rob Williams.

2008-01-13T12:11:00.000-08:00

Some time ago I did a very short Q&A for a writing magazine with Star Wars, Wolverine, 2000 AD and Judge Dredd Megazine writer Rob Williams about writing comics. Here's the result:

What, in your opinion, makes the perfect 2000 AD story?

The usual suspects - action, drama, suspense and a gripping cliffhanger or a major plot revelation that should, preferably, be a surprise come the finale. Pretty much all stories could do with these things, of course. For 2000AD you probably want to throw in a spot of satire and an acerbic sense of humour too, and some killer futuristic or fantasy visuals, of course. This is a visual medium after all. One thing 2000AD doesn't really do is ponderous. You've got five pages - so keep the pace up. There's a lot to compress in there, although a beginning - middle - end is paramount.

What were the most common mistakes you made as a novice writer?

Over-writing mainly. Economy in your dialogue is amazingly difficult, but the best writers can say a lot with very little. When I started I think someone told me that Alan Moore had said that 28 words a panel was the maximum and I tried to stick to that. These days I aim for a lot less. Similarly with the number of panels on the page. I still struggle to keep that under six sometimes. Less is more, as the cliche goes. It's true. Comics is a visual medium. Always remember that. if you look at the page and you've filled it with text then you should be writing prose instead.

How detailed do you think a comic script should be (is your personal preference John Wagner or Alan Moore in terms of level of detail)?

Somewhere in between, I think. No one can beat the infamous two-word Wagner Dredd panel description for pure economy: 'Dredd. Grim'. I tend to ask a lot of the artist in terms of sometimes describing the ways the characters should act with their facial expressions etc, especially when trying to write comedy. It really is dependent on the amount of information you want to get across. You have to strike a balance between giving the artist all the info he needs to convey the visual the way you want as the writer, while also allowing that artist the freedom to come up with the image himself. He is drawing the thing, after all. It's a collaborative art form.

What role do you think the small press can have in developing a writer?

The only way to improve as a writer is to write... a lot. Small press publications provide avenues for writers to develop comic scripts, collaborate with an artist and see how your perfectly imagined visuals work when actually drawn on the page (it doesn't always come off as well as you'd like), all of which is vital. And even though you may have read comics all your life and think that you have a pretty good idea of how comic scripting works, it's not until you get into the nuts and bolts of trying to pace a story on the page that you realise how difficult it sometimes is. The small press allows you to work on your craft before you approach the major companies, and that's invaluable.

Rob Williams, thanks for your time.

Because I wanted to talk to...Stuart Kolakovic (Part One)

2008-01-07T04:48:00.001-08:00

Stuart Kolakovic is a cartoonist and illustrator whose refreshing and beautiful comics currently focus mainly on heritage and family history. Despite a busy schedule, he was kind enough to take time out to be interviewed for this blog.

Stuart, please tell us a little about yourself.

I'm Stuart Kolakovic, I’m 22 years old and I make a living drawing pictures for nice people. In between drawing pictures to buy the meagre amount of beans, bread, potatoes, noodles and pasta I need to sustain myself, I try to find enough time to continue creating little comic books for (in my opinion) nicer people. I usually do all this whilst listening to bizarre/horrible music that no one likes. I also, on now very rare occasions, scare old grannies on my skateboard.

Where can people see your work? I understand that you have a current exhibition in Manchester. What are the details and how did that come about?

A lot of people that are familiar with my work have no idea that I skateboard.

Manchester has got a really amazing tight and friendly skate scene and I got asked by Vic MacMahon of skate shop Projekts MCR if I'd be interested in putting a show up in their gallery space. They've exhibited some respected artists, but it's still funny when you get confused arty types stumbling into the skate shop asking if they know where the gallery is. The show, titled Never Been, opened on 8th December and runs until 3rd February, so if you're knocking around Manchester, go see it!!!

It includes a blown-up version of The Box, the strip that came second place in The Observer Graphic short story competition, two vending machines that dispense two different comic books and the title piece Never Been, one long drawing that wraps its way around the gallery wall (I haven't actually measured it, but I think it clocks in at around 9-10 metres long). It tells the story of a year in the life of a fictional late 19th Century Eastern European village. It's not a comic as such, but it still contains loads of loose narratives so the viewer can make up their own story or find little stories as they make their way around the piece. It was basically an attempt at me trying to have some fun, loosen up and be really self-indulgent.

I'll eventually try to figure out a way of uploading the whole thing onto my website and I have just started working on a way of making it smaller and affordable so that you can buy it from my online shop.

How did you first come to start making comics?

When I was a wee little nipper I read all the usual comics like 2000 AD and stuff from DC. Then, by complete fluke, one of my schoolmate's dads opened up a comic shop in the next town over in Stafford. We'd spend whole days in there from opening till closing pretending to help when in fact we'd just mess around, read all the comics and try and get as many freebies as we could.

I got real bored with the super hero stuff, but I remember being really impressed by some of the more alternative stuff, like the comics by Robert Crumb, The Tale of One Bad Rat, Maus and America (a love story that appeared in the Judge Dredd Megazine) . But it was during this time that I'd started to notice the more, er, ‘unwholesome’ aspects of comics. I remember that they employed this one guy who was obsessed with Catwoman and he'd creepily tell us that it wasn't just because of the stories, "...if you get what I mean." At the time I didn't get what he meant, although it was still unnerving to see a fully-grown man perving at cartoon boobs.

It was about this time (at around age 11 or 12) that I started to skateboard, and I remember I had the decision of whether I should continue hanging out at this comic shop or go out, travel and meet new people on my skateboard.

Fast-forward five or six years later and I was stuck in Birmingham waiting for a train. I decided to kill some time in Nostalgia & Comics around the corner from New Street, the first time I'd been in a comic shop in a long time. I found a complete copy of Dave McKean's Cages and was just blown away by it (which you can probably tell when you look at some of my earlier work). That book really got me into reading comics again, and then, at around this time, Jimmy Corrigan was available in one volume and I started finding more obscure stuff and it just got me so excited.

I've always loved drawing and making things (I even used to sell DIY screen-printed t-shirts and hoodies to shops), but always felt unsatisfied by the end result. I'd spend all this time drawing something and at the end of it, it would just be a drawing. Comics really opened up the possibilities of narrative to me. It sounds like a cliché, but you really can do anything with words and pictures. It's like having a whole film crew at your disposal.

But a hell of lot lonelier.

(Go to Part Two)

Because I wanted to talk to...Stuart Kolakovic (Part Two)

2008-01-07T04:47:00.001-08:00

Why did you first start making comics?

Whilst studying at Kingston Uni, I got so bored with the illustration briefs. It just made me want to stop drawing altogether. Some of the projects were so dull. Looking back I can understand why they sometimes gave us such harsh, boring briefs, because that's exactly the sort of stuff you'd have to do as an actual illustrator.

Anyway, at the end of each year we'd get a term to set ourselves a brief. I'd always be so excited being able to do whatever I wanted, which was always in the form of a comic.

The first year I found this old derelict burnt-out pub in Surbiton, except it was still full of furniture and really important documents and suitcases of photos. I guess because I grew up breaking into old warehouses to skate in, I didn't worry about getting busted by the cops (I even went to the trouble of making a fake ‘24 hour security’ stencil, which I sprayed all over the building to keep unwanted taggers and tramps out while I was working in there!).

I started this really long stupid story that was definitely inspired by McKean's experimental work. It was my dire attempt at being really raw, off the wall and conceptual, and ended up being four books long, which I somehow completed in three months. At the time I was really excited by the physical idea of comics, that they don't just have to be pages in a book, but physical things that can be taken out or played with to construct a narrative. Like, I had one chapter that wasn't bound, but in a box, and if you placed the pages in a particular order it made up a giant image, much like a jigsaw.

By the next time I got the chance to set my own brief, I had come full circle and found nothing more exciting than the restrictions of pages in a book.

In my second year none of my tutors were particularly keen on the idea of comics and I was becoming increasingly disappointed at the amount of students who just couldn't even figure out how to read them. Luckily, I was saved by Dr. Leo de Freitas, the UK's only Illustration historian and, coincidentally, a close friend of McKeans, and he really encouraged me to continue making comics.

My first real mini comic, A Prince Such As I, which is extremely cringeworthy, didn't fare much better with my tutors at uni. Even though I was selling them in shops, galleries and posting them to Holland, Japan, Quimby's, I remember my tutor not even opening it when it came to the end of the project where we had to show the rest of the course what we'd worked on. I also remember getting a lot of stick from some people in the small press scene for being too gimmicky (the comic was about a loner obsessed with Elvis and came inside a mock record sleeve) and for the comic being a blatant rip off of McKean's style, which it kind of was.

Anyway, a copy found it's way to Dan Franklin at Jonathan Cape and he asked me to go show him some more of my work, which was really encouraging, but at the same time was a sudden reality check. It made me realise that no matter how much I love comics, they're never going to pay my bills: the amount of time and effort they take to make is ridiculous, and I suddenly started to take straightforward editorial illustration more seriously, which is a good job because that's how I'm making my living. But if I could give any advice to students at university, it is to rip off the facilities whilst you're there as much as you can. Me and a friend, Andrew Walter, rinsed a free photocopier and the screen printing studios to the max just so we could put out a few mini comics that we could never fit into uni projects.

(Go to Part Three)

Because I wanted to talk to...Stuart Kolakovic (Part Three)

2008-01-07T04:46:00.000-08:00

Heritage and family history seems to be a very important part of your comics work. Please tell us why and a little about that aspect of your work.

I've always wanted to do a story about my Serbian Grandad, who fought as a Chetnik for a Royalist Yugoslavia in World War Two. He died when I was around 12, and it wasn't until I was a little older that I realised how bizarre a character he was. For example, I would just take it for granted that his house was literally piled to the ceilings with rubbish. It was only when I started thinking about the way he lived that I started to learn a little about his situation in World War Two. It's very frustrating because he never told anyone what he did, and the Eastern European community in the area of Cannock in the Midlands where he lived has all but died out, so there's no real way of me finding much out. It's almost like a dead end. All I've got is folders of documents and boxes of photos and just vague ideas of how he lived.

This process of remembering and researching all ended up in Milorad, my first real attempt at a graphic novel. As I've read more and more about the history of Yugoslavia, about the different Slav nations and traditions, I've become more and more obsessed with the Eastern European aesthetic. This has started to become the backbone of everything I do. To me it all seems to overlap, my interest in Eastern Europe, narrative and illustration, and I've become increasingly attracted to old Slav fairy and folk tales, which again has proven to be a strong influence in my work. Milorad went on to receive a D&AD New Blood Award, which I think is pretty funny because the majority of students that win this award usually use really boring corporate graphic design for stuff and I have no interest in that kind of stuff. Graphic design actually really pisses me off because I find it so obtrusive and I can't believe people actually fall for clever advertising. Or maybe it's because I can only relate to things in a narrative form: images without narrative just seems really bland and pointless to me; but, of course, I'm over-generalising.

What are your impressions of the UK small press/self-published/mini comics scene? What's good? What's bad? What needs changing?

To tell you the truth, this is going to sound quite bad, but I don't really get that much involved with the small press scene. I mean, I really enjoy making mini comics and flogging them for a little bit of pocket money, but I don't want to have to print them myself forever. I've given up going to comic conventions and the like because there's always a weirdo trying to tell you how much they love a super hero I've never heard of or about comics you can read on your mobile.

I love going into small comic shops and looking at the small press scene section, I think Gosh! in London has a great collection. I love seeing what other people are doing, but I always find it uncomfortable and daunting speaking to other people who read or make comics. I think it's because the act of reading and making comics is such a solitary and personal one that I'm not used to the idea of other comic readers full stop. In fact, sometimes it's difficult to even imagine other people reading your comics when you're making them. Or maybe it's because I'm wary of over enthusiastic people.

Making comics isn't fun at all, it's horribly, lonely and depressing, and so I get creeped out when I see people actually having a good time when talking about comics. I actually very rarely go into comic shops, and if I do it's to see if they can order in something specific for me. I think it's important to try and support independent comic shops, even if I see something in some twatty, shit shop like Magma for example, I'll always go to a comic shop instead to try and buy it. I'm actually more excited about the amount of comics that are finally being translated that I can get my hands on, people like Igort, Gipi or David B.

One thing that I do think the British small press scene needs is some sort of regular anthology, but trying to convince an existing publisher that there is money in such a venture would be next to impossible. I really don't know much about the publishing industry, but comics need to start getting press in mainstream publications and newspapers. Plan B mag regularly reviewing comics and stuff like The Observer competition are great ways of increasing comic readership, but it's still not enough.

(Go to Part Four)

Because I wanted to talk to...Stuart Kolakovic (Part Four)

2008-01-07T04:45:00.001-08:00

You only graduated relatively recently, but already you seem to have had success and gained quite a bit of exposure. How's that been for you? Too much, too soon or just fine?

I graduated six months ago, and I've managed to get by working as an illustrator.

Just.

It's horribly depressing because no matter how hard you work, illustration pays peanuts. Comics even less. It's difficult keeping your enthusiasm and stamina up, especially if you're doing a real bland/poorly paid job. I have to constantly remind myself that I'm making a living drawing pictures, which is what I've always wanted to do.

Which other comic artists, self-published and otherwise, are, in your opinion, worth checking out?

There's so many! And what's exciting about comics at the moment is that there's always new stuff popping up all the time. I love the simplicity of Ron Rege Jr, and reading his stuff has really turned me on to loads of other Northern American cartoonists. I recently came across Eleanor Davis' work, which I love. I think it's because she too obviously takes a lot of inspiration from folk stories. Actually, I read an interview with her a few months back, and she was talking about the comic course she was studying at college. That freaked me out a bit to think that people are being trained specifically to be comic artists. There're thousands of Illustration students being churned out every year, and now I've got to compete with hundreds of specifically educated comic artists too?

I also take a lot of inspiration from illustrators, writers and artists outside of comics. I've learnt a lot from Jonny Hannah's work and I've really started to get interested in naive and folk art from all over the world. I was really blown away when I went to the Folk Art Museum in New York City. Maybe it's because I feel empathy for these people that are just making art for the sake of doing it for themselves. Audrey Niffenegger's work is amazing. It's only because of the mainstream exposure of artists and writers such as Niffenegger that comics will ever have a real chance of being commercially and publicly recognised for what they are.

Other comic artists whose stuff I read again and again include Dash Shaw, Joann Sfar, Seth and Samuel Hiti. I bought a copy of White Rapids by Pascal Blanchet the other day, which was depressingly beautiful.

Please tell us about your latest projects, both in comics and the illustration.

Well, I need to start on a new book proposal, which I intend to do as soon as I get this pile of illustration work out of the way. Luckily I'm doing a job for Barclays at the moment, which should pay pretty good compared to what I usually work for. That means that I'll be able to work solid on the proposal for a good few weeks. The story follows on from some of the stuff I touched on in Milorad and is going to be about two brothers growing up in Serbia during World War Two. The mentality of Serbs fascinates me. They lived through four wars in the first half of the 20th Century alone, it's crazy. And if the worst comes to the worst and no one is interested in publishing it than I'll have to self-publish it, which will be a daunting task.

What are your plans for the future, both in terms of your comics and illustration work?

Keep on going and hope I don't go blind. When I get the time I'm going to start pestering other comic anthologies and maybe even some ‘Yewf’/culture magazines who are under the misconception that comics are cool. And they're really not.

But mainly I just want to start work on this book and see where it takes me.

Hopefully not the gutter.

Stuart Kolakovic, thanks for your time.

Because I wanted to talk to...David Baillie (Part One)

2007-12-29T15:28:00.001-08:00

David Baillie is a talented cartoonist living and working in Mile End in London. He's also an illustrator, writes comics journalism and is currently busy with various personal writing projects. I spoke to him about the realities of life as a working artist and writer, his work for the Judge Dredd Megazine and flogging his wares down Camden (no, really).

NB: Examples of David's mini-comics can be found online at his website.

David, please tell us about yourself.

Let's see... For those who haven't met me, I look a bit like a young Paul Newman. Perhaps a little meaner ‘round the eyes. I was born in Scotland some thirty years ago and spent my youth reading comics and hunting haggis. I moved to London to see where the haggis (plural of haggis) go when we send them south of the border. I'm still not sure. I also make comics (writing and drawing) and do a bit of designing. On a good month this pays the rent. Otherwise I hunt haggis on the mean streets of the East End of London.

Most self-published cartoonists make comics in their spare time. You decided to go freelance as an illustrator and make comics as part of that. What made you take 'the leap' considering you had a stable job (arguably an easy life)?

It was an easy enough decision. I hate the idea of wasting my time on Earth - we don't get that much of it! The job I had was actually great - it paid well, I toiled alongside some really nice people, the work was usually interesting and my desk overlooked the river Thames. But if they hadn't been paying me, I wouldn't have been there. I'd have been at home making comics. So that’s what I should be doing. Oh and I hate commuting.

What advice would you give the you that started making comics three years ago?

Don't be so shy! It took me far too long to approach publishers and present myself as a potential freelancer. I spent the first year timidly sending things in, and almost apologising for doing so. I still don't think I'm quite there, but I'm getting better at it. If you look at the people that 'break in' quickly (and not just in comics, but any creative field) they tend to be bold and self-confident. Like Worzel Gummidge, I think any new freelancer has to have that head ready to stick on. Even if they replace it with their shy head after they've written their cover letter or made that phone call. Oh, and I'd also tell my three-years-in-the-past self to learn how to draw hands properly. Sheesh.

Which are your favourite comics, small press or otherwise?

That's a tough one. I love Chris Ware. The last Acme Novelty Library I read - The Annual Report to Investors - was breathtaking. He takes the grammar of comics and bends it to whatever shape best fits his story. Mike Carey's Crossing Midnight is a great read, and I hope it's doing well enough to continue because I need to know how it all turns out. I used to be a Vertigo junkie, but the only other title I read from them now is Y The Last Man. Oh and 100 Bullets, although I've lost track of what's going on and might have to go back to the start. I still read 2000AD every week, and it's mostly really good. My favourite comic ever is Hewligan's Haircut (which was in progs 700 and up). Well actually joint favourite. Alex Robinson's Box Office Poison gets a gold medal too. I also really like Dan Hipp's stuff. When I read the online preview of Gyakushu I was green and gooey with envy.

In terms of the small press I voraciously read anything by my friends. Oli Smith's autobiographical meanderings are always thought provoking (I really liked a recent one he did about a night time stroll with his girlfriend). Douglas Noble's Strip For Me is the Bergman of the indie scene. Daniel Merlin Goodbrey's stuff never fails to entertain. His new web- strip is really fun. I've said it before and I'll say it again: Tales from the Flat is the Watchmen of the UK small press. Or maybe even Cerebus without the misogyny. When complete it will be a 100-issue odyssey charting the lives and loves of the flat dwellers, and when read in one sitting will induce Spiritual Enlightenment. Anything by Gary Northfield. And Sean Azzopardi. And Bridgeen Gillespie. Also - Monkeys Might Puke is a must-read. But don't come crying to me later if it upsets you. Actually come to think of it, it wasn't that tough a question...

(Go to Part Two)

Because I wanted to talk to...David Baillie (Part Two)

2007-12-29T15:26:00.000-08:00

Please tell us about your Meg' column.

My chance to do a monthly Judge Dredd Megazine column came about when you jumped ship to spend more time writing your in-depth analyses of talent that no longer speaks to 2000AD. When the editor, Matt Smith, emailed me and asked if I'd be interested I was over the moon, and spent the first week writing thousands of words of complete waffle. I had originally planned an over the top Grant Morrison circa 1990-esque diary column, full of tongue in cheek references to my lavish life style, comics-groupies and the rock star merry-go-round existence of an indie comics creator. Unfortunately it's difficult to squeeze that into 400 words a month and still have something resembling useful information there too. I think the compromise works.

The column, and the small press section as a whole (NB: the small press section consisted of David's column about life as an indie comic creator and a strip taken from the UK small press comics scene), will be taking a rest over the winter months. The gap is being filled by one of those comics that happened in the '90s when the Marvel and DC universes collided and they published hybrid titles. It's one of my favourites though, and I'm really looking forward to reading it again. Amalgam... The Amalgam Universe. That's what it was called. Anyway they merged Z List Marvel hero Night Thrasher with the John Wagner / Carlos Ezquerra, Worzel Gummidge-alike DC character Bob The Galactic Bum. Yeah - Bob the Galactic Night Bum Thrasher. My favourite ever anti-hero. Meg readers are gonna love it.

Which of your comics are you proudest of and why?

None of them. It's hard to look back at my old stuff without dwelling on all the things I would do 'better' now. Unfortunately my favourite stuff from this year's batch of work is sitting in failed pitch files and screenplays that no one is ever likely to read. I'm adamant that next year will be different.

You seem to genre-skip a lot. Is this a conscious choice or just a tactic to fend off boredom?

I was very conscious that quitting the 'career' was as much to do with escaping the soul-destroying monotony of the day-to-day grind as it was about wanting to write fantasy zombie sci-fi comics. What would be the point of quitting a job in which I had to do the same stuff every day, to then write and draw comics…That were all about the same stuff. Every day. Of course I shot myself in the foot because now I have an illustration portfolio where every piece is in a different style and I don't have any two comics that even 'feel' the same, so editors and art directors do tend to look at my stuff and say something like 'I don't get it...What is it you actually do?' Fuck 'em. I like eating Pot Noodles.

What's in the pipeline for you next?

Well, I'm sure you're sick of hearing about my big plans. But... I really want to get round to putting together this book I've been thinking about all year, which is a triptych of one act stage plays. The book would contain the scripts along with comics’ adaptations. They can be read as comics or performed as plays. It seemed like a great idea at the time and I definitely will get around to it. I'm working on a stalled comics project called Electron City. Which is sci-fi. And uses vector graphics. I also have a strip in the new Sci Fi anthology Hybrid, which has some huge names attached, that I don't think I'm allowed to mention yet. And I've just started work on an educational graphic novel for Cambridge Technique that will be used as a revision aide for GCSE students. On top of that I have 39 more instalments of my Belly Button Bubble Chronicles weekly web comic (which is on the front page of my website) to go. Future episodes will divulge in gory detail my physical, mental and financial collapse. And you'll find out why my bellybutton talks.

(Go to Part Three)

Because I wanted to talk to...David Baillie (Part Three)

2007-12-29T15:19:00.000-08:00

You don't just make comics. Please tell us something about your other projects.

I pole dance.

No, really I do.

What?

What do you mean then?

Oh…

Yeah, it's funny - I was calling myself a writer/artist for years before anyone took me seriously. On a whim I plopped 'designer' alongside the other two job descriptions, and five minutes later the world was battering down my door. I'm currently the features and cover designer on Comics International. I also have a portfolio of clients that harass me on a daily basis (but also pay my rent some months, so I'm not complaining) for web design, logo design, document design.

Everything except interior design, but I doubt that's far off.

As much as possible I'm trying to take on projects that help develop the skills I want to use in my comics work.

My illustration work has taken off this year too, with my client filofax not exactly bulging but healthily overweight.

Listen to me... Filofax.

I, of course, mean bit-of-paper-folded-in-four.

What's all this about Camden Market? Has it been a success? Who else is involved? Whose idea was it?

I think we both know who's responsible! Young Oli Smith came up with the idea when he saw someone else (the Brodie's Law guys) doing exactly the same thing. His 'I'll have some of that for myself!' attitude will serve him well in the cutthroat comics industry that he's determined to penetrate after he leaves primary school.

So, every weekend a co-op of indie creators have been gathering at Camden Lock to sell our wares to the general public and it's been a monumental success. I think a few of us were getting jaded with the bog standard comics convention where you get the same faces showing up biannually... I mean they're great faces, but it's depressing being so painfully aware that everyone has aged six months since the last time you saw them. It's like when strobe lights come on in a nightclub and if you blink you experience discreet static moments instead of continuous time. Like really bad time travel.

And we sell loads. And loads. And loads. Of comics. And the public love us.
I'm hoping that when word gets out we can expand to two or three stalls. Or ten!

I think the scene has been crying out for a proper regular outlet like this. After all, if independent creators can actually make a bit of money from their self-publishing instead of optimistically hoping to break even at Birmingham or Bristol or somewhere else beginning with a 'B', then they can devote more time to actual comic creation without going hungry.

Another interesting side effect is that already we're talking about escaping this mindset of aiming to produce a new piece of work for one of the 'tent pole' cons. Sean Azzopardi's hoping to get something new out every 4 or 5 weeks.

And it's fun. We have a great time. Someone's always hungover (have you met Karrie Fransman? She makes great soul searching, life-affirming comics), someone's usually surrounded by jail-bait rabid fans (that would be Oli, who's too young to be jailed and so doesn't care), someone's frequently found foisting his books on hot goth girls (that would be Phil Spence of Ninja Bunny fame) and someone is always at the artists corner of the table drawing like a demon. That's most likely to be mad-genius Oliver Lamden of Tales From The Flat / Curtis Terrorist fame.

I'm not sure why we call it Artists Corner actually... It's the middle of the table.

David Baillie, thanks for your time. For more on David and his comics, please visit his website.

Mini-review: Dangnabbit 3

2007-11-30T12:09:00.000-08:00

Creator: Peter Beare

Web-fu: Peter's website

Contact: Via Peter's website

Price: Free (I picked up my copy at Travelling Man in Manchester)

Summary: Why the hell aren't people paying Peter Beare to make comics?

Overview: If artists' personalities are reflected in their art, then I expect Peter, should I ever meet him, to be self-effacing, restrained and far more sophisticated than he seems at first glance. It's no secret that I'm a big fan of Peters and I've already waxed lyrical about his comics in the Judge Dredd Megazine. I'm pleased to say, then, that this latest issue of Dangnabbit gives me no reason to revise my previous high estimation of his work.

Dangnabbit 3 is a collection of Peter's web-strips, a strip originally submitted for inclusion in an anthology and a revised version of his entry for the Observer Graphic Short Story Competition. It's all good stuff, with only the occasional mis-step (there's a typo in one of the strips, but, given the quality of the overall package, I have to say that I'm really reaching here to find something to criticise).

The graphic storytelling in Dangnabbit is top-notch. Peter's art is stylish, but unfussy. Not for him unnecessarily flashy visuals. Instead, his clean line work ensures that his stories, or rather gag strips, are given room to breathe.

What then of the writing?

Well, if Peter isn't as accomplished when it comes to his writing as he is in terms of his art, then that's not a problem, because that still means that he's a talented writer. Most of the strips amuse and in some cases betray a pretty sick sense of humour and a bit of a fascination with serial killers. My personal favourite is Museum, perhaps because in this strip Peter experiments a little. Museum dispenses with words completely and uses images to portray its characters' speech. So, when a boy speculates about the contents of a box in a museum and suggests that it might contain eyeballs, Peter draws eyeballs instead of writing the word itself. It's a nice departure.

Basically, if you see this mini-comic then you should pick it up (there were several copies still left in Travelling Man today). And if you don't manage to find a copy of Dangnabbit 3? Visit Peter's website. There's plenty of stuff posted there that you can read for free and should you enjoy his work, well, I'm sure an email saying so wouldn't go amiss.

If you like this: you'll probably like John Welding.