For those who claim that British comics are "dead in the water", I'd urge them to read Paul Gravett's comments about the matter over on his website. Paul has long been the man with his finger on the (healthy) pulse of the UK comic scene, and is a recognized authority on comics from his days running the Fast Fiction table at London comic marts of the 1980s and editing Escape magazine, to writing several books on comics and running the Comica events. His words on the subject make inspiring and encouraging reading.
Some people may compare the handful of actual comic titles in newsagents today to the heyday of decades ago and find it a grim situation, and they'd have a point. However, Paul looks at the bigger picture, and offers a refreshing perspective after the pessimism and negativity of some bloggers. Check it out for yourselves:
http://www.paulgravett.com/index.php/articles/article/great_british_comics_now/
The adult humour comic Poot! was revived a while back and the latest issue, No.7, is out now. Distribution is improving on this title and according to its website Poot! is now available throughout the UK including many WH Smith branches at stations and airports. (In the last week I've seen it in two local newsagents myself.) In this day and age that's an impressive accomplishment for a comic that isn't connected to a merchandise license.
Comparisons to Viz are inevitable, but Poot! has its own identity, labeling itself as "Britain's Silliest Comic". It has 32 pages, all in full colour, with 17 pages of strips and the rest taken up with humour features and a handful of ads. My guess is that Poot! would appeal to a slightly younger reader than Viz, although both are aimed at over-18s of course. (And I imagine both comics are secretly read in the schoolyard anyway.) The humour is quite crude in places but not every strip is dependent on that. I chuckled several times whilst reading the comic. My personal favourite was Man Cat for its sheer daftness.
It's great to see another UK comic out there and I hope Poot! lingers around for a long time. If it's not available in your area yet you can subscribe via the official website:
http://www.pootcomic.com/index.html
The fourth issue of the sporadic Multiverse magazine is now out. Subjected to delays for various reasons it appears that the comics news magazine is on a more reliable frequency, which is good to see.
Contents of the 52 page full colour issue include comments by writers of some of the "New 52" DC Comics, an obituary to Gene Colan, pencil roughs of John Byrne's new series Cold War, news, reviews, and more.
With the instant accessibility of the Internet do people still have interest for a comics news magazine in print? Editors Mike Conroy and Barry Renshaw obviously believe so, and with Multiverse they've produced a magazine that's well written, sharply designed, and often more in-depth than online news items might be. And it's 100% troll-free, which is an added bonus.
Those of you looking for news items on traditional British comics won't find it in this issue unfortunately. Multiverse is pretty much American superhero/fantasy - centric. It makes sense to favour those genres as the magazine is mainly sold in comic specialist shops frequented by customers with those interests. It would be nice to at least see a page devoted to traditional UK material though because, after all, Multiverse is a British magazine, but I'd guess that depends on whether British publishers are sending them news releases or not.
To be fair, there is a four page article on independent UK publisher Com.X and their new 64 page one-shot BlueSpear, and there's an interview with UK writer Rob Williams on his new Ghost Rider series for Marvel USA. It seems that Multiverse isn't deliberately avoiding running news on British comics but they can only work with what they're given. One could argue that any journalist should seek out the news him/herself but any news editor looking at the jumbled bagged product on the shelves of British newsagents isn't going to know where to start. (Especially when many of the titles don't even feature comic strips, and many newsagents don't stock all titles anyway.) It's up to publishers to contact magazines such as Multiverse and Comic Heroes in order to promote their wares. The core readership of Multiverse might not give a damn about who's drawing for the latest Beano or Commando, but (as I've discovered with Blimey!) a percentage of them certainly would, and it might raise the awareness of UK comics with other readers.
You'll be pleased to hear that subscriptions to Multiverse are now available for 6 or 12 issues. Full details are at the magazine's website here:
http://www.multiverse-magazine.com/
The artist Jamie Smart's work on childrens comics has come in for some harsh and over-the-top knocks recently from a handful of critics. It even reached the ludicrous extreme of one of them setting up a hate page littered with vile personal abuse. However, perhaps even those critics would find Jamie's cover to this week's Dandy a superb example of great design and funny cartoonery. Shown here for your viewing pleasure is one of the best covers seen on The Dandy since its relaunch, and it's had some stiff competition.
Hats off to the cover designer too. That logo with its blue background should really jump off the shelves, assuming the retail staff don't place it back to front or behind The Beano again.
There are 22 pages of brand new material in this week's issue (not counting the jokes pages and suchlike). Highlights for me were Nigel Parkinson's Harry Hill strip as always, plus Alexander Matthews' Nuke Noodle, and, my particular favourite this week, the hilarious Swamp Bloke, the latest story in Wilbur Dawbarn's Rocky's Horror Show series.
There's also a new Postman Prat, with a script by David Mason and artwork by me.
As they used to say, "Always keep a Dandy handy". A phrase that never quite caught on like "Never Be without a Beano", but the intention was the same. The Dandy No.3555, out now, £1.50. Support Britain's longest-running comic!
And for those of you who prefer vintage Desperate Dan, don't worry. Jamie's equally valid and hilarious version didn't erase the original Dan from history. He's still out there, either in your old comics or popping up in parts of the Internet when you least expect him. For example, check out Nigel Parkinson's blog, where Nigel recently showed a classic early Desperate Dan strip from 1938, when Dudley Watkins was drawing in a more raw but nevertheless excellent style:
http://nigelparkinsoncartoons.blogspot.com/2011/10/dudleys-dan.html
Over on the website of The Birmingham Mail today, the Speech Balloons column by Paul H. Birch gives a very fair and balanced review to the Spirit of Hope book. (Which as you probably know from reading previous posts is the charity book many of us contributed to after the natural disasters in New Zealand and Japan earlier this year.)
I was very pleased indeed to read Paul's comments about the page I scripted and drew for the book:
"Flick through the hundred plus pages and you might miss that other very special story; for it only lasts a single page three-quarters of the way through. It is titled Undefeated and is by Lew Stringer.
It has been said of Stringer that he can come up with canny and corny punchlines aplenty and as often as you like. Now some will view that as recommendation, others as criticism. Either way, it has served his publishers well. That he is not only a verbal gagster but a first rate cartoonist is unquestionable.
That, like [Liam] Sharp, he goes outside his comfort zone, and swims that extra mile makes his tale special too: He uses the tools of his cartooning trade; applies some of the journalistic tricks he's picked up along the way and juxtaposes the visual and the verbal to create something that raises a smile but respectfully; taking us through a series of mixed emotions in the space of six simply outlined panels. Do I make too profound a comment on something so short, and perhaps so apparent as it rests there on the page before me? No. It's what marks the great out among the good. They don't have to act clever: they just are."
Paul goes on to be far too critical of his own work, but one always sees the flaws in one's own material. Given the chance again I'd go back and re-draw a couple of bits in my Undefeated strip as there are parts that needed to be gritter I think, but I'm pleased to see that it had a good reception as it stands.
Even though I've been freelancing in comics for 28 years it's been rare to see reviews of my work as the focus is usually on the teen/adult material, so this review made my day.
If you haven't bought Spirit of Hope yet you can order your copy from this link:
http://www.comicbook.org.uk/spirit-of-hope/
