Review - [The] Stan Lee [Documentary]

Part One: The Beginning 

(a balding) Lee, Kirby & Ditko circa 1961

Did you know that Stan Lee was bald? Oh you did? I regard him as one of my heroes, possibly the greatest, but I never knew about his lack of hair and if I did I put it out of my head for other more practical thoughts. So that was my only real revelation with this new documentary about the man behind Marvel and that wasn't spoken about, it was just obvious. It didn't need to be mentioned because in 1960, Stanley Lieber was extremely bald and in 1962, Stan Lee had a full head of hair and by 1967 he looked like a groovy man-hippy in his mid-40s. Perhaps, this was his mid-life crisis? If it was it lasted the rest of his life (but you can see in his 90s that it probably was just a hair piece plonked on his head).

In terms of biographies, Stan Lee did pretty much what it sets out to achieve. Stan's early life - as with most of the rest of the film - are in his own words and I'd say there was probably some white lies thrown in to possibly embellish his own importance. I'd say Stan was a proud man and I think he would have looked at the poverty he grew up in - his father was often out of work - and decided he didn't want people thinking he was some kind of bum or low-life from a nothing family.

So much hair!

It quickly moves forward to end of the 1930s when he started work at Timely - the consensus is he wandered into Timely as a 16-year-old and was editor by the time he was 17, because he was essentially the only person left. This is where he stayed, him and a team of artists, writers and auxiliaries knocking out westerns, romances, sci-fi, monsters and anything but superheroes. Atlas was very much in the shadow of DC - a company that was barely mentioned (if at all, apart from a section with the late Julie Schwartz in it).  

He must have done a reasonable job because he was never replaced and Timely, then Atlas and finally Marvel Comics bimbled along, in the shadow of DC, for years and kept Lee comfortable. There are some telling moments when he recalls essentially green lighting anything he wrote so that he could earn the money to keep him and Joan living in a style they liked. There is also this insistence that he wanted to be a writer, which I've always been puzzled about. If you want to be honest, there's nothing in Lee's words that are good, but everything about the message he conveys is. 

I've always been of the opinion that Lee lied about his lifelong desire to be a writer, I think that was a idea he developed that glamorised his youth better. I think Lee was probably of the opinion he'd work in the rag trade and when he got a job at a struggling pulp publisher it was only because he didn't want to repeat his father's mistakes. He had to start writing Captain America and other stories as Jack Kirby and Joe Simon left and there was no one else to turn to. I don't think there was any doubt that Stan was a powerhouse, a man with ideas who turned them into realities. Stan did a pretty good job of being Mr Marvel and that's where I think the problems started...

Part Two: The Middle 

The documentary takes on an element of lies when we reach the 1960s. It is well known that by 1960 Marvel - or Atlas as it was - was Lee, Kirby and Ditko, but there were a couple of other guys who literally were never mentioned in the doc and apart from Flo Steinberg (office bunny) and an almost derogatory reference to his own brother Larry Lieber, you wouldn't have thought anyone else worked there. 

However, it's when Stan starts saying in the narration 'I did this' and 'I did that'. 'I thought up the idea of Spider-Man.' Which, incidentally ended up being two separate versions of how he dreamed up Spidey. There's something about Lee's anecdotes that possibly makes it easier to wonder if he's really telling the truth, yet there were stories that you knew 100% were true because of the way he talked about them - most of which were not references to creations and creators. I felt you could tell what was true to his memory and what was possibly embellished (a word Stan loved). There was something in his voice.

There were also the mentions of co-creating characters - which he admitted to with the X-Men - or even Jack Kirby solely creating the Silver Surfer. The problem was when he was talking about the Fantastic Four, The Hulk and Spider-Man it sounded like he was hiding things; not telling the whole truth. There was also this odd avoidance of certain other characters who Lee (and others) created - Daredevil, Ant-Man, Sub-Mariner and Sgt or Nick Fury - maybe the documentary would have dragged on, made it more about the comics than the man 'creating' them?

There was too much distinct 'I did this' about it, but without wanting to sound like I'm belittling the claims of Kirby, Ditko or others, there was no real evidence [in the film or in life] that the artists were more responsible in the creation of certain characters. However, this is my opinion and I've deduced this from recordings and others eye witness testimonies that both Ditko and Kirby had gone on record claiming because they designed the look of a character and spent 10 times longer drawing it than Stan did writing it, the artist was either the proper 'owner' or joint 'owner' of the character. Both Kirby and Ditko saw it as 'time served' rather than creative integrity. Or at least that's the distinct message you're getting from Jack Kirby in a 1987 phone in where he and Stan Lee 'discussed' who did what.

I want to tell you a story and I want you to tell me who you think created the character:

Fil the Norg

In 1984, myself and a good friend created a comic strip character called Fil the Norg. Now, Fil was a cantankerous old git (based on me) and he was going to have a sidekick called Cloin, who looked a bit like my artist friend. Now, I came up with the idea of Fil but my friend designed his look. He designed Cloin singlehandedly while I came up with his name and his identity. We produced a dozen three-panel newspaper strips, all written and plotted by me and drawn by my friend.

I had an associate who was a senior editor at the Kettering Evening Telegraph and I showed her the strips, she took photocopies back to her bosses and got back to me and said the newspaper wanted to run strips from local creators, they were well up for publishing our strip. They also talked about £200 per strip and they'd want at least 26 weeks worth - up front to ensure they had plenty of lead-in time - and, most importantly, would allow us syndication rights if anyone else wanted it.

I took the proposal back to my friend and said we'd split the fees 50-50 and both of us would clear £500 a week for at least six months. We were set well. Except my friend wanted 90% of the fee, 80% at a push. He refused to accept that we were a creative team, we had created these characters together and just because he put more physical man hours in didn't mean he was entitled to more. It didn't end well and I had to turn down the gig and I fell out with my friend (and we've never really been friends since because I feel he sacrificed our chance of something big by being greedy) and was treated like some kind of despicable shit by our mutual friends, who blamed me for us not becoming famous. None of them understood the creative process and none of them wanted to - it was all about physical man hours, nothing else.

Interestingly, my friend went on to create a number of his own creations and no one was interested in them because they weren't funny or any good. He never accepted that we had a good deal at 50-50 and 20 years after this happened was still adamant that because he drew the characters, he owned them and all I did was come up with some ideas.

Who would you say is the creator of Fil the Norg? I'd always say, we created the character; it was a genuine co-creation.

I believe this is maybe what happened with all these Marvel characters created in the early 1960s. It may well have been Stan Lee rolling into the offices saying, 'What if we had this kid who gets bitten by a radioactive spider and can stick to walls?' or 'How about a good monster?' or 'Why don't we do another superhero team, this time with kids?' Maybe that was all it was and Jack and Steve went away and came back with character designs. If this is what happened in the early 60s then it's quite possible that the artists' ire was created not by the real truth but by the way Stan took responsibility for everything (or nearly everything)? Lee obviously had a massive ego and was full of self confidence (given the wigs he wore); he became the face of Marvel, therefore in corporate speak he was the man who created Marvel.

Of course the problem now is this feud between those who feel Stan Lee is god and those who feel he's a huckster charlatan who stole the ideas from his greatest artists. I've long sat on the fence about this because I believe - as the MCU does - that someone might have come up with the original idea, but every writer, artist, inker and even editor had a part to play in developing those characters to where they ended up. Co-creators the lot of them.

If I wanted to throw an existential spanner in the works, take Adam Warlock. Created by Jack Kirby, originally scripted by Stan Lee, he wasn't know as Warlock for a few years yet. However, when Jim Starlin took control of the character it changed so drastically that 'Him' created by [Lee and] Kirby in 1966 and Adam Warlock are so far removed from each other you could easily think they were different characters. Jim Starlin is, in this instance, the true creator of the Adam Warlock that became iconic in the late 1970s; he didn't think the character up but he made it a success. Out to left field - Alan Moore's Swamp Thing?

The children and grandchildren of the greatest comics artists of an era will argue until the cow's come home over who did what but they did it together; they were a team of people having some fun, there wasn't ever an issue of ownership because everyone worked for the company and the company owned everything. If you're one of the people who wants to continue this pointless argument, carry on, I'm happy believing that they were all responsible and Stan had the loudest voice.

Part Three: The End

After Marvel parted company with Stan in the late 20th century, it seemed like the grand old man of comics would fade into obscurity, however with the surge in popularity in the MCU and the taste for Marvel nostalgia at its peak, Stan was invited back as Chairman emeritus and started his new career as a cameo actor in as many of the MCU films as possible. 

The documentary didn't examine the allegations against Lee's carer and PA, nor did it spend too much time on the lows in his life - the death of his second daughter was almost casually mentioned. It was a celebration of 100 years of Stan 'the Man' Lee the guy called Stanley Lieber, as he was before Marvel.

The film wasn't or at least didn't appear to be a Marvel or Disney production, which suggested to me that they could have delved into some of the controversy a little more, but, just to emphasise this, only a handful of very loud unwittingly angry comics buffs want to keep the creator/owner debate going; it's like they want a message from the grave from Stan saying 'they did it really'. This was just a celebration and it was interesting that Stan narrated it himself. 

There are some anachronistic things about the visuals, which was off-putting to someone who knew the timeline before I sat down to watch and when it was made there were still a few of the 1960s bullpen still alive so it would have been nice if they had said a few things, if able or willing.

This wasn't a hagiography, but it did veer towards it at times. The film also wasn't as universally accessible as I thought it should be; it felt like a film made by a fan - but I suppose anyone who grew up with Marvel is going to be a fan of Stan Lee. Whether you think he was an 20th century icon or a thieving manipulative sociopath, there's no escaping the fact that as a simple comic book publisher, he certainly made his mark. 

Si Spencer

Borderline Press's second project was Zombre. In my mind's eye, I saw myself literally as 'the publisher' and was happy to get others involved, especially if they were going to do most of the donkey work. The idea was my friend Will Vigar would compile and edit an anthology to try and we'd cash in on the zombie/walking dead popularity. Yes, it was an unprecedented attempt to cash in, but it was done in the spirit of putting something out that would sell a lot and allow us to do other more eclectic projects.

My role was essentially publisher and editor-in-chief/designer, but the latter was literally only as a safety net. I had to make some difficult decisions as far as page count etc was concerned and wrangle Will into getting it all to me so I could get it to the printer. 

Will was massively excited about having the opportunity to do such a project and managed to get his old friend, professional TV and comics writer Si Spencer involved. For someone such as myself, who had essentially been out of comics for ten years, I was vaguely familiar with the name but accepted Will's assurances that having Si involved would be a good thing; after all, I was trying to surround myself with people who were more 'in tune' with trends in comics than I was. And to be frank, I couldn't care who he got involved as long as the quality was high.

To this day, Zombre has been the best selling of all the Borderline Press titles; although 'best' is something of a misnomer as it sold about 300 copies (a rough estimate, I no longer have actual figures etc) and I don't know if that was because it had a 'name' involved or if it was catching the zeitgeist of zombies and dead things.

To say that my initial meeting with Si was all fluffy kittens and £ signs would be a massive understatement. He had arranged a sort of small scale 'comics mart' at his local pub The Lord Clyde and Will and I found our way into London to be present at what was effectively a 2nd, much lower key, launch (we had been to Leeds in the early autumn for an official launch which proved to be a huge waste of time and money). There was, if I recall correctly, a slight frisson of mistrust from both of us. In 2013, I was still kind of known in the industry, but more for being Skinn's pit bull rather than for such proper achievements as Borderline Magazine and the good stuff I did for Comics International, and thanks to renowned shitmongerer Rich Johnston I was being painted as some kind of misogynistic arsehole as Johnston focused on my numerous faux pas than on the fact we were trying to do something new and for the underdogs in comics and I got the impression that Si did the job for Will and had I approached him I would have got a big fat no.

However, by the end of the day, we'd sat with beers and talked about stuff and I began to warm to him; we had, it seemed, a lot in common. We hooked up on Facebook, although at first it felt more like an arrangement of convenience rather than because we liked each other, but gradually I commented more on his timeline and I noticed he was appearing on mine. It seems that social media has some benefits, it can cast you in a bad light, but it can also help shine a light on the fact that for all my faults - of which I have many - you can sometimes get a feel for what a person is really like by the stuff he or she posts.

I realised that we were friends at some point in 2015 when Si got banned from Facebook for a month - his hobby it seemed was going onto right wing FB pages and winding the fascists up. He set up a new FB account and befriended the people he was in contact with or liked, I was one of them and in a weird kind of way that was a bit of an ego-booster for me.

Over the last few years, with memories of Zombre fading, my involvement in comics completely gone, we would talk either publicly or in private messages about other shit. Music, old TV, interesting stuff that he or I found funny or abhorrent and eventually a lot of our discussions turned to depression - something both of us suffered from, but Si obviously was further down that road than me. I once said to him, 'I sometimes wonder if being born when we were is indicative of our mental health 50 years down the line'. He agreed.

Despite the fact we had little to do with each other personally, it didn't stop us from communicating more. I got the impression that first impressions had long been put aside and while I would never consider myself one of his proper friends, I often felt I had become part of his infamous Hivemind of friends who would be consulted when Si needed advice or input from people he thought might know what he didn't.

Oddly enough, whenever Si got banned from social media, I felt something was missing from my Facebook and whenever he reappeared either as Si or Simon depending on which account hadn't been frozen it made me happier. You know, for all my disdain towards things like Facebook and social media in all its forms, I've made some good 'friends' who I've barely ever met and Si was one of them.

Then on the 17th February, Will posted something about Si dying. My initial reaction was, this has got to be wrong, he had only posted something like 20 hours earlier about vaccine rollouts for Covid and toad in the hole, but it proved to be very true. I have no idea what happened in those hours after his last post and the announcement from Colleen his wife, on his FB page, but it all pretty much became a reality very quickly. 

It left me in a profound state of shock. We were virtually the same age and like dear Terry Wiley I had lost another 'comics' friend far too early. 

John Freeman of Down the Tubes contacted me and asked if I would write Si's obit; I turned him down because there are far more people out there far more qualified who would do it justice, but I tagged my own little tribute onto the end of Will's. https://downthetubes.net/?p=124922&fbclid=IwAR04_16Zpr_u0q78RbXXOK5c1wcKFdgmmno7aQ99SjJaEUlEz2xF162jbr8

However, he was still one of mine. I was someone who published him, albeit in a small way and therefore he was important to me. 

The world is a little less today and tomorrow and all the subsequent days that follow. I wish I'd known him a lot better, but equally I'm selfishly glad I didn't because that would have made this so difficult to write. I have the utmost sympathy and love to his wife Colleen and all of the fantastic people whose lives have even been slightly touched by Si Spencer not being in the world any longer. KYAL as he used to say - Know You Are Loved. You were. 

Terry Wiley (1961-2018)

I lost one of my best comics friends last week. It feels much more raw than it should, but that's probably because Terry Wiley was only a few months older than me and nothing brings home your own mortality than someone close dying. He was 56. In terms of a child it's an ancient age, but when you're 56 it's just over two-thirds of the way through what you'd expect in the 21st century.

Terry was the creator of Verity Fair (published by me in 2014) and co-conspirator for British small press classics such as Sleaze Castle, Surreal School Stories and Miffy (which would grace the pages of Borderline magazine while simultaneously create a publishing paradox that only Terry could explain...) all unique; all harkening back to a time when comics were fun but with nods to how contemporary they had become.

A sunburned Miffy appears in Verity Fair, albeit briefly. Miffy's first appearance was in 2001, however, according to Terry, Miffy's three-panel strips in Borderline take place after events in Verity Fair, completed nearly a decade and a half later... Terry knew what the score was, I didn't question him. A paradox was not a hurdle and he alluded to a future project that tied all of this weird time jiggery-pokery up. I can only ponder now...

Terry spent the last few weeks of his life in a hospice; as someone with a disease that will eventually kill me, the idea of a hospice is terrifying, yet is also supposed to be uplifting for those involved. He was visited by many of his friends and fellow comics people; he had a stream of people reminding him that he was important. He spent two great weeks with Cindi his fiancee and his final moments surrounded by his closest friends and family.


It seems that only now is the rest of comics waking up to the fact that one of their own is no longer with us... You see, I think that was down to the simple fact that Terry was going through seven kinds of hell, yet he and his friends didn't really want the attention. For some people, the end of life is sacred on all kinds of levels and wanting the dignity of slipping away peacefully is pretty much top of most of our lists. It's just a shame (in my head, I have no idea how Terry felt) that he knew for best part of the last 2 years that the new 'friend' he was carrying around in his head wasn't friendly and would kill him, probably sooner than later.


Let's make a few things clear: a lot of us knew he was ill for a long time, some of us knew how bad it was (not me), but we all respected his wishes to keep it quiet. This was typically Terry. No fuss, no frills, let's have a laugh, but look after the kittens after I'm gone.

I'm going to miss the big man even though our time was limited to conventions and the occasional long, drawn out, convos on FB, SMS or Twitter. And I wish that the problems that befell Borderline Press, while Verity Fair was floundering around in a print shop in China, hadn't happened until much later, with a different project by someone else...
It would have been so much easier had we had a fair crack at marketing, selling the book and making him some money, but most of all getting him the recognition outside of small press. I don't think Terry ever wanted to draw Deadpool and make a fortune, but I do think he was have liked some recognition, not just for him but also for Adrian Kermode (also no longer with us) and Dave McKinnon (hopefully with us for a long time). Recognition was something Terry didn't have a problem with, mainly because he liked talking to people and recognition made that more possible.

I'm not privy to Mr Wiley's personal bank account details, but I never heard from anyone that he needed financial assistance. I expect he got the most out of our free NHS, from MacMillan and his local council. I also expect he found it easier to get some form of government benefits because of his situation, even if I do concede that getting forms of DLA from our benevolent and humanitarian government is often more difficult than extracting the eggs from a cooked cake, so I'm heartened that Terry had no struggle to make ends meet in his final months, and what I've heard from friends money was never an issue. In fact, I have literally discovered in the last few minutes that friends of his considered starting a crowdfunder or some such, but quickly opted against it on the grounds that Terry really would not like his private predicament dragged into a public spotlight, especially the kind of web page he had problems with even on a purely creative level; without bringing one's personal life into proceedings. His friends and fans respected that wish, without even really having to ask him.

How did Borderline Press and Terry team-up? I launched the idea and groundwork for it at Caption in 2013, Terry, who I had known for 15 years, was there and I basically said, probably in a slightly gushing way, ‘Can I publish your book?’ Meaning Verity Fair. He agreed and I had my first ‘project’. That was it. He didn't ask me what he was going to get out of it; he wasn't interested schedules or printers or even a contract or anything else. He was concerned about one thing ... "Can it have dust flaps?" Of course he could and it did.

That was how I’ll always remember him, unreservedly easy-going, humorous and benevolent. While I was growing increasingly frustrated with the delays and the fact I might not have a company by the time Verity Fair arrived back from China, he had been tweaking CMYK stuff for the printer, talking with me, being patient and available when I needed him, despite flitting back and forth across the Atlantic to spend time with his fiancee in Illinois. He amazed me with the way he dealt with the stuff considering it was his.

In a world with very few consummate professionals, Terry was exactly that.

When the really rather splendid collected edition of Verity Fair arrived, Borderline Press was in the throes of becoming another failed publisher, but undaunted by what I could no longer do for him, he took all my stock to conventions and then helped man tables for my successor, to help promote, not just his, but all the range of books. I remember getting a text message from him in October 2015, from the Lakes International Comics Festival, telling me how he'd done and how much he'd spent on sustenance that day. When I saw how much, I texted him back: "Go and buy yourself some dinner and a beer!" He'd spent less than a fiver on a coffee and a doughnut.

Not enough is said about the kind of person someone was when we lose them; it’s usually about achievements or how others felt about him. Terry and I both shared a passion for social justice and a fairer society; it’s what drove our conversations – in person and on-line – and it’s ultimately why we became friends. Yet, I don’t want you to ever think that I published him because of some 'old mates' network; I published him because he was a unique story teller, married to modern independent comics but never forgetting the British comics he grew up with and loved.

Sadly, death, like life, comes at unexpected times and I am just one of a few people who would have wanted to be at Terry's funeral on September 25th but are unable to do so because of immutable circumstances. I’ll miss the big lovely man and I’ll treasure his legacy. I was proud to have published him and call him my friend, so I will find a nice quiet beach somewhere and spend a few minutes thinking about Mr Terry Wiley and maybe shed a tear or two.

Oh and while you are here...

The Borderline Press edition of Verity Fair is again on sale (subject to quantity) and every single penny of sales (excluding P&P) will be donated to a charity of Terry's choice. His long-term, long-distance fiancee Cindi Geeze will decide where all money goes to, but it is likely to go to either a brain cancer trust or a local Newcastle animal charity - maybe both if people clear us out of Terry's final book. I want my friend to look down from wherever he is and think we're doing okay by him.

If you want a copy then either contact me via the blogs email thing; look out for me on Facebook, send me an email squonk_uk@yahoo.com or contact Ponent Mon publisher Stephen Robson (stephen@fanfareuk.demon.co.uk) or via their website or Facebook page. 

The stupid thing about it all is the only regret you'll have is not having bought it sooner.

Borderline Press Blog #34: The Future is Coming - But My End is Nigh

Before I even reached double digits I'd been exposed to the wonderful world of comics. I was about 5 when I first noticed some of my brother's lurid four colour pamphlets. My first real personal interest started in 1969 when I discovered British comic 'annuals' and then in June 1970, aged 8, I discovered Cor, ironically the comic where my one-time employer, mentor and (in his head) nemesis Dez Skinn started his own comics career - some tenuous synchronicity there if ever I saw some.

It seems odd, especially given how slow time tends to move when you haven't got much experience of life, that it was over two years before I was to rediscover the illuminating world of American comics. It was late November 1972 and our local newsagent, Forbuoys, run by a dour Scottish chap called Gordon Dow (who employed my mum in the shop and later became her insurance man - and that isn't a euphemism) took a gamble and decided to stock some different types of comics, as opposed to your usual Beano, Dandy, Beezer, Topper and Bunty. He stocked the new Mighty World of Marvel comic and also some American comics by a company called DC.

The first 'US' comic I ever bought was actually British, the aforementioned Mighty World of Marvel #6 (finding #1-5 proved to be considerably more difficult than I would ever have believed) and the following week when I returned to buy #7 I spotted something staring back at me from the spinner rack. It was an American comic called Swamp Thing #1, drawn by Berni Wrightson and written by Len Wein. I had no idea who these guys were, all I knew is their comic was the most outrageously unbelievable thing I'd ever laid my eyes on; and in that moment my life was changed inexorably.

Me in comics has been well chronicled. Yes, there's a rambling, poorly-edited mess, on this blog and in a Kindle, which tries to be educational, emotional and honest and probably only really works if you know me and can put the way I talk to the way it was written (and serialised). I liked some of it, but probably from a cathartic perspective rather than anything else. By the time I sat down to write that comics autobiography, initially in 2005, I never thought for a second that I'd end up back in comics, again, within 10 years, despite pretty much forecasting it by having an entire chapter on why I keep getting drawn back to comics despite it never having been particularly kind to me, even when I probably, on balance, believe I deserved it to be.

What A Life in Comics doesn't much do is admit to my having become an incredibly egocentric individual; someone who for long periods of time believed I was actually the centre of some comics world where my name, my opinion and my words were important. There wasn't really ever a point in my comics career where I was overtly important; covertly most definitely, but by virtue of the term 'covertly' people had to take my word for it. I did little ego promotional stuff until I worked for Skinn and then any ego I might have harboured was beaten frequently to the point where it hid and only the lure of money helped it reappear.

My 'day' in the sun was between 2001 and 2003 when, briefly, Borderline Magazine proved that as an organiser, producer and 'print' manager I was okay - punching above my weight. The problem was Borderline came along without any financial support which meant for it to be a success, in a far more naive time, I needed to work harder, be even more innovative and not rest on my laurels. The 'success' of my internet comics magazine woke up my ego and it was ignited by the chutzpah I'd absorbed via osmosis from Skinn. However the reality was simple, it might have been great, it might have been read by hundreds of thousands of people, but it was too far ahead of the game to make any money. Try to run a PDF internet delivered comics magazine like a print magazine highlighted the limits of my innovation - I developed a great idea but had no real idea how to market it; to make it work. In a world where internet start ups were now selling for millions, I was being shafted by desperate men who saw the potential in my project and saw we weren't exploiting it. Sadly for everyone involved, the desperate men had run out of money and goodwill by that time; no one inside the Borderline Magazine team saw it as something that was almost brilliant; we saw it as yet another kick in the teeth.

Working for Dez Skinn gave me a kind of siege mentality that has always been difficult to lose. Skinn made every day feel like us against the rest of them, especially given the bizarre way comics have always worked, the strange relationships that wouldn't or don't exist in other forms of retail, such as the comics companies' lack of promotional budgets or the expectancy that fans and fan websites/fanzines etc do the bulk of the promotional work, because, after all, comics has only ever sold to comics fans - it's all about preaching to the converted, etc. So when things didn't go even remotely close to the plan, it was like the world was against us - against me.

I pretty much knew after a year of relentlessly producing Borderline Magazine that it was destined to fail, but we persevered at a time when most, if not all, of the people who worked on it deserved to be paid for their efforts and contributions and we could barely scrape together £100 to pay for all the web hosting costs. There might have been ways to make it work, to make it pay, I simply wasn't clued up enough nor did I know the right people to steer us in the right direction. Remarkably (or perhaps not) despite the amount of people who saw it, no one else came along and said, "You should be doing this..."

By the end of it, I simply had had enough of comics. If I never saw another comic again it would be too soon. Yet within a couple of years, there I was, writing a column for a new website and only because they let me tell it straight. I think I wrote some of my best columns for The Comics Village, but it didn't take me long to realise that my few years away from comics was longer in technological advancement time than I could have anticipated, plus I hadn't actually read more than a handful of comics since 1999, so I was increasingly out-of-touch and lacking in product knowledge.

I had also grown tired of the proliferation of tossers on the internet - of which I counted myself as one. There really wasn't any need to be involved in comics any longer. I'd sold all my comics to buy a new boiler and I really couldn't care less who played Batman, the Joker or Spider-Man, that was all something from my dim and distant past.

And then shit happened...

I like to kid myself that I meant something, so when I took the (personally) ridiculous decision to start a comics publishing company up, I really believed, despite having been gone from comics for 10 years, that everyone would remember me and remember that I was pretty good at spotting a hit and I knew a good thing when I saw it - Movers & Shakers was popular in many ways for this simple fact. I believed I surrounded myself with the right people; made the right choices, did the right research and had the right person to back me. I had actually spent a couple of months trying to dissuade my business partner away from this venture, but in the end the lure of money, especially in a 'job' I knew well and the opportunity arriving just as I was being shafted by another employer embracing the Herr George Osborne school of slash and burn economic politics like their existence depended on it, proved too much and here I was, back in the world of comics - never say never say never again.

I could quite easily spend 50,000 words talking about events from early May 2013 to the meeting with my business partner in August 2015 - some of which are considerably more exciting and humorous than anything I wrote in the book - and maybe one day I will, but at the moment we're heading, as quickly as we  can, to the here and now and the exit sign.

The now is October 31, 2015. Borderline Press hasn't had a book out for a year and the official, and true, line is we're on hiatus. The hiatus was a mixture of enforcement and planned consequences. My partner, who has invested a sizeable quantity of money to both produce our back catalogue and help me keep my head just above the surface of despair, quite rightly said we need to sell some of the books before he would commit to any more investment - he didn't want to throw good money after bad if that was how this idea was going to pan out. We had a distribution deal in place; we were no longer thought of as new boys or a here-today-gone-tomorrow publisher and slowly, but nowhere near enough, sales increased. The problem was that the money coming in wasn't being used for anything other than running the business and as the spring turned to summer it started to look really poor on my part that all those scheduled books were still unscheduled.

I had a bad year. One of the worst I can remember in my 53 years. I thought 2014 was poor and it couldn't possibly get worse but I'd swap 2014 for 2015 in the blink of an eye. I've spent best part of the last 9 months trying to find a decent job, something to help me rediscover my self-esteem and get a bit of positivity back into my life; but so far I've fallen short (and the prospects during a Tory government are always bleak). I've spent time in hospital, been diagnosed with depression, lost a loved one and watched the country vote for more misery and now it's the autumn and my least favourite time of the year...

So in August I opted to do something I've done throughout my life. I cut off my nose to spite my face, as my mum would have said. Faced with no life-raft from Texas and with no real way forward for the publishing company in its current situation, I told my partner I was resigning from the business and giving up my directorship at the end of October. There is no money to keep me afloat either way. He felt I was being rash, possibly throwing the baby out with the bathwater, that there was still a way forward and I agreed. There was still a way forward, it just doesn't involve me.

A few things need to be understood, if you so please. I have pretty much hated comics and most everything about them since 1999. Like Pavlov's dog, comics seemed to be a constant reminder and a painful one that this was where I'd put all my eggs and it was how I fed myself. What was intended to be my last foray into comics - at The Comics Village - ended up feeling like being in a mutually abusive relationship.

Also a relatively large proportion of my friends became so through comics and it wasn't easy staying friends with people when one of the main subjects of discussion was now taboo. It was difficult but not impossible and eventually I realised I could talk about comics, but through knowledge, wisdom and a slightly detached (and morally superior) air.

As much as I hated comics, in 2001 I was still a gregarious and socially adept human being. The groundwork for Borderline Magazine was done, remarkably, mainly through a burst of enthusiasm I hadn't felt since that day when I found the Swamp Thing comic. In 2001 I was not as I am now. I'd argue that in 2015 I'm a considerably nicer and compassionate human being than I've ever been, the problem is the last couple of years the last thing I've wanted to do is talk about something I don't really enjoy in a fake way.

I discovered very quickly upon my return to comics that 10 years is a very long time when you're not part of something. Had I never left comics I might have been better prepared; had I shown more than just a passing interest in technology since 2003, I might have been better prepared. Had I not forgotten how to pretend to be a nice, approachable human being, I might have made a better impression. I've had more than enough time to sit and dissect all the things I probably did wrong or could have done differently.

Promotional events should have been the pinnacle of our push for an identity, but the first was so badly organised - by both the organisers and us - that our big splash barely caused a ripple and this probably would have set a tone had I not gone there with such a miserable, pessimistic and blindly optimistic head on... I know, that contradicts itself, but the thing was I took 500 copies each of 566 Frames and Zombre expecting to shift most of them; but I went with fear, trepidation and the feeling that it also would all go wrong - it did. This made me miserable before it happened and despite the venue and my never having been at the table for more than half an hour, I still felt like it was a massive blow and with hindsight probably down to me.

I went there thinking we were a professional new publishing house and there were unemployed geeks with comics I wouldn't touch with a bargepole in displays that made ours look very 1980s. Our gimmicks weren't even gimmicks and while I still believe had we been in a prominent place it might have been different, it was Thought Bubble 2013 that imprinted on me so much it was like a dial had been switched back to 1999. From that point on, subconsciously, I think I felt we were on a hiding to nothing and the shows in 2014 were so poor that by the end of the year I realised that we needed to do something else.

Leamington Spa's amazing entrance into the comics convention world was in many ways the antithesis of Thought Bubble 2013 - we had nearly a thousand people walk past our table on the day and we took about £30, which was about £470 less than the next worse take on the day. Either I was producing the wrong books or I was scaring away the punters by looking like a bored and angry old man with a look of resignation on his face.

I could probably come up with excuses for why we struggled at every convention, but the truth was with just one exception, when I wasn't there we took more money and generated more interest. It wasn't that I was just miserable and under enormous pressure at these events, I didn't actually like being there and that probably showed in my body language and inability to smile. There were very few people I could have a conversation with about something I was interested in and if people tried to engage me about comics I had to admit to being out of touch or I would have just come across as ignorant.

Why would someone who doesn't think of himself as a masochist keep coming back to something that physically and mentally makes him ill? It's like the man who repeats the same thing over and over in the hope that just once the outcome might be different - it's insanity and I've probably joined that exclusive club this very year.

So, you need to know that even if I'm moving towards the exit sign, the publishing company - actually a good thing with some superb books - is going to continue and it will probably be more successful without me. My (now former) partner and the distributor Fanfare have discussed a way forward; I've agreed to do some freelance stuff and identify possible future projects until someone else can do the jobs no one else here can at the moment. I've identified two possible projects on verbal commitments which I hope will come out in early 2016 and without me being a drain on resources then it will all probably start to make money for the people involved.

Don't expect a massive output. Many publishers of Borderline's ilk release things as and when and that is the new model for this publisher - the same quality, but even less frequent.

A couple of things will happen between now and next week. This comics blog will effectively close down and I'll hand control of the @BorderlineEU Twitter account and Facebook page over. What Borderline Press does from that point is up to a man called Adrian, but expect a much slicker and professional approach now that real businessmen are handling things.

I'm going to tentatively say that that's me done. Obviously I have form where this is concerned...

I'm sure if someone came out of the woodwork and offered me money to do something in comics again I probably would, but it depends on what else is available - as a committed vegetarian I could still have a career in abattoirs.

I'm going to make some sweeping changes to the way I interact with comics in the future and at the moment those changes involve me running away, trying not to scream, and hoping something doesn't come back and haunt me. Fortunately my true comics friends can talk about other stuff.

Thanks to every one that helped me through these tumultuous two years, special thanks to Will and Glenn and honorary mentions to Shipp, Mark, Dennis and Knut.

Stay safe and be nice to people.

Phil Hall 31-10-15

Borderline Press Blog #33 - What 'Hiatus' Means.

Just a quickie as it appears that my last blog alerted people to the fact that Borderline Press has ceased to exist, which is clearly not correct. The publisher who produced Paul Rainey's latest opus didn't produce anything for nearly two years, but I suppose because Paul Gravett didn't tell people he was taking a 'no cash in the bank' break no one presumed he'd packed up.

Borderline Press might never produce another book; but it plans to. I just needed (and need) to get my own house in order and, you know, I thought by keeping people in the loop I wouldn't have to constantly tell people. If problems mean that it's 18 months between releases, that's still better than some of my competition. I just needed people to be aware that books they were waiting for were going to be late, or done by another publisher.

We're in the process of generating money after the continuous Diamond cock-ups (let me tell you, being treated like the idiot cousin does have consequences, especially when you get dropped for a conglomerate who pretty much don't need extra pages of advertising) and I'm trying to get Santa scheduled (but Diamond's unreliability means having to make tough decisions about soliciting it - it's been bumped twice now). Treating yourself to a good book at a good discount can help us out, big time.

So if you haven't got all our books you can for 50% off from our web shop, that's about 50% less than you'll pay in the half dozen comic shops with progressive owners/managers who can spot a good thing when it bites them on the arse.

So anyone who picked up on the last blog wrongly, I have a simple message for you: I'm down, but I'm not out.

Borderline Press Blog #32 - Hiatus

Because of distributor cock-ups, health issues and a bunch of general problems, Borderline Press is officially on hiatus for the foreseeable future.

On a personal level, I need to take myself away from this for a while - doctor's orders - so there will be nothing scheduled or published before August 2015 when Santa Claus versus the Nazis will come out.

Robotz was cancelled. I found out about it in a circular email from the artist, which kind of sums up everything about this year.

I'm not packing it up; I just need some time to sort my life out and Borderline Press just compounds things almost on a daily basis.

Be patient; stick with Borderline Press and don't forget, if you haven't got all our books so far, they are all fantastic.

Borderline Press Blog #31 - Sod's Law

"We've had our fair share of setbacks," was a nice line aimed at me from Ben (Santa Claus) Dickson - who I'm glad to say thinks of himself as part of our little publishing family - and frankly I'm pretty amazed we're still here at times.

Setbacks and problems are part and parcel of this kind of venture, you just don't expect them to happen as you approach the end of Trading Year 2 - you would have pretty much cut all your teething troubles out by this point. Yet printers of a variety that would make Butch Cassidy proud, staffing troubles and ill health were just three things that were sent to try me in 2014 and 2015 was only going to get better...

Except we're at the end of March and I have nothing scheduled at the printer before the summer and yet again the reasons have been beyond my control. To say that it would be unwise of me to spotlight the recent debacle is an understatement. You don't walk into your only pub for 50 miles and call the landlord a See You En Tee and then punch his wife, especially if you're an alcoholic and that colourful metaphor pretty much sums up the situation I find myself in at the moment. I simply cannot tell you who's fucked up this time because I'd like to carry on trading/publishing.

Suffice it to say this latest setback is beginning to feel like someone somewhere has got it in for me, or perhaps some karma has found its way back to me - after all, I've been pretty scathing about comics for years, so anything that can go wrong was probably a nailed on certainty...

The whole thing has become a worry because I'm suddenly faced with a situation I'd not bargained for - a cash flow crisis. We pretty much knew this first quarter of 2015 was going to be a very important time; the orders from Previews were going to determine the next quarter and we were, effectively, going to become a publisher working on what we make rather than from investment. But, more than that I cannot say (I think I've dropped enough hints).

On top of all of this my health has been poor; my mobile phone is knackered while O2 are obfuscating like a Tory MP trying to offset the blame elsewhere. My search for a job to preserve my sanity hasn't been fruitful and I'd talk about depression but I wouldn't want people thinking I'm going to fly a plane into someone's house or a mountain...

On a positive front. I'm personally chairing a panel about self-publishing (which seems odd considering I'm not a self-publisher per se) at the Sunderland GN Expo in May and I'm also doing something with the extremely clever Dan Mallier - who was the brains behind one of the convention hits of 2014 with his extremely well patronised Leamington Spa Con - on Free Comic Book Day, if we can work out the logistics, etc.

However, for the few positives, having no cash has meant that I'm struggling to fit Borderline Press into conventions this year; although given the pointlessness of many of them perhaps this could be viewed as a money saving exercise... Plus it's annual returns time and at the moment if I could find a convenient stone to crawl under I would. With my 53rd birthday less than a month away everything is beginning to feel like a chore. I just feel sorry for my creators, they probably deserve more than me.

Maybe next month I'll have something good to tell you.

Borderline Press Blog #30 Brief Update

Down time continues. It might not have been so quiet if Diamond had remembered to list Fanfare books in February. It's great when an unreliable group of people are pretty much responsible for the success or failure of small businesses. I'm betting someone, somewhere, in their hierachy gets massively priapic a lot of times...

We missed out on a deal to do Rachael Smith's The Rabbit, whoever gets it will be blessed with a quality product that will sell a lot.

We did sign up Lyndon White's Sparks and it fits in perfectly well with our other books.

The Happy Ghetto is nearing completion. I have the proof of Lord and Kathryn Briggs has done some extra bits for story(cycle).

Still looking for a part time job to fill the boredom of the days when nothing happens.

More soon.

Borderline Press Blog #29: Limbo Dancing on Ice

This time last year, Will and I were hard at work getting a new anthology title ready and sending print files off to China for the first time. The difference between last year and now is simple; there's nothing on the schedules for the next few months. I'm doing very little.

The stark reality is that we've hit a cash flow wall. The reason I'm even telling you about it (apart from the sense of drama) is simple - we knew it would happen; we (my partner and I) even talked about it when we set up the company. The good thing is that it's happened at exactly the time we both expected and wanted it to happen - while our existing stock is touted through new places.

Now, this is purely to do with our new distribution deal and the solicitation of our existing books to new markets. We are soliciting our existing stock through new outlets and the publishing company was created on the basis of 'once the investment starts to turn over cash there will be no more investment'. It isn't rocket science; my partner isn't a bottomless pit of money and this business was created, like all other businesses, to do exactly that - invest, hopefully reap the rewards and then reinvest. Well, we're halfway there; we're in the middle of the 'hopefully reap the rewards' phase.

Therefore bringing new stuff out isn't an option during this first quarter.

That's not to say we haven't got things planned. A look at what we have deals for and what we're negotiating should tell you that, in my eyes, that we're looking at a good 2015.

One thing I've learned over the last year has been that websites are not even a recognisable revenue stream. In fact, there might be a plethora of new, independent publishers out there, all doing, ostensibly, what I'm doing, but I'd bet very few of them are actually making money from their independent revenue sources. You do need distributors and as a result you pay through the nose. The irony is Borderline Press and a heap of other, more established independent comic publishers, offer loads of discounts, special offers and treats if you buy stock directly from them, yet people would rather go into a comic shop, pay the full asking price, and possibly get insulted by the holier-than-thou comic shop owner/employee. If it made any sense I'd happily have a go at explaining it for you.

So, after extensive investment in stock, we're at the mercy of a distributor and the tenuous security that involves. As we hurtle towards our, important, second anniversary and third year of trading, the landscape of comics retail is considerably different than I presumed it would be when I came back to comics. I'm very glad I'm no longer a retailer because I think it takes a special kind of person to do it and I'm not that person now (and because of my failure at it, I obviously wasn't then).

Here at Borderline Press, I have nothing on the schedules until March and then the print jobs and shipping will add another 6-8 weeks before they arrive (if I choose to go back to China for printing) for retailers and fans. I am acutely aware that the longer periods of time you have between releases increases the likelihood people will simply forget about you; but I would counter that fair question/observation with - Borderline Press books don't really have a shelf life, do they? It's not like 90% of our stuff won't have some relevance in 2115. The beauty of all of us niche market publishers is we all tend to publish stuff that has timeless qualities about it (or it's so naff you forget about it quickly).

So, with the prognosis extremely positive, I have a number of projects that are being prepared for the day I get the expected money from 'Peter' to pay 'Paul'. Some are finished and ready (Santa Claus versus the Nazis and story(cycle)), some are still being worked on (Agata Bara's trio of stories; The Happy Ghetto) and others are in pre-production (Lord) and, I'd like to think, the list of creative people lined up for 2015 is comparable to 'big' publishers - O'Moore, Smith, Briggs, Dickson, Mitchell, Karpowicz, plus a bunch of newbies with massive talents such as Bara, Thorpe, Gamester, Sztybor, and then even more - I get slightly priapic about all this talent...

Therefore because I have nothing much planned, I've been looking for a job. A real job. Back in the real world. Back in social care where I forged a successful career after comics. It's to stop me from going bat-shit crazy. There is maybe an hour, possibly two, worth of work a day to be done for Borderline Press at the moment. The majority of the current work is being done by the accountant as it's annual returns times. I cannot afford to sit at home doing nothing and earning nothing in the middle of winter. The boredom alone would have the strongest willed person reaching for umpteen bottles of scotch or a return to some illegal drugs; but the fact we're about to experience 'proper' winter again means that heating needs to go on and as I've discovered on several occasions in the last two years; if you're not doing anything - are inactive - your f**king house could be burning down around your ears and you'd still feel cold!

As you hopefully can see, I'm not sounding too concerned about the future (unusually for me) and I am one of those people who hates having overtly optimistic moments because falls often come harder in their wake, but initial sales (from the USA) seem to have vindicated certain decisions and I know how much money we're expecting to get come March onwards and provided it doesn't take a substantial hit, I should be sitting here in January 2016 telling you about that forthcoming year's schedules.

And that, my little chickens, is that for another month. Hopefully next time I will be able to confirm Rachael Smith's latest project (or I will have surreptitiously deleted this reference by then) and give you a rough outline of what the late spring and summer brings.

Borderline Press Blog #28: Festival

You could argue that the phrase 'Christmas Bonus' applies not just to people who get a little something extra in their festive wage packets, but anyone with some kind of vested economic interest. Christmas is often the time of year when people selling all kinds of shit make a killing because of our propensity for buying anything that's put in front of us if it will fill a present hole.

Borderline Press experienced what can only be described as a 'bonus' with this year's Thought Bubble in Leeds. Last year, myself, Will Vigar, Jim Firkins and Andy M descended on TB with our expectations raised so high and in the end it was a crushing weekend. There are and were many reasons - external and internal - why the 2013 show was less of an event than we hoped and anticipated.

This year, I asked Terry (Verity Fair) Wiley, Jamie (Seth & Ghost) Lewis and the Factor Fiction team of Jay Eales & Selina Lock to man my table, They had a fantastic weekend; Jamie sold 50 books alone and I can't help thinking that I had a really inspired epiphany that caused this year's TB to be a success for us.

I talked about the Leamington Spa comic convention in Pros & Cons back in October, but what I didn't tell you was we, Borderline Press, had a miserable day. I kept it very quiet because frankly I couldn't blame the event or the organisers and if I had it would have seemed like nothing more than a bad workman blaming his tools...

We actually need to go back to September and the NICE convention in Bedford. In terms of physical takings it was a little better than previous conventions and I put a lot of that down to the fact that Borderline Press isn't the new kid on the block that no one has ever heard of. The sad truth is I felt we could have taken a lot more and I spent most of the rest of September and then October thinking that perhaps it was me...

I know, that's very conceited of me. I've been accused, here, a few times of making everything about me. Mr Sour Grapes. It seems that all Phil Hall really does is complain about how life is just shit to him. However, Leamington was a watershed moment for me. For all of my ex-assistant's faults (not Will, the guy who replaced him), he, at least, went to conventions and tried his damnedest. He engaged with people - whether they wanted to or not.

I was looking at a picture taken by the NICE photographer; it was of myself and my helper Colin (my oldest friend) sitting behind our table. He looks like a bizarre cosplayer attempting to channel Fidel Castro, while I looked like a curmudgeonly old bastard who struggles to crack a smile. The thing that made Bedford different was the amount of people there I knew, so I actually felt comfortable.

Colin and I attended Leamington and looking back on it I don't think we ever really got out of first gear. Yes, our favourable spot turned out to be a burden rather than a blessing, but that couldn't have been foreseen. I heard on the way home that up at The Lakes Festival, Terry Wiley was gesticulating madly about what a fabulous convention it was and took a lot of money for Borderline Press and I was looking at a loss on the day at Leamington. There were half as many people at the Lakes...

It's obviously got to be me.

Will's biggest complaint about TB 2013 was the fact that I did more to scare people away than anything else. That's actually unfair; Will just got so frustrated with me he sent me away. I was nervous and my nerves were manifesting in a less than inviting manner. He was also nervous, my nerves didn't help his at all.

This general un-enthusiasm continued to Bristol and the two people on my table seemed to be doing much better when I wasn't there. I perhaps should have seen it then, but why should I? I'd been a moderately successful retailer for a while, in a place that didn't warrant it, and much of that was down to my ability to transform my retail outlet into a community centre. When I approached a bunch of comics people to do Borderline Magazine with me, I was inundated with support. I hear and see probably far more positive things about me than negative ones (and most of the negative ones tend to be in response to me being an arse, which still happens - trust me about this).

I spent 10 years working in social care, helping people. Social care. When I'm not suffering from depression (and even sometimes when I am) I'm often found helping people. I constantly hear from people who I've helped in the past and people who want to reconnect with me. Most people who know me know that I'm not really at all like the short-fused utter bastard I can seem to be on (anti) social network sites. So why am I like I am at conventions? I'm not unapproachable, I'm just not as ebullient or affable...

Well, we're 16 months into the initial 2 year plan and running your own business is one of the most stressful things in the world, especially during the initial start up. I've had one of those personal annus horribilis things, which only adds to the stress. I'm probably the last person to work behind a table at something like a convention because my mind is a whirl and I simply lose focus on what I should be doing and want to run and hide.

Colin, for all his energy and enthusiasm, knows little or nothing about 21st century comics and is pretty much out of his depth when asked the simplest of questions about my product. Plus neither of us went out of our way to engage with people; in fact as the day wore on I avoided eye contact with people - not a good thing when your business is to get people buying your stuff.

The Fanfare distribution deal will hopefully take a huge amount of strain off my shoulders. The simple fact that the remainder of the Seth & Ghost order will be delivered to the warehouse (where the rest of the stock is now kept) and not my living room means that life at home is less fraught. Plus Stephen Robson, at Fanfare, reckons I can now spend most of my time just promoting and do most of the conventions as a visitor, rather than as a dealer.

So, the epiphany was simple - do not let me near a comic convention table. This was evidenced by the success at this year's Thought Bubble - where in real terms we took five times what we did the previous year. Maybe in a couple of years, when I can be calm and accept them for what they are - a social event that you might take some money at - I might be okay to unleash back on the masses; but until that point, I think letting my creators speak for their work and other titles in our stable works much better.

***

Someone asked me what's planned for 2015.

• Santa Claus versus the Nazis scheduled for late summer arrival, solicited from March.
• Robotz - hopefully out for the autumn.
• story(cycle) - Kathryn Briggs' short graphic novel will get a repackaging and some new stuff for the spring.
• Seamonster is also scheduled for the spring.
• The Happy Ghetto is new and a bit different - an illustrated novel.
• A Leonie O'Moore project.
• An Agata Bara collection.
• More Spoko.
• There's something called Sparks that I'm interested in. I just need to pull my finger out and talk to Mr Lyndon White.
• Plus a few other things that are really too tentative to divulge.

We're also going to be giving away the electronic versions of any book you buy. Because of changes in the tax laws and, more importantly, because I think it's important - in the New Year, if you buy a book you get the download free. The downside of this is we will no longer be able to sell e-books outside of the UK without being liable for VAT.

I have to find myself a part time job or I will go insane (or more insane depending on who you speak to). I also have to start being more creative again - I have almost given up doing anything creative for my own pleasure. The last thing I finished was the script for Robotz and that was done in August 2013.

Anyone buying direct from the website shop now gets an automatic 33% discount on most everything bought, but not Seth & Ghost as there are now a very limited number in stock until the main shipment arrives in the New Year - at the moment it is rare and a collectors' item (says the Comics Economics man); but it is £5 instead of the standard £6.95.

***

And that is that for 2014.

Thanks to all the people who've bought books, either on-line or from us personally at conventions - you are all lovely and deserve long lives and plenty of sex.

Big thanks to Dave Rankin - Mr Full Set! Phil Buchan, Andy Oliver, all the fantastic reviews and reviewers and Steve Robson - glad to have you back in my life big fella.

Massive thanks to Adrian, Roger, the wife, Jeff, Dan, Terry, Jamie, Will, Andy, Jim, Dollop, Colin, Carl-Michael, Loka, Knut, Kim, everyone on Spoko and the ever wonderful, totally indispensable Dennis Wojda.

You all have a fantastic festive season; and let's hope 2015 is better for all of us.

Peace.

Borderline Press Blog #27: Revisionists

I've had to revise plans all year. I should have expected that with the responsibility of becoming a publisher it would also involve lots of unavoidable setbacks and delays. I just expected the world to work at the pace I thought suited the business; little did I suspect that a lot of the world of commerce moves and works at a sloth's pace unless it wants something.

I think in many respects 2014 has been a horrendous year and the fact that Borderline Press has just released its 8th title in the last 12 months (9th if you include the free comic) should be considered a great success; but what about Santa Claus versus the Nazis? Robotz? Or some of the other projects we had planned? I had expected having between 10 and 12 titles out between the release of 566 and what might have been a Christmas Ghosts Anthology.

I feel bad for the people who I let down. I let people down all the time, yet sometimes not turning up for a beer isn't the same as not publishing something someone or ones who have worked on a project for a long time. I am also aware that, yes, someone else could publish them, they could do it themselves, etc etc ad nauseum - doesn't make me feel any better and it doesn't make me want to be particularly nice to cowboy printers and the various other things that have helped screw up the year.

The current state of play of Borderline Press is quite chirpy - good reviews, steady sales, distribution deal and a series of signings and convention appearances... We also have 898 copies of our latest release sitting in a warehouse in China because I am not being held to ransom by arseholes any more. I could bore you all to death with how one Chinese printing firm has systematically attempted to shaft me, every step of the way, for the last few months, but the truth is this printer has moved the goalposts, pushed me around, threatened me and abused me and with absolutely no comeback by or from me because, frankly, I wouldn't know where to start! Perhaps a few emails to the Communist Party?

The printing learning curve this year hasn't been pleasant, nor should it have even happened; what we've made up for in lesser production costs we've paid for in time, shipping and cowboys. The one valuable lesson I've learned from this is I should have stuck with the people who were a little more expensive but delivered promptly and with no fuss.

I hope that Seth & Ghost doesn't turn into a huge collectors' item because there are only 102 copies in existence. I sincerely hope the printer doesn't just chuck them in the South China Sea, like I suggested he should, but I'm not going to take any more of a bath on this project than I already have. To give you just a rough idea, I've already paid over $1000 more for this job than I should have and now they are asking for another $1000 or they won't ship the rest. I told them to fuck off.

So, Seth & Ghost is the final Borderline Press release of 2014 or it might be the first release of 2015 - that my friends is in the hands of a man called 'Jacky'...

Obviously, kicking this off with mention of a 'revised' schedule and having the title 'Revisionists' might suggest there's something else on my mind. There is.

When Dez Skinn took me to San Diego in the early 1990s there was a lot about the trip that has been since said, but one of the nicer moments happened when I was introduced to Julius Schwartz, who was, I think, pretty much in his late 80s at the time. It was a fleeting meeting and we both moved on to whatever we were supposed to be doing.

On the Saturday - the main day - I've spoken of my unbelievably ridiculous decision to walk - crosstown - through San Diego to get to the convention centre, while wearing an English suit and carrying a briefcase in 100 degrees of summer heat. It's a recurring theme in my life - when in strange city, walk until you get lost, but ensure the weather is at some kind of extreme.

When I got to the convention centre, essentially as a big bag of sweaty water - my friend Christina took me to a cafeteria and plied me with water and left me to rehydrate. Sitting at the table next to me was, an also rather deflated looking, Julie Schwartz and he smiled and made some comments about Brits never getting used to the heat in San Diego.

He remembered who I was and where I'd come from.

This was the first convention where Frank Miller had got on his horse about conceptual copyright owning and how Jack Kirby had been shafted by Marvel, Stan Lee and every one else. We all know the story, it's been revised to suit Kirby and his followers.

I was trying to remember the link that got me and Julie talking about ownership of Marvel's characters and I'm sure it will eventually come back to me, but the upshot was he said to me that he'd known the original Marvel bullpen people for years; they'd all worked with each other or around each other, drank beers and ate with each other and they would often discuss their work.

I remember him saying to me something that had much resonance with me, "If you come up with the name or the idea of a superhero and your friend comes up with how he looks - who owns it?" Both of them obviously, I said. He went on, "During the early Sixties there were half a dozen friends sitting in that Marvel bullpen and they were each coming up with ideas - not just Lee and Kirby, but Marie Severin, Flo Steinberg, even Martin Goodman, everyone contributed to the creation of the original Marvel heroes, the same way we developed new ideas at DC. It was a rare thing in the 1960s for anyone to come to the table with a fully-developed character - no one did it because creation was by committee. Nothing sinister. That was the way it was."

How come I never see this argument floated around when people argue that it was Jack Kirby, alone, who created all of Marvel's classic oeuvre?

I believe Marie Severin stated a few years back something along the same lines and was systematically ignored by the industry. It didn't fit with what they wanted and Marie was in Stan's camp, obviously.

In 1983, I created a character - a cartoon character, based entirely on my curmudgeonly personality, my acerbic wit and my propensity for getting myself into scrapes of my own making. I even have the clay model of the character sitting in front of me - he even looks a little like I did in 1983 and his first name was 'Fil'.

I don't own him though. Despite creating the idea, writing all the strips he appeared (or would have appeared) in and knowing that all my mate did was caricature me - he owns it and in the eyes of most of our peers he owns it. Why? Because he drew it. He did all the donkey work. All I did was come up with the words, that took no time at all.

I'm serious here.

I would concede that we maybe co-created it, but only because I can't draw. My 'co-creator' didn't see it the same way; he viewed ownership as not the original concept but the amount of time you spent on it. he could never have worked for Marvel and DC as he would have believed that whoever he was drawing would have become his by default after a couple of months. None of our 'friends' seemed interested in my arguments - that sounded, to be honest, like sour grapes; they all accepted the character was the artist's because he spent more time on it.

In the end I gave up all rights I had. The artists did five more strips, they weren't funny - in the slightest; he wasn't a writer. He had no real idea what to draw; he had no direction, no input. The cohesion that was there was now gone. He moved onto an idea of his own, that was a repeat of the previous failure.He gave up and as far as I know doesn't do anything remotely artistic now.

That is a damned shame.

The problem with the history of Marvel Comics is simple - too many are dead; the ones that remain either don't talk or have a Hollywood opinion of it. Stan Lee is as much a trade name or brand now as Marvel or Disney is and all that is left is anecdotal 'evidence' from people who worked there after the event.

I'm sure that Jack Kirby probably created everything and the chair he sat in to work and I'm sure that there are many out there who would like to see Lee erased from everything; he probably just made the coffee and lived off them and their genius.

The interesting thing is over the years whenever I've heard a veteran, with no vested interest, talk about those days, the story has always pretty much been the same - it was a bullpen.   Bullpens are bullshit sessions or brainstorm time, where ideas and thoughts are thrown around without fear of ridicule - it was a practice developed in the USA during the late 1940s - it's how things get developed.

I'm sure someone will put me right and show me some unimpeachable bit of evidence, but until then I'm inclined to think no one person created anything from Marvel in the early 1960s. Some might have had more influence than others and maybe, as the years advanced, some of the characters were maybe 95% created by the artist (or the writer). I just get fed up with the way that Stan Lee has been cast as some far more pernicious villain than he could have created.

Borderline Press Blog #26: Pros & Cons

It's been the multi-national conventions weekend - things all over the shop...

I can’t comment on the Lakes International Comic Art Festival because circumstances dictated that I couldn’t attend in person. Terry (Verity Fair) Wiley bravely manned the Borderline Press table (with help from Jay, Selina and any passing body) and, by reports, has had a very good show. The event has been almost overnight become one of the most important conventions on the calendar. Whether it can sustain its place with a new look committee attempting to turn Thought Bubble back into what it originally was, the competition is high and fierce.

Instead I found myself 31 miles down the road from Northampton in Royal Leamington Spa, at the first LeamCon and it left me with so many unanswered questions, I’m beginning to wonder if there is any rhyme or reason for things.

By rights LeamCon should have been a complete disaster. It was going up against The Lakes and a film and comic show in London. It didn’t have any star names; on show were a Gibson (not Ian), Al Davison and probably, in terms of history in comics, me. Although I was subdued and ponderous and felt a tiny bit out of my depth – for no apparent reason at all. I mean, this was basically a glorified comic mart in a lovely Spa town, on a freak October day, that was more like Spain than Warwickshire and Dan Mallier claims over 1000 people went through the doors.

I’d disclaim this number, purely on the basis that I wasn’t the only person to be counted going in and out of the Pump Rooms; so the chances are the figure is a bit higher than the actual head count – although Dan may well disprove this theory, I’d say a minimum of 600 individual people wandered through during the 6 or so hours it was on. Even if it was just 600 it was a staggering figure considering the piss poor attendances at Bristol, Birmingham and, I’m sorry to say, Bedford. If the latter had attracted as many people then it could have been the show to end all shows for the provincial convention.

What did LeamCon do that other provincial pop-up cons don’t? Probably not a lot other than more care and attention to all aspects of the show – the right balance between exhibitors, punters and the general public. Good advanced and sustained PR, made all the more credible by the attendance and the lacks of star names or real pros (with the greatest respect to all who feel they are real pros). What made LeamCon all the more strange was there was barely a disgruntled person in the house, Yes, I heard some youngsters bemoaning the lack of superhero comics, creators and ephemera and some guy, five minutes after paying his £6 walked up to Dan and asked in an accusatory fashion if ‘this was it?’, he left once he’d got his answer. His loss.

One wonders what it would have been like if he’d held it on a different day (he couldn’t) and had attracted maybe a handful of local pros or even a star name? And that was one of my thoughts – the teething troubles this new organiser faced were piddling compared to some problems I’ve witnessed experienced event planners struggle with (and that raises a whole barrel of different questions) and if Dan learns from his few mistakes and expands at the right rate, I don’t see why LeamCon can’t be the logical replacement for Caption. I believe if the usual suspects who attend the now defunct Oxford small press con knew about this then they would have dragged along even more people.

People were taking money up to 4.30 on Saturday; there was vibrancy about the exhibitors because they’d all had unbelievably good days. One small press creator claimed to have had the best day he’d ever had, selling over £1000 worth of books, prints and sketches. The grins were palpable and the questions began to be asked. How come this was so successful when events organised by people who supposedly understand this type of thing have floundered or failed? How come so many people came to something without star names or that many events outside of an exhibitors hall? Why did some many people take so much money from punters who looked or acted no different from punters who go to other shows? Why can’t the other provincial cons be as well organised?

I think the simple answer is some people need to look at what they’re doing from the outside in rather than thinking what they like is what everyone else wants. The one thing we all know about comics fans is they are fickle, dogmatic and not easily parted with their cash unless they want to. We also know exhibitors want people, because people can equal sales; no people = no sales = pissed off exhibitors.

Even at Leamcon the balance was wrong, but the intentions, the enthusiasm and the hard work made it pay off; imagine what could be achieved if Dan Mallier and Lisa-Marie Nelson (his partner) were able to organise a major event?

***

Sticking to the cons theme and returned to something I’ve spoken about before. One of the other questions I had to ask myself over the weekend was this: many major towns and cities now hold conventions, festivals, and everything in between and yet the one place in the UK that probably could be the best place to hold a convention or a festival would be Northampton. Not just because of Alan Moore, but because of the rich history this one town and county has given comics over the last 40 years. From the guy who did the World Staring Competition to Borderline Press – there is a definite correlation between comics and this place. However, NICE or the first one at least, was held in Kettering (birthplace of the legend known as Frank Bellamy) in a tent and after that failed to be as good as it could, the organisers – the Chahal brothers – opted to move it to Bedford because of costs.

Frankly it amazes me that our councils can throw money at an electronic comics project as long as it promotes the town rather than throw some weight behind doing a real appreciation of comics in its modern spiritual home. If you had a Beano convention it could only be held in Dundee. A Viz con in Newcastle. A comics con in Shoesville is as logical.

I’m not blaming the Chahal brothers for failing to turn the Northampton International Comics Expo into an actual Northampton event, but I can’t help thinking that a lot of people are missing an opportunity (however, while NICE exists, holding a rival convention would be like opening a new chip shop next to the most popular one in your street - to abort that discussion before it gets started).

***

Finally; it’s not common knowledge, but Santa Claus versus the Nazis has been postponed until next summer, purely down to the production problems we had switching printers. Ben and Gavin are fine about it and we all think it might be a blessing in disguise.

The same postponement applies to Robotz - as Jo Karpowicz is behind schedule on paid work.

Seth & Ghost will be out though, for Thought Bubble (God willing). And hopefully I'll get things moving on story(cycle), Seamonster and something we've expressed an interest in publishing - an interesting new world called The Happy Ghetto.

So, as usual, things are just like the Assyrian Empire.

Borderline Press blog #25 - NICE work

Despite meteorological summer being over, I can't help feeling that the weather doesn't know it yet. I'm of the opinion that summer is not a good time for British comics. That opinion has been proven since the 1950s - traditionally the Brits go on holiday. It used to be the time - August specifically - when factories had their 'fortnights'. It is still a time of the year when we see a high proportion of repeats on TV. I'm not arguing with people; it might not be quiet in the USA, but in the UK, it is.

Borderline Press has had a pretty woeful summer, as detailed in the last blog, but things have pretty much been back on track since the end of August. There have been unavoidable problems; like switching printer's at a point when I thought they were doing the job, they were sending me an email saying they did not want to do it because of the problems they had with the previous jobs. So we lost 2 weeks because of that fiasco and it left me thinking and wondering how and why business ever gets done anywhere, but then I remembered how life got in the way of my summer.

It was good to put the summer behind us and go the 15 or so miles down the road to Bedford (in Bedfordshire) for the 3rd annual (or is it 4th? I'm old now, I can't always remember who you are) NORTHAMPTON Intercontinental Custard Experiment or whatever the meaning of the acronym NICE means - possibly something to do with 'comics' and 'international', I would like to hazard a guess what the E stands for but knowing Jeff Chahal as well as I do it could equally stand for 'erection' as 'expo' or 'exhibition'.

I posed a very interesting hypothetical hypothesis on Sunday to artist extraordinary (a keen fan of both Godzilla and Tony Stark) Simon Coleby (he was unofficial celebrity artist in residence at my shop), had I opened Squonk!! in Northampton as I had initially planned, the retail comics landscape of the area might be drastically different and there might never have been a NICE con. It's a thankless task, organising a comics convention (especially when I'm going to be there, with my track record of being scathing about certain events, recently). I'm not sure I'd do one, even if I could do one the way I'd want; I'm beginning to think it takes a special kind of madmen to do this shit.

The man with the pony tail could
have been a cosplay Terry Wiley!

I went to NICE last year, for a few hours on the Sunday; I was setting up the company, gearing up for 566 Frames's launch and was there to basically talk to potential creators. I thought there were more people there last year on the Sunday than this and that's pretty much as far as my criticism of NICE 2014 goes.

My expectations have been lowered enormously over the last few months. There have been pretty clear reasons, other than the expected ones; mainly to do with the fact that we're still relatively unknown; we still don't have that much product out, and comics conventions - a large percentage of them - are attended by people more inclined to what we like to call 'mainstream' or spandex.

I've mentioned how I think Borderline Press is a female-friendly publisher, well over 75% of all of our sales, at all conventions, have been to women and that was reinforced at NICE. I wasn't expecting to take a lot of money; I was expecting to talk to people, give more free comics away, do a bit more schmoozing and generally improve the brand name. The reality of the weekend is that is exactly what happened and three quarters of our sales were to people of a female gender.

The view from behind the table on Sunday

In terms of takings, I'm happy to admit we took £5 more than we did at Bristol - the big difference being the overheads were considerably lessoned. In real terms that isn't particularly spectacular amount and we'll only probably cover our costs, but many people today were looking for the new books (more of which later) and knew the company name. It made me feel as though we're known now, so it's just a matter of time before Marvel is quaking in its Disney shaped boots!

The Sunday was, as I said, in my opinion, quieter than last year (contrary to what I was told by several of the 'staff') and I'm of the opinion that I could easily have not bothered going. I would have missed out on just five sales, but I'm of the opinion that the five recipients will be happy we did turn up and I reckon they'll come back for more.

I heard several complaints from people. A number of artists took barely any money; people weren't spending a lot on original artwork, sketches were popular, but I saw many people sat twiddling their thumbs at times. One of the dealers suggested the event was too similar to last year's and it needed a lot of different guests - I can't pass judgement on this or even comment on it because I don't do these things for the guests specifically. It was suggested to me that NICE is just an excuse to invite Jeff Chahal's friends - well, if it is then what's to criticise?

Another dealer, who had a reasonable weekend, told me that at most 'provincial' conventions they expect to take considerably less than they do at something like LFCC or MCM; he urged me to try and book into one of these mega-shows with 20,000+ through the door, where taking can be 10 times as much. The problem with these are the percentage of comics fans who attend who would want to read Borderline Press's eclectic line; if 20,000 come through the door and 17,000 don't do comics and of those remaining 3000, 85% don't do or buy indie comics or books... and those that do might be looking for someone else... when you factor in all the variables and probabilities, my projected best-case-scenario take would be commensurate with what I took this weekend, which would mean the only reason worth doing these massive shows would be PR. I'm not convinced, still, that these big cons would equate to much more than a hot, sweaty and exhausting weekend (but with no orgasm at the end).

Bedford at night (photo by Simon Coleby)

However, let's get back to Bedford because it really is a bit of a tiny jewel on the landscape. Bedford feels much bigger than it really is - this has a lot to do with the one-way system that was introduced about 40 years go and still confuses the locals. It has a bit of a 'you can't get there from here' feel to it, but because of the architecture and olde-worldy feel to the town centre, you don't mind going two miles to get to something 100 yards away. Seriously, my home town - the much-mythologised Northampton - could learn a thing or two about utilising its town centre the way Bedford does. Like the Leicester Comic Con, the location of the Bedford Corn Exchange put it smack dab in the middle of this nice little town, therefore there was the feeling the convention was taking place in a bustling place and that statement brings me to my gripe - not a complaint, barely a criticism (because I understand why).

I don't want to think of myself as Dan Mallier's muse, but the organiser of the forthcoming Leamington Spa comic con - an event where the two most famous people attending are Al Davison and some big-nosed has-been called Phil Hall - had many of my ideas for conventions already in place and he took on board the one thing I now believe is imperative for all conventions, if they are going to continue to be colloquial events - you have to allow the general public in - for nothing - after the paying customers have done a couple of hours of exclusive access.

The organisers of Leicester Comic Con did it; allowed Joe Public in for free a couple of hours after the show opened and the upshot was simple... At Bristol and most obviously with Birmingham, once the paying punters have done what they want the dealer/exhibitor rooms become graveyards with just the 'deal hunters' doing any business. My belief is if you have a room with people in it, there is the potential to do some business - maybe even persuade a new visitor as to why comics are a good hobby - and even if you take no money, there are potential customers that are in the room - if they're not in the room then you don't stand any chance.

Leam Con's Dan intends to open the doors to the general public from 3pm; that's two hours that are usually dead air at cons that will have new eyes looking at things, asking questions, being inquisitive and maybe spending some cash and surely while the creators and guests and paying customers deserve respect; they are not the people who pay for tables and contribute a large percentage of the cost covering. Too often in the last year (and not ironically during my last period of convention going) I've seen or heard about the last hours of any convention being one tinged with anger and acrimony about the poor day had and the lack of attendees.

Jeff Chahal did this when NICE was held in a tent at Wickstead Park in Kettering, but dropped the idea when it moved to Bedford Corn Exchange - costs and fear of reprisals from paying punters were his main reasons. I think it might also have a lot to do with health and safety, but that's based on a gut feeling more than anything else. I harped on at Jeff a lot about making his convention open to the hoards, but he resisted. I wonder if he might reconsider the idea after seeing what the main hall was like at 2pm on Sunday afternoon.

I will, however, declare NICE 2014 a success. I had a great time and the Chahal brothers know how to organise a great event, almost... It probably does deserve a bigger platform, because while Bedford isn't hard to get to, it reminds me a little of the ultimate reason why I opened Squonk!! in Wellingborough rather than waiting for the right property to come along in Northampton - convenience. I figured on that line from Field of Dreams - 'build it and they will come' and they do, but do all of them? If I'd opened in Northampton ... and hence the question to Simon Coleby.

I also appreciate that the Chahal brothers invest a lot of time, effort and their own money in this event, but is it worth investigating venues in Milton Keynes or, heaven forbid, Northampton?

That said, the arguments for attempting to hold a comics convention in Northampton are extremely strong and one wonders why Alan Moore can get a reported £100,000 from Northampton Borough Council to ensure that his Electricomics promote the town and someone wanting to promote comics and the town in general can't even speak to the right people?

Northamptonshire has an enormous percentage of comics professionals; it has a rich vein of ex-professionals or pros who have moved to sunnier or different locations and, of course, it is the home of the aforementioned Mr Moore. Not that he would come to a comic convention again, not even one that would have to dedicate part of its brief to the promotion of comics as a medium, an aid for dyslexics, an entry point for people who struggle to read books and as a platform to express their own creativity.

The problem now is that everything from the huge MCM conventions to these regional mega-marts is geared solely towards the fan; it's like we've never learned anything. Comics are still suffering from the law of diminishing returns, despite the influx of new readers, there is no sign and there probably won't be any increase in the actual numbers of fans (hey, lots of fans are old and die), so why is no one doing anything at all about trying to broaden the customer base?

If I was the Chahal brothers, I would be asking myself where the next generation of customers are coming from; how are we going to persuade the kid who thinks comics are okay to thinking they're cool and they want part of this rich tapestry of alternative worlds and styles?

But it's easy for me to sit here and suggest things; I'm not doing them.

I have enough on my plate as you will now find out...

So Santa Claus versus the Nazis and Seth & Ghost will be printed this week - unless we have any more problems - and will arrive at the end of October...

But... That's after the Lakes?

Here's an example of the hurly-burly world of comics publishing. My new printer can't meet the deadline; hell, my old printer is struggling to deliver our two latest books on time; and I've got no one to do The Lakes convention for me because I have to do Leamington Spa because of ... life getting in the way again (at least 'good' life rather than nasty, funereal life). I'm also donating 50 free copies of one of our books to them and suddenly everything is, if you'll pardon my rather brash Anglo-Saxon, f*ck*d and shrouded in uncertainty and tension.

You know that expression 'squeaky-bum time'? People from the UK, who follow football (soccer) and various other sports know it well. Well, here's how this schedule is going to work:

• As far as I know Verity Fair and Spoko both set sail on September 9. The delivery date, provided the voyage is trouble free is October 10 (unless HMRC hold the container in customs for inspection then another 7 days can be added to that). However, that will mean the books arrive after we need them - after their launch.
• I heard back from the new printer on Monday 8th regarding Santa Claus and S&G; provided everything has been okayed, the job will take between 5 and 7 days to complete and pack. It will then go on the next available Tuesday boat and will take a maximum of 35 days (unless HMRC hold the container in customs for inspection then another 7 days can be added to that) and as any fool knows, that is way after The Lakes and I've been telling people and Ben Dickson and Gavin Mitchell have been telling people that it'll be out for the Lakes (S&G's official launch is at Thought Bubble) and it clearly won't. 
• Except it will. If everything goes according to plan. Once the books have been finished, a quantity of Santa Claus will be sent by air mail - 100 of them: 70 going to the Lakes and 30 coming with me to Leam Con.
• Hang on, you can't do the Lakes, you said so? No, but Terry Wiley is going to man the battlements for me all weekend (unless Verity Fair is stuck in customs, in which case I fully expect Terry will not go to Kendal, but will venture south to a place near Warwick, where he will commit murder...) as well as signing copies of the book he's selling, etc etc. Terry flies in from Chicago 23 hours before The Lakes begins. His home is in Newcastle, mine in Northampton. Despite my home sounding further north than his, mine is actually 300 miles south of his and provided the book isn't held in customs (along with Spoko #1 I hasten to add), I have to take delivery of them, put probably three boxes of VF and a box of Spoko in the boot of my car - along with three further boxes of our existing stock; drive up to Leicester (about 28 miles) and drop them off with Jay Eales and Selina Lock, who are going to The Lakes, and are going to take them up and protect them until Terry can take control of them. They will then bring back whatever isn't sold.
• This is all dependant on everything happening at the right time with little margin for error.

Keep your fingers crossed.