While I'm on one...
Anyone who read my serialised autobiographical expose of comics - My Monthly Curse - will know that I have little time for specific areas of the comics industry. One of the frustrating things about getting Borderline Press into comic shops has been lack of knowledge about our product and another reason is the fact we're not being carried by a distributor (my choice). As an ex-retailer, I find most comics publishers do not support retailers and distributors are like certain kinds of politicians, they are not interested in the future, so the 'help' they offer is not really help at all, it is just a devious way of ensuring they get paid.
Growth, for the people who make and deliver the comics that makes their world tick, needs to be immediate, you can't nurture things - it's too slow. Therefore not only did distributors become unpopular with retailers, they were also deliberately responsible for the loss of hundreds of comic shops between 1993 and 2000. They wanted to supply megastores and the small guys could go and be anatomically impossible with themselves. That retail devastation also angered many fans shorn of their Local Comic Shops, and where subsequently left to the vagaries and peculiarities of mail order.
The problem was that most didn't know or weren't aware that it was the people producing and delivering the comics, they loved, who were also responsible for Fat Larry's Comics and Porn in Wibley, West Virginia, closing down and every other store ran by an enthusiastic amateur (who might one day become an astute retailer - because, it does happen, I know quite a few of them).
It has always galled me that the retailer - the lifeblood of publishing - is and was abused in such a way by the people earning a living from them. It sat uneasily with me at how these distribution businesses could just so brazenly discard money making opportunities and now after ten years of avoiding comics like the plague, I'm back and it's still pretty much the same as it was before.
The 1990s have become an almost forgotten decade in popular culture (compared to the '60s, '70s and '80s), but for comics it was the decade when comics publishers discovered big business, commerce and commercialism and how to make more money than they believed was possible. Comics discovered Mammon.
In 2014, there are predominantly big, but there are small, 'comic' shops - there are the chains and the small guys (and gals) who have been striving away, despite the best efforts of publishers and distributors trying to kill them off. You still pay for Point of Sale items; you still pay for any kind of retailer support that is physically produced (they might even charge you for virtual stuff too) and there is even this thing called Free Comic Book Day, which actually isn't free but involves the giving away of comics.
I got behind FCBD because I thought it was something to help spotlight comics to the uninitiated... Bloody hell, how out of touch was I? It is actually organised by the leading distributor and if you are a retailer and you want to give away free comics - they'll cost you. Actually, if you want to give away free comics and you're not a big publisher it will cost you.
Retailers have to buy the comics they're giving away and they have to pay the distributor for delivering them and then they have to ensure they have paid up and registered to be able to use the logo, designed by the distribution company, who have a vested interest in the future of comics, or you can't be part of their (lucrative) FCBD. Once all these have been met and only then, can they give these comics to possible customers who will actually put more money into the accounts of the people supplying than the people selling!
You might need to read that again - it is correct.
Most comics shop spend between £250 and £1000 on FREE COMIC BOOK DAY! Most publishers produce a bunch of stuff for FREE COMIC BOOK DAY! But the distributor; the organisation that depends on the publisher and the punter being happy - will screw you to the floor with narrow-minded short-termism. FREE COMIC BOOK DAY my arse!
Can you image what would happen if farmers charged Tesco £3 for a 5kg bag of potatoes (instead of the 30p Tesco really pays for them)? The exact opposite applies in comics - it's an industry where the supplier and the courier are better rewarded than the person selling. I know, I'm bloody obsessed about it... But I can't think of another retail industry where that would happen - if you know of one, put me out of my misery!
So, I decided to do the free comic for FCBD; I was going to distribute it on May 3rd; I was going to send it out to retailers for free and with a note asking them to please give this to the people you think might like our books... and I got asked not to...
The company behind FCBD said:
It had an unauthorised use of their logo (fair enough).
We had not registered to be part of it (huh?)
We do not have an account (no and we're not likely to have one at this rate)
We have not had their approval for the contents of our free comic (and they were never going to get it as long as I have a hole in my anus)
It is not available outside of the UK in physical form (huh, again?)
It is forbidden to depict minors as Cthulhu children with octopus tentacles (okay, that was a lie)
There were a couple more, mainly to do with my sarcasm probably...
The point is - they were not making any money from me. They had no control over the content. They really did not like the idea that we were not only giving it away - FREE - but also shipping it ourselves - FREE. Our little FREE comic book in many ways proves what a misnomer FCBD really is and was - another way for the suppliers and their delivery boys to rape the retailer while making the retailer think that it has been a success.
Surely the idea of a FCBD is to be given free comics, freely distributed, for comic shops to give away in an attempt to attract new (and old) readers into comic shops to buy comics which ultimately lines the pockets of all links in the chain. Where is the economic sense of what is currently happening unless the retailers haven't got any power at all over it and can't stop it, because they're all independent...
Wow, that's really truly stupid business practice; not by the shops or fans, but by everyone else associated with comics.
Anyhow, we took the logo off (as 3000 of you are aware) and I think they did us a BIG favour. I'd like my publishing company to be associated with such a great idea, but this is a great idea that hides a multitude of business sins and is just a new way of looking the gift horse in the mouth and extracting another tooth. Borderline Press will produce free comics, when it is economically viable, and do you know what? We'll continue to give them away and ship them to comic shops, at our cost. We may never be a big company, but I want retailers to know that someone is really on their side.
So, please be aware that this is actually a rant at the mechanism not the machine - I've worked in comics at a time of boom and also bust - when you had to speculate to try, almost forlornly, to accumulate the money lost from the last speculation. I was vaguely aware of FCBD when it started, but at the time I was in a place so far away from comics that only the barest remained. The idea of free comics is great - free things make audiences; free things work.
Remember Comics International? First six issues - Free. Then a nominal price that many shops didn't charge; because even giving away 30p was something the customers appreciated and it was a good intro to comics for the uninitiated. Having seen that work, I have a soupçon of admiration for the hierarchy of comics because since the advent of the Direct Market, the you-don't-get-anything-for-nothing policy is still working - so what do I know? I know it's like an extra tax for retailers and the ones who manage to overcome this spiteful practice are bloody good at what they do; they have to be.
The Borderline Press free comic cost a fair bit to produce (but nowhere near what that Mouse Guard hard back cost), to give as many people as possible a chance to see our brilliant books and then buy them so I make money, the retailer makes money and the creator of the book makes money. Goddamn it, I know that's ridiculously altruistic and I sound like some pinko liberal 18 year old with a penchant for manga and squeezing spots, but it's what me and my accountant came up with when we did the business plan.
I'd happily tell retailers how much I pay the same printer several top US publishers use (and those US publishers are getting prices heaps cheaper than me) and how between them, they're using retailers to fund their yachts, holiday mansions, cocaine and prostitute habits. I would like retailers to support my books, either through the 50% discount scheme we offer (that's 15% more than you-know-who will ever give you and our terms are more generous), or because they see me putting my money where my mouth is and delivering the quality I'm banging on about.
Borderline Press - supporting retailers; doing what's right for creators; trying to make everyone happy (some of the time).
Thursday, 15 May 2014
Tuesday, 13 May 2014
Borderline Press Blog #19: Sturm und Drang
I'm not forming a German arts movement (although sometimes I think it might mean less work). What I am trying to do is think up a new raison d'etre for Borderline Press; well, not really a reason, more a 'catchphrase' or encapsulating sentence that tells people unfamiliar with the product what they need to know about Borderline Press.
This, almost pointless, discussion was one of many we had at Bristol Comics Expo on Sunday afternoon. We had to do something because it was either that or violently attack the organisers...
Let's look at the weekend in general: the weather at times was horrendous meaning the people known as the '501 Troop' had to battle more than just ridicule for looking like pantomime refugees from a bad George Lucas dream. No, let's be fair to these poor sods - they braved howling wind, lashing rain, falling masonry and some of Bristol's less deserving twats to promote a comics festival that essentially didn't need promoting because if you weren't registered, you weren't coming in!
No, it wasn't so busy that promoting it would have caused problems. You needed to have already bought your ticket to get through the door. If you were a member of the public, curious to see why all these brightly coloured (and black or white) costumes were descending onto a slightly dodgy modern hotel in the centre of Bristol, you were shit out of luck. If you were a local comics fan or had maybe heard about the event and travelled up to buy Borderline Press books or get Michael Golden's autograph, you were also shit out of luck.
Some bright spark in the Bristol Comics Expo organisation committee decided that making it an all-ticket affair would be a great idea. I'm wondering if the Future Inn had put a limit on how many people were allowed in, because I cannot believe even the most earnest of convention organisers would have willingly turned people away while the people financing their event, up on the SIXTH floor, were struggling to cover their costs.
Here's an example of a conversation I heard between an incredibly disgruntled stall holder and an utterly-out-of-her-depth organiser/helper:
"Why are you turning people away?"
"They don't have tickets."
"Let them pay at the door."
"We haven't got the facilities to do that."
"I have. Let me give you a box with a float, you can charge people to come in and maybe some of them will spend some money rather than just walk around posing in their manga costumes."
"We can't do that."
"There's about 50 people upstairs. I've barely taken enough money to cover my table costs and you're turning people away?"
This was Sunday about 2pm and because of the cramped space the dealers were forced into, 50 people was probably an exaggeration on the dealer's part.
Considering the massive success we had the week before at the book launch at Close Encounters in Northampton; we went to Bristol with a mixture of confidence and (for me) trepidation. I set my expectations low, to offset any disappointments - my low expectations were not even met...
It had nothing to do with us. I spoke to about 50% of the dealers and exhibitors and I heard two bits of positive feedback in terms of monetary gains; everyone else thought the weekend was a massive disaster. One of the three back issue dealers there, packing up at 4pm on the Sunday, said to me and Chris: "We took over £2000 last year; we've done less than £800 this year and that has paid for the tables and our weekend costs - we have made no profit at all, this just isn't a profitable convention!" This man was extremely pissed off.
One of the 'star' guests admitted to me that he'd had more people ask him who he was than requests for signed books or sketches; Arthur Suydam (the Zombie King and for me man behind the brilliant 70s strip Cholly & Flytrap) was telling me how he's still a student even after all these years and showed me all the sketches he'd been doing in between the lack in interest most of the attendees had for his (or anyone else's) stuff. While another of the guests made me wonder who he'd slept with the actually get a job in comics, because with one exception his stuff was rank amateur; this was a guy who would have benefited with practising a little as well...
The 6' by 2' tables weren't. The aircon was never on. There were no windows to open. There was enough room behind the tables for one person, most tables had two, with the next aisles also having to share the same space. If you'd have wanted to swing a cat behind the tables, you would have first struggled to fit a cat in there. Only two of the three lifts were working and therefore the queues for them - because only the fittest of humans fancied doing the six floor hike - was horrendous. To be fair, if I really wanted to be horrid about this event, I could list pages of things that were done incredibly badly, but I suppose the one thing that really struck home to me was how it was a comics convention with the only emphasis on comics kept to a minimum in favour of making a huge deal about the people who had braved Bristol's foul weather dressed like nothing on Earth...
We covered our convention costs, but probably lost a fair bit of money on the weekend. We did give away over 300 free comics and we talked to some good people and some excellent people were tempted to buy our books. Ben Dickson (Santa Claus v the Nazis writer) was with us all weekend and his help was invaluable and we learnt so much about what we might be doing wrong (in the presentation area) - because we're still new and lightweight and learning about stuff like this now. We might have a tentative deal for a book written by Cardiff-based Sam Roads (who was very concerned about my much-publicised on Twitter toothache) and I made several new friends who had varying different talents from artists to letterers to people who I just liked because they were good people.
Don't get me wrong. On the journey back, Christian and I were disappointed by the turnout and the lack of fiscal reward, but we also saw the enormous benefits from the networking and meeting and talking to people. We figured it was the best place to cut our 2014 convention teeth and make sure we don't repeat any of the mistakes we might have made. So, despite my curmudgeonly persona and (as a Spurs supporter) tendency to embrace doom and gloom, we saw enormous positives from the weekend; sadly it was despite the convention not because of it...
***
Ben Dickson's forthcoming Santa Claus versus the Nazis book got the most attention, with people taking pictures of the promo poster and talking to us about it's impending arrival. We were all of the opinion had it been released for Bristol it would have probably been the best-selling book at the convention (that award went to Porcelain and with very good reason). This raised an interesting question for me to ponder - why are some books more successful than others in different parts of the country...
At the Close Encounters book launch, we struggled to sell any Zombies Can't Swim and despite it being a lovely, self-contained little book - cheap as well - we sold just one copy at the book launch. Zombre sold very well at the book launch, yet at Bristol, ZCS sold well and Zombre sold just one??? This was why we were discussing Borderline Press's reason for existing. I've always believed that even in the UK you have regional variations; when I wrote Movers & Shakers for years, I'd sometimes get feedback from, say, Scotland suggesting that what was hot in London or Northampton wasn't necessarily in Glasgow. This gave me the altruistic ideas, at the time, to try and build a retailers back issue network, where retailers could swap and/or sell their stock to other regions: if Edinburgh needs X-Men and Swindon needs Batman and both have a surplus of what the other needs ... It's not rocket science.
However, despite retailers all being full of camaraderie, they really actually hate each other and will fight for the last penny, if necessary. Two retailers could drink at a bar, swap change and cover for each other at a convention, but if it comes down to helping the competition make money, even if it meant cutting off their own noses to spite their faces, it wouldn't happen; you would have more chance of getting the original Beatles to have a reunion.
But, when one zombie themed book sells and the other doesn't and then the exact opposite happens 115 miles away, you have to seriously wonder if there are regional variations with more eclectic books.
***
What is Spoko?
The ever-present (and prescient) Ben Dickson had a problem with the title and how to pronounce it and therefore wondered if we were alienating possible customers because of my insistence for keeping the title.
Spoko means COOL. It is a Polish word that has been adopted by a lot of European countries, the same way as some idiots in this country still say 'cool beans' when agreeing with something.
It is, as far as I know, pronounced: SPO rhymes with OH. KO rhymes with OH. SPOH-KOH = SPOKO.
The first issue of Spoko is called Birds. Therefore the first issue is really called... COOL BIRDS and a cool bird isn't an angry or flappy one...
Yes, I agree that people might look at Sebastian Skrobol's logo and think, "What the fu...?" But equally, knowing comics fans, they'll say, "What does Spoko mean?" And before you know it you have a dialogue going with a potential customer. I believe having an unusual name for something can sometimes generate more 'interest' than if I'd called it 'The Borderline Press Anthology Comic'.
The first issue is almost finished. I need to send Seb the blurb for the back cover and tidy up the inside 44 pages and it will be joining Verity Fair at the (new) printer.
***
Another book that was generating a lot of noise at Bristol was Jamie Lewis's Seth & Ghost - the inclusion of the Zombre story as a full colour free comic strip was, I believe a bit of a master stroke by moi, because it is vivid, very four-colour and was the thing that got us talking to the cosplay fans.
This is also a book that's released in the autumn - whether it's out for The Lakes or for Jamie's home town Thought Bubble, I can't accurately tell you at the moment, but whenever it comes out, I think it's going to make someone a star...
***
So what is our raison d'etre? Do we have a sentence that encapsulates Borderline Press to anyone still not fortunate enough to have heard of us?
I'd never thought about this as a sound-bite before. The website lists what we want to do and what I'd like to achieve, but the closest we've come to a catchphrase is 'quality over quantity' - which sounds like something from an expensive DIY retailer or a Heston Blumenthal restaurant.
Borderline Press wants to publish the best Europe has for the creators who aren't as recognised or recognisable as their over-inflated US counterparts? Nah, that's typically inflammatory from me; but it is correct in its suggestion - we do want to publish great books, predominantly from unknown creators, to give them an audience and help us continue the work (which I started back in Borderline Magazine's Drawing Board features). I'm looking at Europe because there is a wealth of untapped talent out there; but equally, I'm getting interest from great - unknown - people in the UK and USA.
Christian, my new assistant, was reading this monster opus from a US creator and could not get over just how brilliant and quick it was to draw him in. "Are we doing ### #######?"
"Dunno, it's through an agent and agents haven't got the same ethics we hope people will see we've got."
"That's a real shame, this is really good and deserves an audience."
"Then it will, even if it's with someone else."
Then why did we do some zombie books?
Because, having been out of comics for 10 years, the idea of producing a zombie anthology seemed to be a no-brainer. It was a no-brainer - the wrong way round...
Don't get me wrong. Zombre is our current best-selling book. The problem was Kim Herbst's lovely, funny and very female-friendly Zombies Can't Swim came out hot on Zombre's heels and suddenly people thought we were a zombie publisher and the baby Dennis Wojda on the cover of 566 Frames was really something utterly horrific. From a business POV, I wince at this bad scheduling on my part. Kim was more than happy for me to publish her, I could have waited a few months and barely anyone would have thought we were just trying to jump on TWD's coat tails. Which to a certain degree we were and that will teach me to try and jump bandwagons.
So that's why I think Borderline Press needs a blunt and pithy mission statement.
***
My final observation from the weekend was thanks to a (I'm not being sexist, Ben) gorgeous young (blonde and attractive, in case she's reading this) lady who came back to the table on Saturday afternoon and bought 566 Frames using the last £12.56 she had in her pocket. She had returned three times to look at it and tentatively talk to the dull looking middle-aged men trying to sell them. I finally realised that she wanted the book but didn't have the cash, so did a deal with her.
"I'd love to buy this [Hunger House] and this [ZCS] because it's clear that you're a female-friendly publisher." And, do you know, I could have taken £12.56 all weekend and that would have pleased me more than being given the opportunity to have no-questions-asked-sweaty-sex with Karen Gillen (which, incidentally, I haven't ever had the opportunity... yet).
We are, essentially, a female friendly publisher! We publish women and we mainly want to publish books that will appeal to women as much as they will for men.
I said to Christian, driving back yesterday, that we can't really go round saying or claiming we're a female friendly publisher because it's really something a female has to say. Two men with the combined age of 96 are probably going to struggle to convince people that they're not superhero fans, but, a woman said this to me and by the end of the year we'll have published: Loka Kanarp, Kim Herbst, Joanna Sanecka, Sylwia Restecka, Agata Bara, Chrissy Derbyshire, Joanna Karpowicz, and a couple more that I can't talk about, so not to jinx anything. Also, I've agreed in principal to publish one of Leonie O'Moore's projects in 2015 and the majority of the books we have out or have coming out will appeal to women as much as men.
Verity Fair is created by a man, but is all about women. Seamonster is very much the kind of thing women would be happy to have on their book shelves. And, do you know something, I don't think this fact hinders us at all. You could say that I'm alienating my own gender, to this I say, you can't alienate quality and if they can't see that they can stick with their superheroes a spandex.
So... In conclusion: Bristol Comics Expo was a bit of a load of shite. They shouldn't do one again for a few years, or let someone who has a clue run it. In terms of Borderline Press getting out there, we gave away 300 free comics, talked to many people and our name is becoming far wider known; so as a PR exercise we can't really complain. As a worst case scenario, we were pleased it was the first con of the year, because we will not make the same mistakes again and will go to Leicester in June with a new look and topless dancing girls and a selection of Chippendales dressed as Deadpool...
...
This, almost pointless, discussion was one of many we had at Bristol Comics Expo on Sunday afternoon. We had to do something because it was either that or violently attack the organisers...
No, it wasn't so busy that promoting it would have caused problems. You needed to have already bought your ticket to get through the door. If you were a member of the public, curious to see why all these brightly coloured (and black or white) costumes were descending onto a slightly dodgy modern hotel in the centre of Bristol, you were shit out of luck. If you were a local comics fan or had maybe heard about the event and travelled up to buy Borderline Press books or get Michael Golden's autograph, you were also shit out of luck.
Here's an example of a conversation I heard between an incredibly disgruntled stall holder and an utterly-out-of-her-depth organiser/helper:
"Why are you turning people away?"
"They don't have tickets."
"Let them pay at the door."
"We haven't got the facilities to do that."
"I have. Let me give you a box with a float, you can charge people to come in and maybe some of them will spend some money rather than just walk around posing in their manga costumes."
"We can't do that."
"There's about 50 people upstairs. I've barely taken enough money to cover my table costs and you're turning people away?"
This was Sunday about 2pm and because of the cramped space the dealers were forced into, 50 people was probably an exaggeration on the dealer's part.
Considering the massive success we had the week before at the book launch at Close Encounters in Northampton; we went to Bristol with a mixture of confidence and (for me) trepidation. I set my expectations low, to offset any disappointments - my low expectations were not even met...
One of the 'star' guests admitted to me that he'd had more people ask him who he was than requests for signed books or sketches; Arthur Suydam (the Zombie King and for me man behind the brilliant 70s strip Cholly & Flytrap) was telling me how he's still a student even after all these years and showed me all the sketches he'd been doing in between the lack in interest most of the attendees had for his (or anyone else's) stuff. While another of the guests made me wonder who he'd slept with the actually get a job in comics, because with one exception his stuff was rank amateur; this was a guy who would have benefited with practising a little as well...
Don't get me wrong. On the journey back, Christian and I were disappointed by the turnout and the lack of fiscal reward, but we also saw the enormous benefits from the networking and meeting and talking to people. We figured it was the best place to cut our 2014 convention teeth and make sure we don't repeat any of the mistakes we might have made. So, despite my curmudgeonly persona and (as a Spurs supporter) tendency to embrace doom and gloom, we saw enormous positives from the weekend; sadly it was despite the convention not because of it...
***
At the Close Encounters book launch, we struggled to sell any Zombies Can't Swim and despite it being a lovely, self-contained little book - cheap as well - we sold just one copy at the book launch. Zombre sold very well at the book launch, yet at Bristol, ZCS sold well and Zombre sold just one??? This was why we were discussing Borderline Press's reason for existing. I've always believed that even in the UK you have regional variations; when I wrote Movers & Shakers for years, I'd sometimes get feedback from, say, Scotland suggesting that what was hot in London or Northampton wasn't necessarily in Glasgow. This gave me the altruistic ideas, at the time, to try and build a retailers back issue network, where retailers could swap and/or sell their stock to other regions: if Edinburgh needs X-Men and Swindon needs Batman and both have a surplus of what the other needs ... It's not rocket science.
But, when one zombie themed book sells and the other doesn't and then the exact opposite happens 115 miles away, you have to seriously wonder if there are regional variations with more eclectic books.
***
What is Spoko?
Spoko means COOL. It is a Polish word that has been adopted by a lot of European countries, the same way as some idiots in this country still say 'cool beans' when agreeing with something.
The first issue of Spoko is called Birds. Therefore the first issue is really called... COOL BIRDS and a cool bird isn't an angry or flappy one...
Yes, I agree that people might look at Sebastian Skrobol's logo and think, "What the fu...?" But equally, knowing comics fans, they'll say, "What does Spoko mean?" And before you know it you have a dialogue going with a potential customer. I believe having an unusual name for something can sometimes generate more 'interest' than if I'd called it 'The Borderline Press Anthology Comic'.
***
Another book that was generating a lot of noise at Bristol was Jamie Lewis's Seth & Ghost - the inclusion of the Zombre story as a full colour free comic strip was, I believe a bit of a master stroke by moi, because it is vivid, very four-colour and was the thing that got us talking to the cosplay fans.
***
So what is our raison d'etre? Do we have a sentence that encapsulates Borderline Press to anyone still not fortunate enough to have heard of us?
I'd never thought about this as a sound-bite before. The website lists what we want to do and what I'd like to achieve, but the closest we've come to a catchphrase is 'quality over quantity' - which sounds like something from an expensive DIY retailer or a Heston Blumenthal restaurant.
Christian, my new assistant, was reading this monster opus from a US creator and could not get over just how brilliant and quick it was to draw him in. "Are we doing ### #######?"
"Dunno, it's through an agent and agents haven't got the same ethics we hope people will see we've got."
"That's a real shame, this is really good and deserves an audience."
"Then it will, even if it's with someone else."
Then why did we do some zombie books?
Because, having been out of comics for 10 years, the idea of producing a zombie anthology seemed to be a no-brainer. It was a no-brainer - the wrong way round...
So that's why I think Borderline Press needs a blunt and pithy mission statement.
***
My final observation from the weekend was thanks to a (I'm not being sexist, Ben) gorgeous young (blonde and attractive, in case she's reading this) lady who came back to the table on Saturday afternoon and bought 566 Frames using the last £12.56 she had in her pocket. She had returned three times to look at it and tentatively talk to the dull looking middle-aged men trying to sell them. I finally realised that she wanted the book but didn't have the cash, so did a deal with her.
"I'd love to buy this [Hunger House] and this [ZCS] because it's clear that you're a female-friendly publisher." And, do you know, I could have taken £12.56 all weekend and that would have pleased me more than being given the opportunity to have no-questions-asked-sweaty-sex with Karen Gillen (which, incidentally, I haven't ever had the opportunity... yet).
We are, essentially, a female friendly publisher! We publish women and we mainly want to publish books that will appeal to women as much as they will for men.
Verity Fair is created by a man, but is all about women. Seamonster is very much the kind of thing women would be happy to have on their book shelves. And, do you know something, I don't think this fact hinders us at all. You could say that I'm alienating my own gender, to this I say, you can't alienate quality and if they can't see that they can stick with their superheroes a spandex.
...
Monday, 28 April 2014
Borderline Blog #18 - It's the Custom(s)
"One of your books has been seized by customs..."
At least that's initially what I thought the nice young lady from the cargo company had said. I had visions of Hunger House being pawed by overzealous Customs & Excise officials, wondering just how old the girl in it is supposed to be.
"Which book?" I asked.
"Um... City of Crocodiles."
"Why?"
"Customs pull a container or two from most ships, just to make sure there isn't a Chinese family hiding inside it. It should be released on Monday, you'll still get it for when you need it."
I can't help but think this might have something to do with the officious twat at HM Customs & Excise I dealt with a couple of weeks ago, when I made the throwaway comment at some pointless bureaucracy about 'It's not like these are terrorist manuals disguised as comics,' - I'm sure it had nothing to do with it...
So instead of receiving 80 boxes on Monday, I shall receive 42 on Monday and a further 38 before the deadline arrives (expect delivery photos). It's a bit of a pain really. For all of the benefits of having stuff printed in China, you have to wait up to 10 weeks for their delivery and then some jobsworth at Southampton goes and screws up your weekend...
One thing I've become acutely aware of recently is time and how it no longer works to your advantage. Hunger House and City of Crocodiles were actually initially scheduled for March releases and the catalogue of minor but annoying 'hurdles' that ended up pushing that release date back to essentially the beginning of May (I got the 'Ma' part right) were really unforeseen and bloody annoying - oh, I said that, but they were. Printers deleting files they were supposed to be using. Endless dialogue with associated parties, who, while not directly involved in the process are inextricably linked through association (this was a particular bugbear of mine). It's a good job I haven't had hard and fast deadlines to stick to (at the moment - this changes later in the year) because I would have been left in a 'vulnerable and compromising position'.
As it is, we're considering having 100 copies of Verity Fair airfreighted to the UK so that we have them for the Leicester Comic Con and a proposed Terry Wiley signing at Travelling Man in that there Newcastle-Upon-Tyne place. This is because the chances of having the sea shipment here on time is about as likely as me getting Jack Kirby to draw my autobiography (slim, but even slimmer given he's been dead for 20 years).
To be fair, VF's delays have had a lot to do with me being 'unwell' and also my attempts to salvage something out of the Beastly rubble and various other things, one of which I fully intend to rant about, one day.
Now we're hurtling towards Free Comic Book Day and then convention season starts properly with Bristol in May. I have fond memories of Bristol - Borderline Magazine won its award there - but this year is the first time I go there with a vested interest in attendance and consumers - the apprehension is almost palpable.
If you are near Northampton on Saturday 3rd, May, then come down to Close Encounters and celebrate the release of our new books, meet some creators and eat some cake! If you're in Bristol the following weekend, look out for our banner and come over and talk to me or my new assistant, Chris. At Bristol, we'll have Ben Dickson on our table, talking about Santa Claus, Adolf Hitler and all of his other projects and there'll be people stopping by all over the weekend. Come over and buy me a beer, I won't say no, unless it's lager!
Depending on the success of the Northampton launch, we're looking at having special days at Close Encounters in Bedford, Comic Connections in Banbury, Travelling Man in Newcastle and, to be brutally honest, anywhere else that fancies having us (we bring cake!).
At least that's initially what I thought the nice young lady from the cargo company had said. I had visions of Hunger House being pawed by overzealous Customs & Excise officials, wondering just how old the girl in it is supposed to be.
"Which book?" I asked.
"Um... City of Crocodiles."
"Why?"
"Customs pull a container or two from most ships, just to make sure there isn't a Chinese family hiding inside it. It should be released on Monday, you'll still get it for when you need it."
I can't help but think this might have something to do with the officious twat at HM Customs & Excise I dealt with a couple of weeks ago, when I made the throwaway comment at some pointless bureaucracy about 'It's not like these are terrorist manuals disguised as comics,' - I'm sure it had nothing to do with it...
So instead of receiving 80 boxes on Monday, I shall receive 42 on Monday and a further 38 before the deadline arrives (expect delivery photos). It's a bit of a pain really. For all of the benefits of having stuff printed in China, you have to wait up to 10 weeks for their delivery and then some jobsworth at Southampton goes and screws up your weekend...
One thing I've become acutely aware of recently is time and how it no longer works to your advantage. Hunger House and City of Crocodiles were actually initially scheduled for March releases and the catalogue of minor but annoying 'hurdles' that ended up pushing that release date back to essentially the beginning of May (I got the 'Ma' part right) were really unforeseen and bloody annoying - oh, I said that, but they were. Printers deleting files they were supposed to be using. Endless dialogue with associated parties, who, while not directly involved in the process are inextricably linked through association (this was a particular bugbear of mine). It's a good job I haven't had hard and fast deadlines to stick to (at the moment - this changes later in the year) because I would have been left in a 'vulnerable and compromising position'.
As it is, we're considering having 100 copies of Verity Fair airfreighted to the UK so that we have them for the Leicester Comic Con and a proposed Terry Wiley signing at Travelling Man in that there Newcastle-Upon-Tyne place. This is because the chances of having the sea shipment here on time is about as likely as me getting Jack Kirby to draw my autobiography (slim, but even slimmer given he's been dead for 20 years).
To be fair, VF's delays have had a lot to do with me being 'unwell' and also my attempts to salvage something out of the Beastly rubble and various other things, one of which I fully intend to rant about, one day.
Now we're hurtling towards Free Comic Book Day and then convention season starts properly with Bristol in May. I have fond memories of Bristol - Borderline Magazine won its award there - but this year is the first time I go there with a vested interest in attendance and consumers - the apprehension is almost palpable.
If you are near Northampton on Saturday 3rd, May, then come down to Close Encounters and celebrate the release of our new books, meet some creators and eat some cake! If you're in Bristol the following weekend, look out for our banner and come over and talk to me or my new assistant, Chris. At Bristol, we'll have Ben Dickson on our table, talking about Santa Claus, Adolf Hitler and all of his other projects and there'll be people stopping by all over the weekend. Come over and buy me a beer, I won't say no, unless it's lager!
Depending on the success of the Northampton launch, we're looking at having special days at Close Encounters in Bedford, Comic Connections in Banbury, Travelling Man in Newcastle and, to be brutally honest, anywhere else that fancies having us (we bring cake!).
Saturday, 12 April 2014
Borderline Blog #17 - Donkey Porn
I learned a lot of valuable lessons from Dez Skinn - the 'waste not, want not' philosophy was one of them that I still fully embrace. I hate that people do work and it eventually ends up not being used, especially if it is of a standard that should be used. However, 'standards' and 'quality' are relative to the individual - one man's poo is (most probably) my dog's snack!
So, I've been agonising for the last two weeks about the Beastly anthology and the fact that I feel like I've let down a bunch of people. The economics of the situation shouts at me that I didn't let anyone down and I would have let me and my company down, had I been foolhardy enough to pursue something that was not cost effective, and also something I have discovered over the last few weeks isn't as well received by fans as you might imagine. As someone (in the know) said to me last week, "Anthologies are a lot of hard work for not a lot of return'.
But...
I have these strips... and I don't like wasting good things (that's why I compost).
About six months ago, I was in the throes of planning something called 'Spoko' - the working title for a European anthology comic; something, some wag, suggested would be my Warrior. Spoko kind of got forgotten about as I discovered that being a publisher was a slow process and everything ends up being two months later than you plan for. Oddly enough, in the last blog I talked about the Free Comic having one page that is now obsolete, well the original version had an advert in it for Spoko but I dropped it as negotiations with European publishers were painstakingly sloth-like and I really didn't want to presume, because that often ends up leaving you with egg on your face.
The problem with Beastly, as I have banged on about before, is the shape of it (all done to accommodate the Gavron stories initially, but also justifiably); and that kind of precludes it from being used anywhere else (without seriously affecting formatting or looking bloody amateurish).
I was sifting through 'The Box' the other day. 'The Box' contains what is left of my once HUGE comicbook collection. Where (twice in my life) I had 50,000+ comics ranging in value from thousands of quid to pennies (I liked a lot of crap worthless comics, so sue me), I now have one box and in it contains Swamp Thing #1 (the actual comic I purchased from Forbuoys in Daventry, November 1972 - it has changed hands a few times I'm sure, but trust me, this is the comic I bought in 1972), all the British Marvel Captain Britain comics and appearances; Fish Police, a bunch of assorted oddments (Amazing Adventures #34 - possibly my favourite comic of all time, which is odd as I was ambivalent about Killraven for the most part) and Hard Boiled and it was this that suddenly inspired me!
Hard Boiled was by Frank Miller and Geof Darrow, it was a three-part series produced oversized to fully appreciate the intricacy and utter madness of Darrow's art and at the time many people thought Dark Horse were taking a gamble on producing a comic that simply wasn't standard US comic shaped.
This gave me an idea. What if I took the bird themed stories out of the Beastly book and collected them together and produced a square comic in the same kind of format as Hard Boiled? The problem with that was I'd be left with four stories that wouldn't be used.
Then, while sitting watching the Scrabble board on Facebook on Monday, my sense of symmetry arrived again. I had letters which spelled S P O O K I E and I was looking for an R to make SPOOKIER, when I hit shuffle and I was left with I E S P O K O ... SPOKO means 'cool' and while it might not be a Scrabble word, it got me scrambling for my note pad and email. What if I did the quarterly comic I've told lots of people I really wanted to do? What if I used most, if not all of the Beastly contributions over the next 12 months?
By cutting the number of pages down; going to saddle-stitch and using standard comics paper rather than something a little more... arty, I could produce the first issue of Spoko and have enough material left over for another square issue, further down the line! The plan eventually is for a volume of Spokos per calendar year.
However, comic fans like some consistency; they would not want X-Men #137 to be a proper comic and #138 to be round with pop-out bits and a soundtrack by One Direction blaring out of Wolverine's arse; but, you know, I'm not Marvel or DC. I'd like people to buy my books on merit rather than feel obligated because they like full sets like Tesco apples or potatoes - uniform and unimaginative; if Fred Bloggs buys Spoko #1 in all its square glory and #2 comes along and it's a standard comic shape, so it isn't the right shape - then it's Fred's loss. I think doing quality work justice is more important than consistency of shape.
So Spoko is very much back in the schedules and the first issue, which I am currently 'building' will feature the work of Tomáš Prokůpek & Tomáš Kučerovský, Jamie Lewis, Joanna Sanecka & Sylwia Restecka, and Petr Včelka. I would have been in negotiation with the wonderful Sebastian Skrobol about doing the covers for the series (and supplying us with a story or two, with or without Mr Dennis Wojda), by now, but I've been struck down this week with some virus. It is on my agenda for next week.
Future issues will hopefully feature the work of Lucie Lomova, Michal Oraszek, Roman Przylipiak, Nathan Castle, Bartosz Sztybolt, Gord Drynan and a bunch of other people who I can't talk about because I don't want to ruin my chances of signing them up by being too presumptuous. The point is, Spoko does indeed look like it might be a cool project and because it will be a comic it actually allows me to experiment a little more; to play with interesting formats without too huge an outlay
***
Verity Fair is actually at the printer's, it just hasn't started to be printed yet. Not only have I been sick, but my business partner has just had an addition to his family, so the first week of April has been a little like a Borderline holiday (except mine was no vacation... and I'm sure having a baby isn't either).
I know Terry has been trying to get a signing sorted in Newcastle for around the 18th June, which wouldn't be a problem, ordinarily, if they weren't being printed in China. So I'm going to have a quantity airfreighted to Newcastle just in case the boat load doesn't arrive in time! I can do that, apparently!
***
It seems a bit odd. Last autumn we did 566 Frames and Zombre and then I had months of not doing books. The last few months, since Zombies Can't Swim, have been steady, but I'm about to enter into a period where nothing needs to be done for a while. Jamie Lewis's Seth & Ghost Special and Nathan Castle's Seamonster will go off in July/August and Santa Claus versus the Nazis and Robotz (which I still hope people don't think of as a vanity publishing moment) in August/September for launches at the Lakes and that's our first year! Only one of them will need any extensive In Design work and that'll be the last one.
There is a good chance there will be two more black and white 'comics' out this year, probably slotted in between the colour books and hopefully a (colour) collection of the very talented Agata Bara's first three comics. Next year already looks... interesting. I've been negotiating something that I think has massive potential for the creator; the only drawback with it is the size and this time it's the actual number of pages rather than anything odd or out-shaped.
And that brings us round to something else entirely...
Below this and the other Borderline Blogs is My Monthly Curse. It might not be there for much longer. Over the last ten months I've been re-acquainting myself with comics and the people in it from my days. As well as meeting back up with good dear friends, I have been trying to rebuild napalmed bridges; be humble for being an arsehole back in 2005 and try to get people to focus on Borderline Press and not the ageing old fart running it. Oddly enough, with a couple of notable exceptions, most people remember me positively, as one seasoned pro said, 'you're the guy who actually ran Comics International - the workhorse'. That made me happy, because it was true and I do know that I sound like some faded vaudeville act constantly trying to get people to remember the heydays, but there is actually a point to this...
Bucky Buchan, who has been a great help for me over the last couple of months, dishing out advice to a man so out of touch with the industry I'd started to get scared, offered up some interesting suggestions. The thing was, I wasn't really out of step with the industry, I was out of step with what was being used to convey the dialogue within the industry (hence the Twitter assault - @borderlineEU folks, come and follow it!), so once I'd got a handle on that, me and him talked about other things and he pointed out that I should be telling people about the things I've brought to comics and showing them, with good examples, why I belong here and can make and have made a difference (I was the first person to publish and point out the potential star in Dave McKean, Sandman fans - and I've got the proof!). I was one of the first people to ever... but, that's not where we're going with this.
Over the last ten months, I've been up in the loft and found fanzines, old comics related memorabilia, some photos; stuff that I really should have included in My Monthly Curse. Not only that, but those people I mentioned earlier who have been very welcoming, some of them have reminded me about things that I'd either forgotten about or didn't feel should have been in the book and now, over two years since I finished that, I'm seriously considering revising and expanding it. There is a professionally edited version of the book on this computer, by Dave Brzeski, and all I would need to do would be write the new bits and decide which old bits no longer needed to be there and which old bits need expanding on.
Then we get into two dark areas - vanity publishing (which I've been told doesn't have the stigma attached that it once did, but... hey, I think doing more than one Tweet a day is excessive!) and libel. A couple of people, on seeing how much 250 copies would cost to print, suggested I could repackage it as a book of educational benefit, as well as exposing one of UK comics supposed greats as a complete and utter c...
But, where Dez has never bothered me for the on-line and Kindle versions, I think if there was a physical book, one he could hold in his hands, then he would fancy his chances in a court, against me; so, I'm going to have to have it read by someone legal, someone who can tell me whether or not, despite its legitimacy, if it'll get me sued.
***
And that is that. Rather more than I initially expected when I started it last week.
The summer/autumn is filling up with convention things. It all kicks off at Bristol in less than a month, Leicester (hopefully) in June, LFCC in July (another hopeful one), ICE in August, NICE in September, The Lakes in October and TB in November. I'm planning on going to a few others as a spectator as well - I'll keep you updated @borderlineEU or @squonkster_uk
One last thing; for the next few months at least I've got my old mate Christian Lloyd helping me try and get Borderline Press firmly embedded into the comic readers psyches. Chris and I met when I had the Squonk comic shop and have stayed friends ever since. He's going to be doing all the jobs I hate doing: driving (me) to pubs, dealing with the bank, the e-commerce people, the printers, the creators, HMRC, emails, social media, people and I'll sit in the garden drinking margaritas and watching donkey porn!
So, I've been agonising for the last two weeks about the Beastly anthology and the fact that I feel like I've let down a bunch of people. The economics of the situation shouts at me that I didn't let anyone down and I would have let me and my company down, had I been foolhardy enough to pursue something that was not cost effective, and also something I have discovered over the last few weeks isn't as well received by fans as you might imagine. As someone (in the know) said to me last week, "Anthologies are a lot of hard work for not a lot of return'.
But...
I have these strips... and I don't like wasting good things (that's why I compost).
About six months ago, I was in the throes of planning something called 'Spoko' - the working title for a European anthology comic; something, some wag, suggested would be my Warrior. Spoko kind of got forgotten about as I discovered that being a publisher was a slow process and everything ends up being two months later than you plan for. Oddly enough, in the last blog I talked about the Free Comic having one page that is now obsolete, well the original version had an advert in it for Spoko but I dropped it as negotiations with European publishers were painstakingly sloth-like and I really didn't want to presume, because that often ends up leaving you with egg on your face.
The problem with Beastly, as I have banged on about before, is the shape of it (all done to accommodate the Gavron stories initially, but also justifiably); and that kind of precludes it from being used anywhere else (without seriously affecting formatting or looking bloody amateurish).
I was sifting through 'The Box' the other day. 'The Box' contains what is left of my once HUGE comicbook collection. Where (twice in my life) I had 50,000+ comics ranging in value from thousands of quid to pennies (I liked a lot of crap worthless comics, so sue me), I now have one box and in it contains Swamp Thing #1 (the actual comic I purchased from Forbuoys in Daventry, November 1972 - it has changed hands a few times I'm sure, but trust me, this is the comic I bought in 1972), all the British Marvel Captain Britain comics and appearances; Fish Police, a bunch of assorted oddments (Amazing Adventures #34 - possibly my favourite comic of all time, which is odd as I was ambivalent about Killraven for the most part) and Hard Boiled and it was this that suddenly inspired me!
This gave me an idea. What if I took the bird themed stories out of the Beastly book and collected them together and produced a square comic in the same kind of format as Hard Boiled? The problem with that was I'd be left with four stories that wouldn't be used.
Then, while sitting watching the Scrabble board on Facebook on Monday, my sense of symmetry arrived again. I had letters which spelled S P O O K I E and I was looking for an R to make SPOOKIER, when I hit shuffle and I was left with I E S P O K O ... SPOKO means 'cool' and while it might not be a Scrabble word, it got me scrambling for my note pad and email. What if I did the quarterly comic I've told lots of people I really wanted to do? What if I used most, if not all of the Beastly contributions over the next 12 months?
By cutting the number of pages down; going to saddle-stitch and using standard comics paper rather than something a little more... arty, I could produce the first issue of Spoko and have enough material left over for another square issue, further down the line! The plan eventually is for a volume of Spokos per calendar year.
However, comic fans like some consistency; they would not want X-Men #137 to be a proper comic and #138 to be round with pop-out bits and a soundtrack by One Direction blaring out of Wolverine's arse; but, you know, I'm not Marvel or DC. I'd like people to buy my books on merit rather than feel obligated because they like full sets like Tesco apples or potatoes - uniform and unimaginative; if Fred Bloggs buys Spoko #1 in all its square glory and #2 comes along and it's a standard comic shape, so it isn't the right shape - then it's Fred's loss. I think doing quality work justice is more important than consistency of shape.
So Spoko is very much back in the schedules and the first issue, which I am currently 'building' will feature the work of Tomáš Prokůpek & Tomáš Kučerovský, Jamie Lewis, Joanna Sanecka & Sylwia Restecka, and Petr Včelka. I would have been in negotiation with the wonderful Sebastian Skrobol about doing the covers for the series (and supplying us with a story or two, with or without Mr Dennis Wojda), by now, but I've been struck down this week with some virus. It is on my agenda for next week.
Future issues will hopefully feature the work of Lucie Lomova, Michal Oraszek, Roman Przylipiak, Nathan Castle, Bartosz Sztybolt, Gord Drynan and a bunch of other people who I can't talk about because I don't want to ruin my chances of signing them up by being too presumptuous. The point is, Spoko does indeed look like it might be a cool project and because it will be a comic it actually allows me to experiment a little more; to play with interesting formats without too huge an outlay
***
Verity Fair is actually at the printer's, it just hasn't started to be printed yet. Not only have I been sick, but my business partner has just had an addition to his family, so the first week of April has been a little like a Borderline holiday (except mine was no vacation... and I'm sure having a baby isn't either).
I know Terry has been trying to get a signing sorted in Newcastle for around the 18th June, which wouldn't be a problem, ordinarily, if they weren't being printed in China. So I'm going to have a quantity airfreighted to Newcastle just in case the boat load doesn't arrive in time! I can do that, apparently!
***
It seems a bit odd. Last autumn we did 566 Frames and Zombre and then I had months of not doing books. The last few months, since Zombies Can't Swim, have been steady, but I'm about to enter into a period where nothing needs to be done for a while. Jamie Lewis's Seth & Ghost Special and Nathan Castle's Seamonster will go off in July/August and Santa Claus versus the Nazis and Robotz (which I still hope people don't think of as a vanity publishing moment) in August/September for launches at the Lakes and that's our first year! Only one of them will need any extensive In Design work and that'll be the last one.
 |
| The Red One - Robotz: Jo Ka |
And that brings us round to something else entirely...
Below this and the other Borderline Blogs is My Monthly Curse. It might not be there for much longer. Over the last ten months I've been re-acquainting myself with comics and the people in it from my days. As well as meeting back up with good dear friends, I have been trying to rebuild napalmed bridges; be humble for being an arsehole back in 2005 and try to get people to focus on Borderline Press and not the ageing old fart running it. Oddly enough, with a couple of notable exceptions, most people remember me positively, as one seasoned pro said, 'you're the guy who actually ran Comics International - the workhorse'. That made me happy, because it was true and I do know that I sound like some faded vaudeville act constantly trying to get people to remember the heydays, but there is actually a point to this...
Bucky Buchan, who has been a great help for me over the last couple of months, dishing out advice to a man so out of touch with the industry I'd started to get scared, offered up some interesting suggestions. The thing was, I wasn't really out of step with the industry, I was out of step with what was being used to convey the dialogue within the industry (hence the Twitter assault - @borderlineEU folks, come and follow it!), so once I'd got a handle on that, me and him talked about other things and he pointed out that I should be telling people about the things I've brought to comics and showing them, with good examples, why I belong here and can make and have made a difference (I was the first person to publish and point out the potential star in Dave McKean, Sandman fans - and I've got the proof!). I was one of the first people to ever... but, that's not where we're going with this.
Over the last ten months, I've been up in the loft and found fanzines, old comics related memorabilia, some photos; stuff that I really should have included in My Monthly Curse. Not only that, but those people I mentioned earlier who have been very welcoming, some of them have reminded me about things that I'd either forgotten about or didn't feel should have been in the book and now, over two years since I finished that, I'm seriously considering revising and expanding it. There is a professionally edited version of the book on this computer, by Dave Brzeski, and all I would need to do would be write the new bits and decide which old bits no longer needed to be there and which old bits need expanding on.
Then we get into two dark areas - vanity publishing (which I've been told doesn't have the stigma attached that it once did, but... hey, I think doing more than one Tweet a day is excessive!) and libel. A couple of people, on seeing how much 250 copies would cost to print, suggested I could repackage it as a book of educational benefit, as well as exposing one of UK comics supposed greats as a complete and utter c...
But, where Dez has never bothered me for the on-line and Kindle versions, I think if there was a physical book, one he could hold in his hands, then he would fancy his chances in a court, against me; so, I'm going to have to have it read by someone legal, someone who can tell me whether or not, despite its legitimacy, if it'll get me sued.
And that is that. Rather more than I initially expected when I started it last week.
The summer/autumn is filling up with convention things. It all kicks off at Bristol in less than a month, Leicester (hopefully) in June, LFCC in July (another hopeful one), ICE in August, NICE in September, The Lakes in October and TB in November. I'm planning on going to a few others as a spectator as well - I'll keep you updated @borderlineEU or @squonkster_uk
One last thing; for the next few months at least I've got my old mate Christian Lloyd helping me try and get Borderline Press firmly embedded into the comic readers psyches. Chris and I met when I had the Squonk comic shop and have stayed friends ever since. He's going to be doing all the jobs I hate doing: driving (me) to pubs, dealing with the bank, the e-commerce people, the printers, the creators, HMRC, emails, social media, people and I'll sit in the garden drinking margaritas and watching donkey porn!
Sunday, 23 March 2014
Borderline Blog #16 - Animal Instincts
Beasts, Beastly, whatever you want to call it, it's on an indefinite hiatus.
A book beset by problems, I decided today something I think I'd decided when the initial problems happened - it's simply too expensive and too much hassle.
Some 'other setbacks' tipped the scales and made me decide that the project needed shelving until it could be re-assessed and rescheduled - probably early in 2015.
The problem with Beastly and the reason for that last estimate is that it's in a square page format, so I can't use any of the strips anywhere else, unless I use them together. It really hurts having to shelve the book, especially as people put so much work into it. I am investigating migrating the project to a European publisher, but all the other hassles aside, the cost kept spiralling beyond that of a viable project and, yeah I know, all that PR, the mention in the FREE comic (it had a whole page and a line saying it will be out in June...), it's going to look poor; surely I could have foreseen the problems?
Maybe I should or could have, but sometimes sh*t happens that you simply haven't taken into account and this was one of those moments. My partner would be saying, "Just hush it up; don't mention it; deal with individuals; don't give the public the chance to see there's been a deviation from the plans, especially as most of them will have forgotten by Tuesday." The thing is, in this 5 minute world we live in, I could give you an anatomy lesson with Hentai illustrations and it would probably have been forgotten about by the time I end this sen...
The money it frees up will enable me to publish two more books. It will also allow me to do something I promised then couldn't do, re-assessed and then backtracked on - well, now I think a compromise can be reached.
An old Internet buddy of mine, Regie Rigby had a saying - something about every black cloud having a silver lining. Sometimes it used to really piss me off, especially when I was in a grumpy mood. I thought of him and the saying today and wondered if I was possibly starting to become a glass half full person?
Heaven forbid...
Like I mentioned, the Free Comic will have a slightly obsolete page - but it isn't like some things that could have happened. The printer in Hong Kong could have effectively done the free comic for 50% less money than Berforts in Stevenage (give or take a few %), but it would have been on a boat now, heading to England, due a few weeks earlier than Hunger House and City of Crocodiles, and it would have had soooooo much wrong with it I would probably just set fire to them when they arrived...
A few days ago I wrote a rant that will likely never see the light of day; but to cut a long story short the Free Comic that would have gone to HK for the cheap deal would have been 16 completely different pages than what we ended up with.
Regie, if you can hear me, your optimism is now my muse!
Stay tuned for updates or follow us on Twitter @borderlineEU
A book beset by problems, I decided today something I think I'd decided when the initial problems happened - it's simply too expensive and too much hassle.
Some 'other setbacks' tipped the scales and made me decide that the project needed shelving until it could be re-assessed and rescheduled - probably early in 2015.
The problem with Beastly and the reason for that last estimate is that it's in a square page format, so I can't use any of the strips anywhere else, unless I use them together. It really hurts having to shelve the book, especially as people put so much work into it. I am investigating migrating the project to a European publisher, but all the other hassles aside, the cost kept spiralling beyond that of a viable project and, yeah I know, all that PR, the mention in the FREE comic (it had a whole page and a line saying it will be out in June...), it's going to look poor; surely I could have foreseen the problems?
Maybe I should or could have, but sometimes sh*t happens that you simply haven't taken into account and this was one of those moments. My partner would be saying, "Just hush it up; don't mention it; deal with individuals; don't give the public the chance to see there's been a deviation from the plans, especially as most of them will have forgotten by Tuesday." The thing is, in this 5 minute world we live in, I could give you an anatomy lesson with Hentai illustrations and it would probably have been forgotten about by the time I end this sen...
The money it frees up will enable me to publish two more books. It will also allow me to do something I promised then couldn't do, re-assessed and then backtracked on - well, now I think a compromise can be reached.
An old Internet buddy of mine, Regie Rigby had a saying - something about every black cloud having a silver lining. Sometimes it used to really piss me off, especially when I was in a grumpy mood. I thought of him and the saying today and wondered if I was possibly starting to become a glass half full person?
Heaven forbid...
Like I mentioned, the Free Comic will have a slightly obsolete page - but it isn't like some things that could have happened. The printer in Hong Kong could have effectively done the free comic for 50% less money than Berforts in Stevenage (give or take a few %), but it would have been on a boat now, heading to England, due a few weeks earlier than Hunger House and City of Crocodiles, and it would have had soooooo much wrong with it I would probably just set fire to them when they arrived...
A few days ago I wrote a rant that will likely never see the light of day; but to cut a long story short the Free Comic that would have gone to HK for the cheap deal would have been 16 completely different pages than what we ended up with.
Regie, if you can hear me, your optimism is now my muse!
Stay tuned for updates or follow us on Twitter @borderlineEU
Friday, 14 March 2014
Borderline Blog #15 - We Care A Lot
Borderline Press is a small business. It's not blessed with infinite resources; it isn't a shell company standing in front of a much bigger, well known, one. It is me (and a few helpers) and I try to present a professional image. I try to produce professional books. I want people to be happy - honest.
For anyone who ever read this blog in the days when the idea of me returning to comics was as plausible as that Malaysian airliner having been abducted by aliens, you'll know that as an ex-retailer I think publishers - comics publishers - are monumental shits.
I have a friend who is coming to help me at conventions and will do all those jobs I don't want to do and he's not familiar with the inner workings of comics. He thought that comics retailing was pretty much like every other retailing and he laughed - a genuine, honest laugh - when I explained to him that retailers pay for Point of Sale material. You want posters to advertise Marvel's new book? They cost this much - so on, so forth. If you want help selling their product you pay for it. You remember record shops? You might recall all those fantastic displays for new albums in the shop window? You remember video stores? You know all those mega-fantastic displays in the windows? Book shops? The displays for the new Stephen King, John Grisham or Hilary Mantel? Games stores? Every single one of them paid for by the publisher/distributor/manufacturer. Comics publishers (and distributors) give small retailers shit deals and then charge them for the honour of selling their product. It makes you wonder why people would want to run a comic shop with just that little fact? No other division of the entertainment industry treats its Front Line sales people with such utter contempt and they have done so for 30 years.
I said to my partner, "We need to do a free comic for Free Comic Book Day and we need to give it away!" He looked at me like I'd just said, "We need to eat food or we'll eventually starve to death!" Then I explained to him what I meant and his reaction was absolutely what you'd expect - 'Go for it!'
So, back in January when Will was still helping me, I started to put together a free comic. Will designed the cover; I filled the 15 pages with sales pitch, hyperbole and pretty pictures. Things happened; time moved on; different people were spoken to and eventually, yesterday, the free comic pretty much got past the 95% finished stage and there are just 2 pages that bare any resemblance to that original from January.
I'm getting 5000 printed. I'm sending a bunch of them to 50 comic shops across the British Isles and Ireland. I'm paying for the printing. I'm not (like all other publishers) going to charge the shops (because they wouldn't have them off me if I tried because they don't know me from a hole in the ground) and I'm going to foot the postage bill as well. I'm spending a lot of money and I just hope that the comic shops appreciate the gesture and the comics readers like what they see, so they can go into their shops and get them to order books from me.
And, just to emphasise my belief in the UK's comics retailers, I'll give any shop taking these books between now and the end of July a whopping 50% discount and they can have them, during that period, on a Sale Or Return basis - so if at any point between now and August they order books and are not satisfied, they can send them back and I'll even refund their postage.
That's how much confidence I have that Borderline Press is doing good stuff and now the comics press have started to see such gems as 566 Frames and they are getting justifiably good reviews, I don't want you to forget about Borderline Press and I want you to think that our books are what you want.
The extra brilliant thing about the free comic is that in a couple of weeks (maximum), we're (well, Glenn is) going to make it available to download from the website. The amazing thing about this, for me, is that the PDF is around 12meg, which is 12x the size of Borderline Magazine. In 2001, a 1meg file would take around an hour to download at 128kpbs and today, with my superfast broadband, it takes about 4 seconds to download 12meg.
The problem with people over 50 is unless they keep up with the technological world they end up being amazed like a caveman would be at a Sony Walkman - he'd probably understand that music was coming from this strange thing, but he wouldn't understand how or why - that's people over 50 that is.
Anyhow, just to recap. Free comic. Free - not costing anything. Free to the customer. Free to the retailer. Free to download. Free. Like air but with a little more substance, in a virtual kind of way. As free as the bird that Lynyrd Skynyrd sang about.
It will be 16 pages, half of which is an awesome Jamie Lewis full colour Seth and Ghost story - which is free! The other half is lots of what's coming and look how good what's been is. And, in case I didn't mention, it won't cost anyone anything. It will literally be free (unless you count to expel energy as a cost) and there ain't much free-ness about nowadays.
Oh and you really should follow Borderline Press on Twitter - @borderlineEU - I chose that 'handle' because I see the publishing company as a Pan European burgeoning publishing empire forging forward like that Norwegian bloke who discovered Antarctica or maybe sailed the world on a plank of wood or something. I actually chose that name because it was the only one available and everyone said the other one we had would just confuse people (unfortunately I can't tell you what it was as Bono has taken out a court order against me).
For anyone who ever read this blog in the days when the idea of me returning to comics was as plausible as that Malaysian airliner having been abducted by aliens, you'll know that as an ex-retailer I think publishers - comics publishers - are monumental shits.
I have a friend who is coming to help me at conventions and will do all those jobs I don't want to do and he's not familiar with the inner workings of comics. He thought that comics retailing was pretty much like every other retailing and he laughed - a genuine, honest laugh - when I explained to him that retailers pay for Point of Sale material. You want posters to advertise Marvel's new book? They cost this much - so on, so forth. If you want help selling their product you pay for it. You remember record shops? You might recall all those fantastic displays for new albums in the shop window? You remember video stores? You know all those mega-fantastic displays in the windows? Book shops? The displays for the new Stephen King, John Grisham or Hilary Mantel? Games stores? Every single one of them paid for by the publisher/distributor/manufacturer. Comics publishers (and distributors) give small retailers shit deals and then charge them for the honour of selling their product. It makes you wonder why people would want to run a comic shop with just that little fact? No other division of the entertainment industry treats its Front Line sales people with such utter contempt and they have done so for 30 years.
I said to my partner, "We need to do a free comic for Free Comic Book Day and we need to give it away!" He looked at me like I'd just said, "We need to eat food or we'll eventually starve to death!" Then I explained to him what I meant and his reaction was absolutely what you'd expect - 'Go for it!'
So, back in January when Will was still helping me, I started to put together a free comic. Will designed the cover; I filled the 15 pages with sales pitch, hyperbole and pretty pictures. Things happened; time moved on; different people were spoken to and eventually, yesterday, the free comic pretty much got past the 95% finished stage and there are just 2 pages that bare any resemblance to that original from January.
I'm getting 5000 printed. I'm sending a bunch of them to 50 comic shops across the British Isles and Ireland. I'm paying for the printing. I'm not (like all other publishers) going to charge the shops (because they wouldn't have them off me if I tried because they don't know me from a hole in the ground) and I'm going to foot the postage bill as well. I'm spending a lot of money and I just hope that the comic shops appreciate the gesture and the comics readers like what they see, so they can go into their shops and get them to order books from me.
And, just to emphasise my belief in the UK's comics retailers, I'll give any shop taking these books between now and the end of July a whopping 50% discount and they can have them, during that period, on a Sale Or Return basis - so if at any point between now and August they order books and are not satisfied, they can send them back and I'll even refund their postage.
That's how much confidence I have that Borderline Press is doing good stuff and now the comics press have started to see such gems as 566 Frames and they are getting justifiably good reviews, I don't want you to forget about Borderline Press and I want you to think that our books are what you want.
The extra brilliant thing about the free comic is that in a couple of weeks (maximum), we're (well, Glenn is) going to make it available to download from the website. The amazing thing about this, for me, is that the PDF is around 12meg, which is 12x the size of Borderline Magazine. In 2001, a 1meg file would take around an hour to download at 128kpbs and today, with my superfast broadband, it takes about 4 seconds to download 12meg.
The problem with people over 50 is unless they keep up with the technological world they end up being amazed like a caveman would be at a Sony Walkman - he'd probably understand that music was coming from this strange thing, but he wouldn't understand how or why - that's people over 50 that is.
Anyhow, just to recap. Free comic. Free - not costing anything. Free to the customer. Free to the retailer. Free to download. Free. Like air but with a little more substance, in a virtual kind of way. As free as the bird that Lynyrd Skynyrd sang about.
It will be 16 pages, half of which is an awesome Jamie Lewis full colour Seth and Ghost story - which is free! The other half is lots of what's coming and look how good what's been is. And, in case I didn't mention, it won't cost anyone anything. It will literally be free (unless you count to expel energy as a cost) and there ain't much free-ness about nowadays.
Oh and you really should follow Borderline Press on Twitter - @borderlineEU - I chose that 'handle' because I see the publishing company as a Pan European burgeoning publishing empire forging forward like that Norwegian bloke who discovered Antarctica or maybe sailed the world on a plank of wood or something. I actually chose that name because it was the only one available and everyone said the other one we had would just confuse people (unfortunately I can't tell you what it was as Bono has taken out a court order against me).
reviews
Oh and go and be brilliant people today!
Friday, 7 March 2014
Borderline Blog #14 - Of Pigeons, Holes and Hong Kong
February was a quiet month. After the last blog's determination, the rest of last month was pretty much an anti-climax...
The Free Comic for FCBD didn't go to the printer. It probably will in the next few days, it's just had the urgency taken out of it as it can now be turned round in a week, so I've been tweaking it, updating it, changing it and generally trying to make it the dog's testicles to impress all the people who will see it.
The latest anthology didn't go to the printer like I said it would. In fact, this has been stymied by the loss of a number of strips to the point where I've had to rethink the entire project. One thing is for sure, it won't be much like how it was planned. This is due to the printer now at the end of this month, along with Verity Fair. I really wanted both of them to be available for Bristol - going there with 7 titles would have been much better than going with 5.
Hunger House and City of Crocodiles will be loaded onto a boat from a wee island near China in the next few days.
The end of February saw us take delivery of Zombies Can't Swim, I'm really excited about this little book, because its compact and has come out far better than I could have hoped - Berforts did a good job on the printing... The fact that our current score is Zombies 2 Fantasy Autobiography 1 should not in any way make people think we just do zombie books. I promise, this will be the last of the walking dead you will be exposed to for a good while (or will it?). We also don't just do ... Polish, Swedish or European comics. Terry Wiley probably considers himself a European, but he's from Tyneside so he's also a Brit. One potential reviewer said last week, "that's a diverse mix of books you have planned," and I like to think that's because Borderline Press wants to simply publish good stuff.
Don't forget to look out for the Free Comic and if your LCS owner doesn't have it, berate him about it! He should be on our list! If you're in or about Northampton on May 3rd, pop into Close Encounters for our books launch.
Oh and there's this:
Enjoy the spring!
The Free Comic for FCBD didn't go to the printer. It probably will in the next few days, it's just had the urgency taken out of it as it can now be turned round in a week, so I've been tweaking it, updating it, changing it and generally trying to make it the dog's testicles to impress all the people who will see it.
The latest anthology didn't go to the printer like I said it would. In fact, this has been stymied by the loss of a number of strips to the point where I've had to rethink the entire project. One thing is for sure, it won't be much like how it was planned. This is due to the printer now at the end of this month, along with Verity Fair. I really wanted both of them to be available for Bristol - going there with 7 titles would have been much better than going with 5.
Hunger House and City of Crocodiles will be loaded onto a boat from a wee island near China in the next few days.
The end of February saw us take delivery of Zombies Can't Swim, I'm really excited about this little book, because its compact and has come out far better than I could have hoped - Berforts did a good job on the printing... The fact that our current score is Zombies 2 Fantasy Autobiography 1 should not in any way make people think we just do zombie books. I promise, this will be the last of the walking dead you will be exposed to for a good while (or will it?). We also don't just do ... Polish, Swedish or European comics. Terry Wiley probably considers himself a European, but he's from Tyneside so he's also a Brit. One potential reviewer said last week, "that's a diverse mix of books you have planned," and I like to think that's because Borderline Press wants to simply publish good stuff.
Don't forget to look out for the Free Comic and if your LCS owner doesn't have it, berate him about it! He should be on our list! If you're in or about Northampton on May 3rd, pop into Close Encounters for our books launch.
Enjoy the spring!
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