FPI: Can you pick three comics/webcomics/graphic novels which you especially enjoyed over the last twelve months and tell us why you singled them out?

Kenny: A good year all round with some great stuff popping up everywhere. Trying to pick 3 (+1) is near impossible and I’d change my mind next week – but for what it’s worth here’s those that stand out most right now

Browntown by Jaime Hernandez (in the Love & Rockets: New Stories #3 collection, published Fantagraphics)

Los Bros single-handedly changed the way I read comics and the comics I read. Without them, there would be no Blank Slate Books as I would never have left the reading ghetto of superhero comics I had so long luxuriated in. At times I liked Gilbert’s stories more – although there was never much in it – but I knew, and still do, that Jaime is probably the best cartoonist in the world. It’s not just his drawing, the writing can be off the cuff sometimes but when he gets it right the comics can be filled with melancholy and still be uplifting.

This look at Maggie’s early life with her siblings in a desert town that their dad’s job has brought them to, is wonderful. The art is sublime, as mindful of empty space as the drawn parts – beautiful and elegant. The story gives us lots of Maggie’s back story, which as we know her life after this, gives us hope in how she rose above circumstance. I’d started to take L&R for granted – always good but maybe not with the punch of those early comics that had turned my head. This came up and gently whispered in my ear and I was deeply in love all over again. Comic of the year.

Acme Novelty Library: Lint by Chris Ware

A life told in a book, and a character who bears some passing similarity to Clowes’ Wilson (one of the other headline titles of the year) in that they are both misanthropic bastards. Clowes plays it largely for laughs but Ware reveals the humanity at the root of his character’s wretchedness without forgiving him for it. It also sees some avant-gardist touches to the art with Ware’s nods to many talents like Rege Jr, Panter and Chris Bell. The book is dense and hard work at times – Ware never really gives the reader an easy ride – but ultimately a great piece of comics. Bring your glasses though.

Flesh and Bone – Julia Gfrörer

Sparkplug produce worthwhile and unusual comics which don’t always get the coverage they should and Gfrörer’s first major comic was a total surprise to me. For me it was a highly individualistic horror/love story woven around the stylings of ancient European fables. It sometimes had an unfinished look to the art – although Gfrörer can really draw – and the subject matter with graphic sex and violence won’t be everyone’s cup of tea. Still, potential-wise it shone out for me. Compelling.

Psychiatric Tales – Darryl Cunningham

OK – I published this which means my choosing it is a little crass, however I truly think that Darryl’s book was one of the outstanding comics of the year. A window into a world most of us do not understand, backed by Darryl’s own, touching, story made this a book that most anyone – comics fan or not – will have gotten something from. It was the Observer’s comic of the month back in July and I expect it to burn with a new life when the Bloomsbury edition appears next month Stateside.

Darryl has a style perfectly suited to the comics he is doing where meaning needs to be conveyed in an understandable way without ambiguity and I expect him to become a major world cartoonist in the next 5 years. Look out for his Science Myth and Uncle Bob books as well as a second volume of Psychiatric Tales in 2011.

There were lots more bubbling under – so notable mentions should go to Rob Davis’s superb strip in Solipsistic Pop 3, Temperance by Cathy Malkasian, Sleepyheads by Randall C. (as beautifully drawn a book as you’ll see this year), Jon McNaught’s Birchfield Close – a beautifully conceived small pointillist Shell guide for a modern street, Garen Ewing’s lovely Rainbow Orchid and finally Hanco Kolk’s Meccanno collection De Eenzame Planeet (published very late 2009) was a book that I felt published by a US house would surely have brought accolades similar to those heaped on Asterios Polyp last year. Had you asked me for 100 comics to put on a best of list in the hope people would check them out I could have filled it with ease.

FPI: Can you pick three books which you especially enjoyed over the last twelve months and tell us why you singled them out?

Kenny: Didn’t really, in truth, read many books last year – and many are lying around untouched – those I did read weren’t all 2010 releases

Millennium Trilogy – Steig Larsson

I know this is about as obvious as it gets but I read all three on a holiday week in April – which must prove they are pretty gripping as I’m usually a 100 pages and then Magpie-like, move on, reader. I thought them really pretty well written – not the standard of Smilla’s Sense of Snow which is probably the only previous Scandinavian thriller I’ve read (it remains one of my favourite ever books) but better than out and out pulp. For me the first book was the strongest and the extra length added to 2 and then more still, to 3 I thought started to make them a little bloated. Still, great reads and Salander is an almost comic like literary creation tinged with brilliance.

A Crisis of Brilliance – David Boyd Haycock

I’m half way through this biography of the Slade artists and their lives and the enormous effects the Great War had on them and art and society generally. If you have an interest in 20th century British art it’s a pretty essential read showing how talent was realised, or dissipated or cut short by the tumultuous events of the years 1910-1920. These were artists living the lifestyles of rock stars but producing such indelible talents as Stanley Spencer and Paul Nash. Fascinating.

The Water Theatre – Lindsay Clarke

The Chymical Wedding an earlier book of Clarke’s from around 20 years ago remains to this day one of my favourite novels – and the book that has made me most openly cry my eyes out (along with Damage). It is a deeply moving book of a love that cannot be fulfilled. Clarke’s new novel seems to speak to me at 50 as the earlier book did when I was 30. It is a meandering and sometimes slightly slow paced look at a middle aged man’s redemption that includes a whole cast of off kilter characters and ultimately the healing powers of sex and spirituality. A book probably no-one will read – they should.

FPI: Can you pick three TV shows and/or movies which you especially enjoyed over the last twelve months and tell us why you singled them out?

Kenny: TV

Mad Men

Just about the only thing I remember to set the Sky box for. Who cares if the recreation is accurate or not – and given the pace of change one suspects not entirely – it is beautifully made TV. Don Draper seems to have slipped a little this last season in his womanising and the Draper grip was sadly missing as he found that women were starting to find their own positions in the world. However he remains a man we all would secretly have wanted to be. Peggy is my favourite TV character and whilst she has started to party like it’s 1999 remains the moral centre of the show. Unmissable.

Skins

I’m sure it’s made for an audience much younger than me, but even with the 4th season getting a little derailed in the last 4 or 5 episodes it remains the one programme that speaks to the experiences of real people in this age group. My teenage and Uni years were not unlike this – perhaps not so heightened of course – and concealed under a blanket of lies. Now they are openly presented as TV drama. One of the sharpest shows on the box.

This is England 1986

For all of us who had loved the feature film this sounded initially like a bad idea. However, Meadows and cast delivered a great sequel full of heart, emotion and laughs. I loved it and despite the overt sentimentality of some of the writing the resolution whilst perhaps not that likely had a powerful triumph of good over evil that was uplifting even amongst the casual horror.

Notable mention also to the great Modern Family.

Film

The Social Network

Everyone seems to think what a poor light this paints Zuckerberg in and perhaps Fincher edges in that direction for dramatic effect but for me it very aptly showed the chaos in young growing businesses with founders who have varying degrees of talent and application. Of course Zuckerberg emerges as something of a wanker but I’m not sure anyone else in the film escapes that tag either. Brilliantly played throughout and with the momentum of a thriller it was far and away the best thing I saw this year.

Chloe

I’ve always liked Egoyan’s films for their ability to display emotion rawer than most films would contemplate – even when that can be a little stolid (The Sweet Hereafter springs to mind). My girlfriend thought this was as dull as ditchwater but I loved it. The two leads play it with emotions up to 11 but it’s the transcendental Amanda Seyfried who makes the film. The plot is weary and old but the film wrings much more than you would expect from the sum of its parts.

Running the blog isn’t a cheap endeavour for FPI – all in, costs are well in excess of £20K ($30K) and I’m coming to that point in the year, at our annual review in January, where I have to justify that expenditure to the rest of the FPI board, some of whom are sceptical to the value generated by the money spent. We will go through the same old arguments about “what do we get for our money”, “can’t you do more selling of product from it”, “why not cover it in advertising” etc that we do every year. All of those are good questions – we almost completely shy away from using the blog as a selling tool, or a place to turn into a bordello of flashing adverts selling you insurance and other services – but what are the answers? Until this year the answer was the prominence of the blog amongst its peers and generally (being picked 34th most influential blog in the UK back in 2008 being the unexpected high point). That it was reaching people who may or may not be paying customers, but that just the reaching of them was enough to make it worthwhile. Any reader potentially stores FPI away in their brain as somewhere they might at some point buy a comic.

So I have a request of you – it isn’t too onerous I don’t think – and it would make a difference to us and help us maintain our commitment to the blog and the excellent work that Joe, Richard , Wim and others put into it. What’s been most noticeable this past year is that whilst the number of unique readers has increased the comments and links generated by all readers has diminished quite sharply. It’s been noticeable that many links we give to other sites don’t generate reciprocal links. That stories which have originated on our blog are featured elsewhere and don’t link back to the source. That many people comment directly to myself or Joe or Richard rather than put their comment direct on the site. All of these things are seeing us miss linkages which would improve our standings and make the blog even more prominent. So all I’d ask of you is that if you have a comment you post it and perhaps we get a discussion going. That if we have featured your work you give a link back to us on your site, if you liked it, maybe stick us in your links or favourites list. If you quote material from one of our stories that you mention where it came from. We understand that people have lots to do with their lives and careers and that stuff like this just doesn’t always dawn on them or might slip their mind or get put off until they abandon it – believe me I do all 3 myself – but if you could see your way to doing some of those things in 2011, we will be very grateful.

Running pro’ blogs is something that fewer and fewer people are doing, most blogs aren’t held to the standards we try to hold ourselves too, although I’m sure there are times we fall short of that mark. The Comics Journal just laid off Dirk Deppey who has been Journalista for years now throwing doubt on whether it will continue, Heidi McDonald took her blog ‘The Beat‘ private after it was let go by Publisher Weekly. Others like Tom Spurgeon’s excellent ‘The Comics Reporter‘ continue to provide their best efforts and there is still a coherent little cadre of class reportage sites which I would include us amongst. If you could all find your way clear to give us this small bit of help in the New Year you would have our affection and gratitude. Right now, get back to the Turkey Twizzlers and Iceland party food like we’re doing in my house. Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to come.

Kenny

Kenny Penman: So Jim, you are about to fully launch your ‘Comic Animals‘ website, which is a meeting place for artists to show their animal work and for fans to get lots of new content every month. What brought you to do this for a ‘genre’ of comics, which has often been ignored by adult readers and collectors?

Jim Medway: A significant part of me thinks Comical Animal is just a foolish experiment that is going to consume much of my (and others) already precious free time. Despite this, I’m giving it a go anyway. I’m fairly disillusioned with small press and minicomics, even though I’ve only dipped my toe in briefly. While there’s plenty of talent they seem to form their own audience, with very little of it reaching anyone outside of that circle. More than that, I’m constantly underwhelmed by the big press titles that line the shelves in the comic shops. Unless the shop owner has made a positive concerted effort to stock and display kids titles, you are going to struggle to find anything appropriate for under 12′s. Why do you need to go to Waterstone’s for Asterix and Tintin books? Has anyone ever seen a copy of the Beano or Dandy in a comic shop? – I can’t recall ever seeing one, even though those are our national comics!

Is it that artists are just not creating for kids? Certainly all the interesting, top of their game artists are producing work for an exclusively adult audience. Some publishers seem to be making an effort for kids (Toon Books for example), but these seem somehow worthy and more aimed at parents than something kids would chose. Yes, there’s beautifully packaged reprints of classic all-ages material, but what kids can afford hardbacks? Take the Peanuts reprints – it’s almost a deliberate attempt to prevent children ever opening one – drab design, overfacing scale, too heavy to hold and too expensive to ever consider. The same material worked perfectly in the old cheap paperback collections of the 80′s. Drawn & Quarterly’s John Stanley Library is kids material repackaged for adult completists – beautifully presented but what kid is going to pick it from the shelves? There’s a whole generation growing up without access to decent comics. I guess Comical Animal is my way of finding out if there might an appetite for new all-ages strips, and the artists keen to provide it.

I know very little about webcomics, but it seems the way to do this is provide the material for free, then hopefully once we reach a significant number of subscribers (say 1,000) we might be able to sell enough nice bits of merchandise to make it worth the time invested in it. At this early stage I’m relying on the enthusiasm and generosity of all the great contributors, and that’s why making each issue every two months feels not too demanding on their time. As it grows, I anticipate that I’ll be able to attract even more talent, while still trying to encourage younger artists just starting out. The ‘Adopt an Animal’ scheme seems like a potential way of attracting advertisers or sponsors without ugly banners and ads all over the place. It’s based loosely on how real zoos generate income and engagement by offering similar schemes, though by sponsoring our cartoon creatures you are really keeping the artist alive.

I understand this is all very naively optimistic, but what the hell, let’s see how it all goes. I like funny animals, and I’m confident we’ve got some great content, all freely accessible.

KP: You touch on comic shops there and in effect the distribution system for comics. I know you aren’t a lover of comics shops – is that specifically because they tend not to stock much all-ages material or just you think they are badly run and focussed? How do you think they improve? I think one of the problems for them stocking material aimed at kids is they aren’t really bringing many kids through the doors in the first place. For me that ‘s two sides of an unwritten story – parents don’t bring kids to comics stores, so comics stores don’t stock kids material – they take them to Waterstone’s instead and they read Asterix and Tintin and then give up for want of much material, now the Manga boom is over and mainstream bookshops are cutting back a lot. I’ve thought a lot about this – I’m struggling to know how to change that. How do you think things could improve Jim, given financial realities have to apply for retailers.

JM: There are plenty of great comic shops, which in my opinion are the ones that make a significant (and I’m sure bad financial sense) effort to get non-mainstream comics and books into people’s hands. I applaud Gosh! (of course), Page 45, OK comics and all the enthusiasm that others put into stocking material that isn’t going to fly straight off the shelf. It’s when I have to squeeze past Star Wars tat, Buffy calendars or role-playing games that I feel I’m not going to find much of interest. Give me a proper bookshop over that any day – new, second-hand, anything! Recently I was impressed with Manchester’s Forbidden Planet (having always preferred the welcome in Travelling Man) and a new rack of independent and diverse stock – all new to me. I also looked around me and realised there’s a pretty substantial stock of graphic novels that stretch way beyond the assumed obvious black spines. Also worth a mention is mcr’s Good Grief! – stocking all the weirdest acid soaked comics nowhere else would touch. Clearly though, I know nothing about retail, other than the fact that I’m not jealous of those that do pour their energy and enthusiasm into these thankless passions. I’m certainly not offering up Comical Animal as an alternative model!

KP: I just want to discuss the comic shop a bit more. I think both Page 45 and Gosh! are great shops – but Page 45 from my memories is a store aimed squarely at adults rather than all ages, isn’t it? Gosh does carry more for all ages with comics and kids illustration books. I think I would also include Dave’s Comics in Brighton in that group. Do you think that it’s more about the feeling you have from those shops – rather than entirely the stock mix? Do you think a shop that carried every comic available (pretty much a forlorn dream these days outside of perhaps Jim Hanley’s in NYC and Comic Relief in Berkley) would actually be attractive to an all ages audience?

Wouldn’t parents be reluctant to come into a shop that might stock Good Dog, Bad Dog but also the work of any number of edgier cartoonists – say the Dernier Cri crew or Mike Diana or even some Crumb and other Underground material. I’ m sure – for instance – they would be kinda terrified of some of the ‘zines carried by places like Good Grief. To some extent the better a comics shop you are, in terms of the breadth of your stock, the more you potentially restrict the audience you appeal to. Counter-intuitive I know – but what do you think?

JM: Jim Hanley’s Universe blew me away – I could’ve spent all day in there, plus a hell of a lot of money. You’re right, they stock everything, including, to my girlfriend’s surprise (and mine not so much) a pretty seedy ‘erotic’ section right at the back of the shop. There were some sad-looking men in there. Other than that, it felt like a ‘real’ bookshop, except with a lot more pictures in the books. Lose the ‘cuddle’ shelves, and you’ve got a pretty perfect comic shop.

Trouble is I suppose, how that involves holding tens of thousands of pounds worth of stock. A regular bookshop with a kids section might have a comfy area that invites kids to sit and read or draw, while parents keep one eye on them and the other on what they want themselves. I know very little about bookselling, though I do mourn the demise of Waterstones in Manchester after it’s manager Robert Topping was ousted probably about 10 years ago now. His policy of stocking EVERYTHING meant the shop was a mess, you had to edge your way around piles of stock, but they’d have exactly what you were after plus be able to hand you another 5 titles you’d never even heard of. The shop now has about a third of the stock, and has scrapped or amalgamated the different desks in each section. Plenty of best sellers, but no discoveries any more. Trouble is, they do very well.

(Funny Bunny Boys by and (c) Steve Tillotson, from the first online inssue of Comical Animals)

KP: However I’m not so sure about Travelling Man and OK – who seem to me to be shops largely about selling SuperHeroes (neither stock Blank Slate books for instance) and or Manga but accredited as being Indy friendly by dint of their presentation/reputation rather than their actual stock mix. I notice you praise FP’s mix of stock in Manchester but I don’t hear them being held as Indy friendly – when in fact their stock mix is much wider than most comics stores. Are we saying that the shopping experience is less about the stock mix and availability and more about marketing?

The fact that FP carry a lot of merchandise puts you off eventhough the stock mix on the comics side may be better than in those you see as comics shops. Isn’t that a strange dynamic? I don’t care for merchandise either but I do know that it brings more kids in with parents for Star Wars figures etc than most kids comics would. Then you do have a chance of selling them something else. As a comics fan myself I think I’d just ignore the ‘tat’ as you call it and head for the comics.

I’m not trying to be partial here but it seems to me good comics shops can be any number of things – but people approach them with something of a pre-ordained expectation which isn’t always accurate – to some extent they either want them to be bookshops (but why? bookshops don’t do a good job of being comics shops) or something made ‘just for them’. Aren’t good comics shops allowed to be more than comics shops as long as they do that part of the job well? Should we be widening the net of what appeals to us as adults in a store to something that by its nature is more all age – more TV and Film media inclusive – that potentially brings in possible new customers? I might not be an Iron Man fan but I’m aware of what Iron man can do for comics on a wider basis.

JM: Yes, I’m being snobby about Doctor Who calendars and the like, but I can’t help that natural ‘threshold resistance’ I experience when I plunge in past the novelties. My 12 year-old self would probably be the opposite. I think there’s just something a bit depressing about the adults that relish these products as well as the system that targets these ‘collectables’ directly at them, that seems at odds with the breadth and variety of high quality comics and GNs available, and the delicious purity of sitting down and getting lost in a book. Maybe this isn’t the best place to air these views of mine, Kenny!

KP: I’m not personally a believer in the “we need to get kids buying comics” school of thought that seems to think that will be the key to us still having an audience a few years from now. I grew up, and you probably did as well, in an age where we all read comics. Truth is only a very few of us continued to read them into adulthood – barely enough to sustain a comics industry in this country. I expect the same would be true of any new generation of kids – only a tiny percentage  go forward as comics readers – given we are starting from a much lower start point than 40 years ago I don’t see this as key. You’ve worked with kids and might have different thoughts on how kids start reading comics and what might retain them? To me adult readers really are the key and whilst we seem to be at some sort of tipping point there’s still no guarantee they will be a large audience going forwards. Any thoughts on that how to get more readers thing Jim?

JM: Regular bookshops that might stock GNs are going a step in the right direction by putting Sin City in the Crime section rather than the comics section (I’m sure Paul Gravett said this at some event somewhere). I know that libraries are keen on comics for young people, and are constantly pushing the good stuff, through book awards, events and suchlike. Shame they are being effectively abandoned. I don’t know the answer – get the teachers on board, get them into schools and integrated into not just art but English, history, science, languages. That’d be a start anyway.

KP: I was one of those comics fans who pretty much ignored ‘Funny Animals’ until I was in my late 20′s. I think the thing that got me interested (and my knowledge is very sketchy) would have been Krazy Kat reprints and the Another Rainbow, Duck sets. I don’t remember much of an anthropomorphic tradition in UK comics – with the exception of Korky the Cat in the Dandy – so I guess it’s not surprising we have a hole in our comics tastes. Have you always been a fan and what brought you to them in the first place.

JM: There are a small handful of funny animals from old British comics, but no, not a huge amount. Tiger Tim, Teddy Tail, Bobby Bear, Biffo and Barney Bulldog are the first that spring to mind. I nearly said Rupert, but realised he’s pretty humourless, and you could argue – not comics but illustrated stories. I expect my interest stems from a combination of the children’s books I grew up with, which were full of anthropomorphism, and jumble sale/second-hand comic and annual finds. I’m as big a Richard Scarry fan as ever, and was mesmerised by 1960′s finds like Beezer and Topper. Whenever I’m asked to recommend kids titles, I end up suggesting paying a couple of quid for a battered old 1967 Beano annual. I’m mystified why this wealth of old material isn’t being reissued properly.

Art Spiegelman was asked about British comics at a recent Comica event, and he quickly dismissed them as limp, dull and barbless compared to their own MAD and EC or whatever. A set of volumes collecting all the work of Leo Baxendale, Ken Reid or David Law should set them right. I realise I’m slightly contradicting my previous response by calling for more hardback archives for us adults to drool over – so please, whoever is going to do these, let’s have an affordable smaller set too! I realise I’m just wishing my own comics reading childhood upon kids now. Maybe kids are perfectly happy with Death Note and Ben 10, but I’m not.

(Kitty & Pup bake a cake by and (c) Jim Medway, from the Comical Animal preview)

KP: Do you see the medium as one that basically has no restrictions or one primarily aimed at kids? I’m guessing something like Krazy Kat was one of the first funny animal strips – starting back in the early 1900′s. It wasn’t aimed at children and in fact was fairly ambitious territory for some adults – although the art always appealed even when the stories were deliberately baffling. Do you think that the transformation from these adult roots was the coming of animated cartoons – that Disneyfication in fact skewed them much younger than they had been previously and established their ‘kids stuff’ reputation for quite some time?

JM: In a lot of cases, funny animal strips aren’t about animals at all – they’re just people with animal heads. I write a little about this in my article, which is to feature in the first issue of Comical Animal. Animals make great replacements for kids, as kids are a lot nearer animals than adults are. It seems comics have always been read by all ages – look at the letters page in a 40′s US comic and they’re from GI’s and housewives. I expect the same is true of cartoons – they’re for everyone. All the best kids stuff has always been enjoyed by adults too – they’re the ones who have to pay for it, sit through it with them or read it to them.

With Comical Animal I’m hoping for an ‘all ages’ audience rather than just kids – I’ve no idea what age children start accessing stuff online, though I hope adults might point them towards Comical Animal. Yes, I’d much prefer print, but for the time being let’s see how much interest can be generated by providing free and original strips online. At some point a few years down the line there’s always the chance of compiling a selection of material into a book or annual, which would be far preferable to having children (or adults) staring at a screen for any longer than necessary.

KP: If kids are happy with Ben 10 etc – does it become a bit of a crusade with no-one aggrieved if the kids are happy with what they’ve got – are you fighting for yourself or us all, Jim :-)? Until the release of the new Dandy kids comics have been becoming more and more about the free gifts than the comics – in fact in many of them comics have a very small part to play. The Dandy and recently the DFC are experimenting with new funny animals amongst the comics they fill the mag with. What have you thought of them do you think that they should be a mix of animal and other strips or do you think something that experimented with just an anthropomorphic format might work better?

JM: Pitting Comical Animal against the existing children’s culture out there would be fairly futile, but isn’t it frustrating when there’s chimichangas, dopiazas and lasagnes but all they want is fishfingers? Beano and Dandy are great, but the rest of them in WHSmiths are TV and film tie-ins, and just seem like tat sellotaped to a toy. Kids used to have so many other weekly titles, each aimed at it’s own specific target, but now it all seems like marketing. I’d love to see a new title that didn’t insist on covering every possible genre in kid’s comics (adventure, sci-fi, farts & bogeys etc), but gave platform to light-hearted, amusing and infantile humour.

(Ned Trumpet falls for the old sticky bun trap in Ned Trumpet, Elephant Detective by the excellent Dave Shelton, from the Comical Animal preview)

KP: I want to ask you a little about the DFC. You yourself contributed a much liked strip in ‘Crab Lane Crew’ – a strip which seemed to be very naturalistic despite being funny animal based. The kids wandered through adventures and the pace was often leisurely and the conclusion often very non-specatacular. I know we at FPI really liked it and our reviewer Rich Bruton’s daughter (about 8 at the time) loved it. What kind of reaction to that ‘unusual’ pacing did you get – within the DFC and from readers feedback?

JM: I didn’t have a clue at the time but it seems the first couple of outings for the Crab Lane Crew left a lot of people baffled and unimpressed – where is the story? The adventure? The ninjas, robots, time travel etc? Three or four weeks in, it seems all of a sudden it seemed I’d won them over. They were getting to know the characters, and started to realise that just like real kids and real life, stuff doesn’t happen – they chat, tease each other, have a laugh and potter around. I should make it clear this is the adult readers I’m talking about here, who couldn’t work out what CLC was in the DFC for. Kids, I think, just accepted the characters much easier, and recongised something about themselves or their own lives maybe.

I don’t think of it as being a funny animal strip – they were kids, not cats, even though they were clearly cat kids. Once I’d created the characters, I shared them with a couple of Year 6 classes, and quizzed them about them. I had the kids write down all their responses – what the characters might do at a birthday party, on a weekend, if it was raining, what they’d give each other at christmas, what they’d do if they found a fiver etc. From these ideas, I was able to map out all the strips week by week – have one thing happen (an activity, someone visiting), then just leave the characters to respond as they would. I think kids are funny, are funny enough, so I guess I wanted to see if I could translate that into a strip. I was dead pleased with Crab Lane Crew, and really enjoyed spending time creating them. I also learnt a lot from doing it, and my drawing improved immensely.

KP: Because of the DFC’s cancellation the ‘Crew’ was never fully finished was it? Now that the DFC have started their excellent album program are we going to see your strip collected and finished? If the books are successful do you think there is a chance they will continue with new adventures on an album only basis ?

JM: Because it was so rudely cut short, the readers missed another 10 or so episodes of CLC, two of which I’d drawn. I’d be thrilled if there was enough demand for a CLC DFC Library hardback, but there’s been no talk as yet. Maybe a few pleading letters to David Fickling from anyone who also misses the gang might help! I think the DFC Library books so far are the right choices, though I’d love to see a Little Cutie or Sausage & Carrots one also.

KP: The DFC had an unusual distribution model being subscription only. Allied to it’s fairly middle class leanings (well to my eyes at least) wasn’t it cutting out to much of the everyday comics reading public from the get go? I loved the bravery of the full page illustration covers and the matt stock – but then I’m an adult reader and it appealed to my sensibilities – do you think those things had the opposite effect for kids? Or didn’t it matter as it was essentially set up to sell to parents for their kids and not direct to the kids themselves. If you compare it to say the new Dandy they have two very different aesthetics and styles – one manic and sillier the other a little more worthy and slower paced. Do you think both can compete in a market where kids are used to their thrills hard-wired into them via some electronic device or another.

JM: I found it frustrating that kids had never even heard of the DFC, let alone ever seen one. The stories, artwork and fact that there were no ads made it a high quality product, so it’s depressing it didn’t reach enough kids. I always felt it was too expensive – more than twice the price of a Beano, and didn’t feel kids would really care about the nice paper stock. I know that the eventual aim was to get it onto the newsagents shelves, and the subscription model was just to get the ball rolling, but it didn’t seem quite right to me. Put simply, it meant kids couldn’t buy the comic – even if you had £3 a week to spare, it still depended on an adult to subscribe using a credit card, so the comic was always being mediated by parents. I’d love to know how many subscribers were adults with no intention of passing it onto a child – probably a significant number.

KP: Have you got a method of getting the word out for Comical Animals? I think it’s a great project but I doubt 1,000 readers will come close to supporting it. Do you have lots of activity in place to have the word passed out through UK comics circles, Facebook, Twitter? Do you have the comics websites onside to give you publicity? Any other ideas for how you are going to reach people?

JM: I’m hoping that CA is something that can exist happily without demanding too much from it’s generous contributors, and not depending on selling information about it’s subscribers. All material is freely accessible without subscribing anyway; it’s just a nice way of ‘joining in’ and being notified when the newest batch appears. It will be interesting to see how CA will have evolved and developed in a years time, 6 issues on. Maybe I’m being naively optimistic (actually I’m definitely being fully aware optimistic), but I’m anticipating that a momentum will gather and word will spread. Ask me again then. In the meantime, yes, I’ll be doing what I can to promote online, and target the existing comics enthusiasts and amateurs, though I’d appreciate any pointers or assistance from anyone out there.

(Worm and Slug by Simone Lia, from the first issue of  Comical Animals)

KP: From what I know of your cartooning it has always had a funny animal element to it – right? You are famous for you cat characters. Did the use of cats in your work come from some other animal cartoon influences – any specific ones or from the wanting to use animals and cats being a favourite or easier to draw. How did you develop your own personal style and do you think it’s set now or still evolving?

JM: Always animals, but not always funny. About ten years ago I had a phase of drawing foxes, but as an animal they are too magical – you always tell someone if you see a fox – so reverted to cats. Because I combine observations of people with cats, it helps that cats are so everyday and familiar. The cats are just what come out when I put pen to paper – I don’t really notice that they are cats half the time. To be more accurate, they’re cat people – far closer to people than cats – they’re my way of drawing people. Having always struggled drawing humans, my solution has been to anthropomorphise them, though I am now making much more of an effort to push myself with people. I offer a figure drawing session to secondary schools, so felt I should practice what I preach a little. Leaving college I had a phase of seeking out kitchen sink films and social realism, which I then combined with the cats to form a sort of magic social realism based on observations of people around me.

These were not cartoons or comics – they were just how I drew. (plenty of examples on jimmedway.com) Richard Scarry has always been a huge influence – he still delights and surprises me. I used to lose myself in Janet Ahlberg’s illustrations too. Maybe this early influence of children’s books is one that’s not been surpassed – this world where it makes perfect sense for animals to be baking cakes and wearing shoes. If I had the time I’d also be doing more linoprinting, painting and making stuff, though it would more than likely still feature cats. I saw a Charles Addams exhibition in NY Library some years ago, and his inking blew me away. It was so rich, varied and warm. Up until then I’d been a bit of a Luddite, insisting on using ballpoint on scrappy newsprint, but seeing these originals snapped me out of that. Trying new materials, expensive brush pens or Rotrings, fancy nibs and suchlike – while it doesn’t radically change what I’ve been drawing, it does encourage me to expand and extend the possible ways I might approach a particular drawing or strip. I must be evolving in some direction, but without more time to dedicate to art and comics, my evolution is going to be a slow one. Maybe once I’m 40 and have a thing or two published, I’ll have the financial time and space to really get cracking and produce my masterpiece!

KP: As well as being a cartoonist I know you work a lot with kids in instructional and educational programmes. Can you fill us in on some of the things you have done, have upcoming and how these are initiated and paid for. What kind of reaction do you get from kids – does it lead you to believe that they would love to read comics if marketed to them well or that they will always be sliding more towards computer games and other things?

JM: Oliver Postgate said that kids haven’t changed at all, other than by adults giving them junk. There’s nothing in a modern kids natural brain that demands only Ben 10 or Mortal Kombat. When I go into schools, top end of primary mainly, but some secondary too, they can still enjoy whatever comics I show them just as we like to believe kids used to. Out of a class of 28 10 year olds though, only one will have read any Tintin, a few will have seen an Asterix film but be unaware of the books, there’ll be a couple of Beano or Dandy readers, and a couple of Simpsons and Spongebob readers.

The nice thing about visiting classes and teaching them the basic skills that go into making comics, is that within a couple of hours they are capable of producing a pleasing result. Often we’ll work collaboratively and create a page each of a larger 28 page story, then photocopy, fold and staple enough for everyone to take a couple home with them. All of a sudden they are producing culture rather than just consuming it. I’ve written up all the drawing games and exercises that I use on my blog, but very briefly we typically cover character design, speech, using black & white contrast, all with an emphasis on clarity and simplicity. The rest of the session is spent putting these into practice in fun ways, with plenty of demonstrations and tips along the way. I do exactly the same with all ages, and often work with teens, adults, families, community groups, libraries whoever wants to give it a go.

Now that the millionaire locusts are decimating everything within reach, I’m in no way convinced that schoolkids are going to benefit in any positive way, and there is unlikely to be any spare cash for getting a comic artist in for the day. I also do a lot of work for Manchester Art Gallery, on site and in schools, so I’m praying that there will still be a role for me there if the Tories get their hateful vandalistic ways.

I’d like to thank Jim for taking the time to share his thoughts with me – given more time I think there were things we could have explored more deeply. Maybe Jim’s right though some of those are for personal conversations late night in a pub – and it might have all got a bit long-winded onscreen. You can follow Jim via his own site and Twitter, while Comical Animal can be found right here. Please do spread the link around – we’d love to hear what you think of Comical Animal, more especially we’d love to hear from those of you with kids and what they think of it. There is material online already to preview and it goes fully live today.

More than anything else, it’s fascinating to see two different readings of the book, a perfect illustration of the nature of anthology books, and how reviews are simply opinion pieces and opinions can, and should, differ. Some that I just didn’t get, Kenny loved, some that Kenny just didn’t like, I rather loved. That’s exactly how it should be.

With his permission, we’ve collected it all together, the only additions we’ve made have been to add in complete artist names and strip titles. Everything else is Kenny’s own……

Solipsistic Pop Issue 3

Artists: Krystina Baczynski, Becky Barnicoat, Adam Cadwell, Warwick Johnson Cadwell, Francesca Cassavetti, Faz Choudry, David O’Connell, Daryl Cunningham, Rob Davis, Joe Decie, John Cei Douglas, Marc Ellerby, Sarah Gordon, Anne Holiday, Tom Humberstone, Daniel Locke, Lizz Lunney, Mark Oliver, Luke Pearson, Octavia Raitt, Edward Ross, Philippa Rice, Anna Saunders, Julia Scheele, Tom Smith and Andrew Waugh.

Edited by Tom Humberstone.

Finished Solopsistic Pop 3 last night – thought i’d tweet review it for my tea break. Time to lose all my comics friends…

SP3 – Overall much better than 1 or 2 Tom’s mag shows a decent progression but with each issue gets further away from it’s mission statement
SP3 – Production is nice – colour print on the front is lovely – some issues with pinch on a number of strips where they fall tight to gutter
SP3 – Still think overall it’s too expensive – planet saving earth and paper accounted for – still, personally could do without the extras

SP3 – Marc Ellerby’s Chloe Noonan strip – can see the all-ages appeal – i imagine kids will love it. I like it well enough

SP3 – Adam Cadwell’s strip – is slight in conception – a day out with his dad – but the Beano/Dandy homage stylings are great. Liked it

SP3 – A Joke by Tom Smith – rhyme seems forced – read out loud to kids I can imagine them liking it. Visually I thought it a little weak

SP3 – Anna Saunders strip – didn’t really get it at all. Move on

SP3 – Joe Decie’s Fabulous Find, more absurdist than most of his more familiar grounded in family work -felt a bit overstretched -lovely art

SP3 – Darryl Cunnigham – 3 strips i’d seen before (I think) – all slight compared to current work but all charming and kids will like a lot

SP3 – Rob Davis – The Torturer’s Garden (above) – most mature strip here. Beautifully drawn – seeing childhood from a position of fear rather then happiness. Quite scary
SP3 – Rob Davis cont. – showing fear perpetuating fear and leaves us with a cliffhanger which might fry a few childrens brains. Fabulous

SP3 – Philippa Rice – her stuff is lovely – although a little diminished without it’s usual colours. Can only imagine kids love this.
SP3 – Philippa Rice cont. you get colour Philippa with the free poster and stickers. Her work just makes me want drawing rather than collage

SP3 – John Cei Douglas – Living Underwater-  lovely art – a story of redemption that only felt part way redemptive – this might have kids hiding away in cupboards

SP3 – Molly Vs The Undertaker – I thought this one of the failures – the story is way overtold and text heavy – the art doesn’t really help
SP3 – Molly Vs The Undertaker – the characters don’t feel unique – dad could be brother – story is too intricate. Criticises boredom but is boring.

SP3 – Teething Problems – lightweight – a little repetitive but charming and very nicely drawn. Twist expected but still fun

SP3 – The Derby Ram is an overall strong piece – strong drawing and a decent tale well told. Liked it.

SP3 – All the Dogs – something we’ve all done I’m sure. The art is a bit Strapazin – I liked it – a lot wont.

SP3 – Pinball Wizards – an artists version of doing scales. Francesca draws very well but 2 pages of variation on a theme feels like filler

SP3 -Faz Choudray’s strip uses the 1 colour so well it has the feel of a full colour strip. Well done and presumably quite time consuming
SP3 -Faz Choudray’s cont. – it’s also beautifully drawn somewhere between Ligne Claire and the Beano. I can imagine this as an album. Great

SP3 – Lizz Lunney – Lizz’s stuff always comes across with life affirming happiness. It’s infectious – and it’s what it is. enjoy it for that

SP3 – Sardines is OK – the art is ambitious but perhaps not yet fully formed. the experience one many kids may have had.

SP3 – Magic and the Man – nicely designed – borrows a centre piece from Gustave Verbeek – as a strip i didn’t think it worked really though.

SP3 – Mark Oliver – Mark is beginning to design a page i can read , still find that either this is wilfully absurdist or storytelling amiss

SP3 – Luke Pearson – The Egg – is clearly a rising star – a nice little tale with an ending that had me thinking Velvet Underground – not sure why
SP3 – Luke Pearson cont. the drawing is strong though just sometimes the design conceits make the story flow less well than it might. Ex tho

SP3 – Julia Scheele has a good line in autobio vignettes -this is another and it feels real. For me her drawing chops still don’t match text

SP3 – Have You Swung Over The Top? -lovely art by Tom Humberstone -who improves all the time. And we’ve all seen kids do it or tried it right. Liked this

SP3 – Fruits DelaMer – Warwick Jackson Cadwell throws the kitchen sink at this – lines flying everywhere – great painterly techniques on the shading.
SP3 – Fruits DelaMer cont. The story is 1 note but fun. I imagine read to kids will bring lots of interaction. they’ll love the ironic ending.

SP3 – David O’Connell’s spare lines make this very attractive – the story does seem a long trip to the final panel pay off – good though

SP3 – Not to damn with faint praise SP3 is VERY good for the most part. It doesn’t all work but which anthology does?
SP3 – Also nice to see more comics content. I’d like to see Tom give up the ‘gimmick’ go hardcover and make this an annual Best UK Comics.
SP3 – Not as good as MOME – way better than other UK anthologies . Overall 7/10. I’d recommend a look if you have £12 burning a hole…
SP3 – Thank you – back to work now. Good job Tom.

The material presented isn’t quite as left field as Strapazin can be and most of it appears to have at least the semblance of a narrative structure (I have to shamefully admit that there is often material in the mag that goes straight past me), and, for me at least, was my first exposure to Chinese comic material. I had, for reason of my lack of imagination, kinda expected that most of the artists would be working in a Manga style but far from it, there aren’t any real Manga stylings here at all. There are 14 Chinese creators involved and creators included are Liu Yan, Duoxi, Zhang Xun, Lan Lan, DN, 54boy, Storyof, WangXX, Yan Cong, Menz, Lao Mi Zhou, Wowo, Zuo Ma and Xiang Ya Ta. My favourite strips would be Lan Lan’s beautifully drawn ‘Night after Night’ and DN’s ‘Snow’ but all of the material is interesting and worth a look. If you read German and are interested in the more artistic end of comics this is a mag you should be getting.

(a page from Night After Night by and (c) Lan Lan, borrowed from the Strapazin site)

You also get a typical Strapazin editorial, discussing the moral issues of doing an issue about China – a land of much suppression – as an appropriate celebration of their 100th issue. In the end the justification seems to be that basically every country is corrupt – USA a police state waging war in Iraq and Afghanistan, Germany also in Afghanistan and enduring Merkel, France with it’s war against travellers, brutalising of the black population etc etc. You get the idea. This agit-prop political stance makes the magazine as distinct from other comics mags as does the fact it has run 25 years and produced a 100 issues. No mean feat. So congratulations to the world’s most successful and long running politicised comics magazine and review. May you continue for another 100 issues.

(a page from Snow by and (c) DN, from the Strapazin site)

(a scene from the opening of Ken Dahl’s Monsters, by and (c) Ken Dahl)

We are building special racks for small press/self published works and putting them in Nostalgia & Comics in Birmingham, World’s Apart in Liverpool and Forbidden Planet Manchester. They are large racks – 2000 x 600 roughly and should hold a lot of comics. I’ve bought a lot of small press from the US to support this and we have books by over 100 authors coming – so if you stick your work in you will now be in some very good company. We’ve got stuff like Frank Santoro’s Cold Light, Monsters by Ken Dahl, Jonathan Adams’ great Truth Serum, Tom Neely’s mad Henry & Glenn Forever and work by loads of other cartoonists including Erika Moen, Colleen Frakes, Brendan Leach, Blaise Larmee and many more. If you’re an UK cartoonist the good news is we are going to stock your books for you FREE. This is an idea I think stolen from the good people at Orbital Comics in London and it just seems simpler than us worrying about stock levels and profitability etc.,  so we are going to let you be in control.

(L.U.G. by and (c) Erika Moen)

There are a few rules though (aren’t there always)

1. This ONLY (for now at least) applies in the 3 shops above.

2. Please send no more than 5 copies for any store, of any comic at the one time. So if you want 5 in each store – max 15. You can send as few as you like.

3. All books are received by us on an SOR basis. We will probably do culls from time to time – about every 4 months – and we will then advise you of what we are shipping back any unsold titles.

4. The postage to me – and for any returns there may be – is met by the artist. If you can walk in with them and I’ve agreed it, your quids in.

5. Please make sure we deem your comic to be small press before sending it. If a comic sells fantastically well we may change the designation to semi-pro and work a deal with you on a % for being a sales outlet.

6. ALL books have to come directly through me – and not direct to the shops. I need to personally control this for it to have a chance of working so please do not dump them into a store unless you have spoken with me on e-mail. If I agree and say it’s fine to drop stuff in please make sure you take a receipt in with you and MAKE SURE it is signed by a staff member. Books that ship into us by mail – must come to my address – I will re-distribute them in our internal delivery system (FOC) and track them.

7. Ship to
Kenny Penman
Unit E, The Business Centre
Faringdon Avenue
Romford
RM3 8EN

8. We’ll send you a cheque or Paypal you for what has sold every 60 days – we can’t do more quickly or often – so please don’t ask.

9. If you are a non UK resident working in English language comics – we will take your stuff but you will have to take Paypal for us to pay you.

10. Please make sure you send some form of invoice with your books – we aren’t paying against it but I need to know the retail price of each item, if you need to discuss anything please use my e-mail – manpen@aol.com.

If you want to put your work into our other stores – and some of you will already have stuff in some shops – you can continue as you are in a direct relationship with the manager, for the moment this FREE system is not available outside the 3 listed shops so they will work on whatever % you’ve agreed.

The first of the Units goes in end of next week, probably – all three should be in by end July – the US small press titles will start to arrive in about 4 weeks and spread across the summer.

I hope this works for some of you – this way you are in control of your stuff more directly and you can take all the cover price, barring the shipping costs, so you should all find this more workable.

As you know Richard regularly blogs about small press work here – we hope this initiative will help many of you producing those works to more easily get your stuff in front of people.

manpen@aol.com for any queries (my mail is fixed now and no longer sending out viagra adverts).

best
Kenny

by Julia Gfrörer

Sparkplug Comics

I’m not sure what the author has produced before, if anything, but this was the first time I had seen Julia Gfrörer’s work, I want more.

Basically this is a cross horror/love story revolving around a three way, love daisy-chain – boy loves girl, she dies, boy continues to love girl, goes to witch for help, witch falls in love with boy – strangely they all end happy (in a very macabre sort of way). Along the way to this dénouement we have the devil being fellated, masturbation on a dead lovers grave, a child being drawn and quartered, another having her eyes taken out, a hanging and more masturbation, this time with a root vegetable.

You might think that sounds close to unreadable – but strangely it’s far from it. You genuinely do feel the protagonist is driven by an insatiable passion, you feel the loneliness of the amoral witch – this is a storytellers world where the characters exist as more than cypher’s – even in the brief 40 pages that the story is told over. It also dares to go to places that most commercial comics wouldn’t, being something of a treatise on what might seem, to some, strangely abberant sexuality. However, I doubt there are many of us, were we to face the mirror of truth, who haven’t experienced masturbating over a past lover or perhaps imagining the lover we are with was another. We just don’t talk about these things as they are deeply submerged in our own day to day lives and our sexuality subjugated to social norms. That’s not the case for Gfrörer characters who are released from taboo in order to answer their deepest passions.

Julia’s art style has a slightly unfinished look to much of it but it also has the potential to be much more if she has the mind to give it the time and application it deserves. The cover for instance is rather beautiful in a less skilled Charles Vess type way. It does the job well enough and promises much to come. If she can become something like Charles Vess in the art department, her story is so well told I can imagine her becoming a storyteller in the Neil Gaiman mould.

This won’t be to everyones taste but I thought it was a compelling comic, easily one of the best i’ve read this year. Highly recommended.

Flesh and Bone is published by Sparkplug comics which means it may not be in your local comics store – go ask them to stock it and the many other excellent SP books. Dylan Williams, the owner of Sparkplug, is doing a great job of bringing unusual, mostly narrative material to market. The company isn’t spending a lot of money on the finish of the books – this is colour cover, stapled with b&w interiors but they are printing some great stuff – I’m also a big fan of Reich and have enjoyed many of their other books also. If your local retailer won’t stock them you can always buy them direct from Dylan. Supporting small publishers like Sparkplug makes comics a better place.

There is a long piece up on a Comic Book Resources with comic creator Joshua Cotter where he talks about his bipolar disorder and puts forward that why Indie comics might be depressing, is that many of the creators are themselves depressed. It’s a very honest but very interesting interview covering not just his illness but also some of the decision and process he uses in making his comics. There is much there which I think will resonate with many cartoonists – I’ve heard similar things from some of the Blank Slate artists for instance.

I’m not sure I agree with all of his conclusions but I wish him well in finding solutions. I also don’t agree with those who consider indie comics depressing. Sure there are miserabilist creators – although many of them like Joe Matt and Jeff Brown are funny a lot of the time, but there are also enormously life-affirming creators like the Hernandez brothers. It takes all types.

For what it’s worth I believe you can be ‘happy’ in isolation, as long as you retain some room for contact with others, not all of us ‘need’ family to function. If you have any interest in comics it is well worth a read.

(First noticed on Tom Spurgeon’s excellent ‘The Comics Reporter‘ site. Images borrowed from Cotter’s work on “The Comic Stripjoint” blog and Cotter’s Panophobe website.)

Well forward 5 years and something has changed. Maybe it’s a product of the recession but for the last 8 or 9 months people have been asking us more and more for back issues. When we ask why, the overwhelming reason seems to be that if you only want to buy one or two comics, once you add postage, buying from eBay is actually in many cases more expensive than it used to be in store. Oh, and you get to see them, feel them, open them and check them in a way you can’t online, and whilst I’ve only ever experienced it once lots of folks talk of less than satisfactory dealings being a recurrent theme.

So we did a small experiment, buying a few decent silver and bronze age comics in and the results have been kinda amazing. Sales have been good and it seems the cheaper it is will do most folks – so lots of VG condition and even below are going great – the compulsion for absolute top quality or slabbed books restricted to, it seems, a wealthy few. So now we are taking a big plunge in our store in Birmingham, (see back of envelope sketch below) – Nostalgia & Comics – and installing a whole upper floor of back issue browsers that should hold close to 30,000 comics and mags – which we think will be close to the biggest walk in selection in the country. As one of the guys in the store says – “like a comic mart every day”.

It goes to show that you just have to try and keep evolving and never forgot about things which might still have an unexpected future in them. I’m excited too – I can go fill some holes in my own collection. Our intention is to sell everything at about 20% below Overstreet and try and build a vibrant buy/sell/trade custom again.

I’ll take some photos when it’s done. It should open May 1st, Free Comic Book Day; the crew at Nostalgia & Comics can be followed via their Twitter feed here and a FaceBook group.

(Alter Ego #8 fanzine with a Blackhawk cover)

These magazines all owe a debt to the small number of fans who originally created Comics Fandom back in the late 1950′s and 60′s and went on to produce their own fanzines mainly by way of messy mimeographs or other low tech methods (if you’re interested to see how easy we have it now with computers and printers go check out how a mimeograph works here). It’s arguable that had these fan groups not arisen and started to create at least a small degree of celebrity within their industry, creators rights might have taken even longer to emerge and the profession might still be even more undervalued than it is.

(the Comic World #16 fanzine with a Sheena, Jungle Girl cover)

These early fanzines rarely turn up to buy, given that they were by their very nature somewhat ephemeral, cheaply and badly printed for the most part, circulated amongst small numbers of fans whose tastes changed as they aged resulting in the inevitable high rate of destruction. One of those founding fathers of Fandom was Robert Jennings who published the fanzine Comic World and was around since 1961, and he is now selling off his collection of historic fanzines over the next few months on Ebay . If I had the cash I’d buy them all and turn them into digital form so that the roots of the hobby would be preserved for us all – maybe someone will do that – but for now I’m happy just to see such a treasure trove emerge.

(Xero #10, image borrowed from the Ebay sale page)

I doubt anyone knows how many copies of these still exist – but it’s going to be very few. In fact Jennings mentions that the copy of Xero #10 he is selling only ever printed 160 copies – I’d be surprised if there were more than 5 left. So if you are heavily into comics fandom go have a look at his informative auctions. Oh, and if you ever wondered if Gary Groth was always forcing the medium forward you can have a look at a couple of his pre Journal Fanzines – ‘Fantastic Fanzine’ sporting covers by the likes of Steranko from way back around 1970. Don’t buy them all – I want some.