I was recently home clearing out a load of stuff my dad left when he died early in the year and amongst the things he had kept was a little insert magazine I had written with my business partner Jim Hamilton. It was called ‘Cut Comics 88′ and we produced it for the Scottish rock magazine called ‘Cut’ (in comics circles slightly famous as the people who paid for Grant Morrison and Steve Yeowell’s ‘New Adventures of Hitler’). As far as I can remember it was the first time any mainstream UK mag did a full self-contained insert about comics and it ran a whopping 24 pages although it didn’t really feature that many comics, with most getting multiple full pages for the art. This was off the back of the first coming of comics as mainstream entertainment, the first appearances of them in bookstores, the start of some of the writers and artists themselves becoming rock and roll stars. It was a time anything seemed possible, and the comics world was full of the frisson of creation. Young, inventive, non-conformist, politically aware, agitprop creation. The old comics mould was being broken and things would never be the same again. And then, of course, they more or less were. The nascent surge died away almost as soon as it had come, strewn behind it the corpses of magazines like Deadline, Crisis and Escape – and then it was back into the comics shops – mostly.

(cover to the Cuts comics insert for 1988; click on the pics for the larger versions)

In truth we only got to do this as then editor Penny Taylor was a drinking acquaintance of mine, and after much cajoling she saw the opportunity to jump the newest cool bandwagon ahead of her competition. Still, reading it now – it’s good to see how many of the choices hold up – and if the “the year in review” page I wrote back then is more filled with faded dreams than realised ones it’s still great to read how passionate we were about it all back then.

The books we picked out and featured, with bio’s and pages of artwork were – Zenith, Akira, Love & Rockets, Stray Toasters, Concrete, Sinner, The Killing Joke, V for Vendetta, Yummy Fur and the first Calvin and Hobbes collection – talk about a vintage year! The best of the rest was Eddy Current, Grendel, Blackhawk (Chaykin), Cerebus, Batman Year One, Flaming Carrot, Luther Arkwright, Kings in Disguise, Hellblazer. Over the 20 years since some of those will have risen and fallen but most would probably hit near the top of most pre-Pulitzer Maus (1992) lists. I wonder how many still remember ‘Kings in Disguise’?

Here’s my slightly pretentious (or perhaps portentous) year in review from way back in 1988.

…Then there was light

In 1988 comics reached the end of the tunnel. Their elevation into an accepted form of popular entertainment brought massive coverage in the Press. The quality of the product continued to improve and diversify, although perhaps few reached the premier vintage of Watchmen or Batman Year 1. Names like Moore, Hernandez and Sienkiewicz, if they didn’t yet roll easily from everyone’s lips, became familiar to a growing readership. These are a few of the pivotal events of a year during which it was established that – whatever comics may become – they had finally laid to rest the public’s perception of them as kid’s stuff.

*Michael Correa is convicted of disseminating obscene material for selling, among others, Omaha the Cat Dancer and Heavy Metal. Later a Canadian comic shop is charged along similar line. The forces of repression sharpened their knives of censorship all over the U.S. Will the U.K. be next?

*Arena dedicates two 45-minute programmes to the work of Robert Crumb and Art Spiegelman – an unprecedented accolade for comics artists. Paradoxically British customs still regularly stop the importation of Crumb’s work.

*Forbidden Planet opens a superstore in London’s New Oxford Street. The shop, product of internationally renowned designers, makes it acceptable to be seen in comics shops. Similar stores open in Glasgow and Cambridge – suddenly comics are ‘trendy’ enough for the High Street.

*Robocop brings comics to the big screen with a thinly-veiled rehash of Frank Miller’s Dark Knight and Britain’s Judge Dredd. It does terrific box-office. Perhaps in acknowledgement of this, Miller is chosen as one of the writers on Robocop 2.

*Following a massive surge of interest in respected French artist Moebius, Titan publish six of his books in the U.K. The British Museum makes Moebius an integral part of a major exhibition to be staged in 1989.

*Superman’s 50th birthday is celebrated with a TV special, a week-long radio serial, and the cover of Radio Times. Strangely, the tone of coverage is rumoured to cause writer/artist John Byrne to leave the comic.

*Crossover magazines Heartbreak Hotel and Deadline appear on shelves in the major chains. Calling themselves ‘lifestyle’ magazines, their main selling point is their comics content.

*Tin Tin’s 50th birthday is celebrated with many magazines and newspaper articles. The BBC show cartoons based on Herge’s work again.

*Crisis is launched by Fleetway. It marks the first genuine royalty system for writers and artists of comics in the UK. Advertising budget is reputed to be £70,000.

*Strip Aid USA appears. It includes work by many of today’s top professionals and the money generated by its sale goes to ‘Shanti’ an organisation to benefit people with Aids. AARGH!! published by Alan Moore’s company Mad Love, fundraises in Britain. All monies go to help fight the Government’s repressive and objectionable Clause 28. Comics show their conscience to the world.

And what did we get for this you ask? Probably a few beers and the advert reproduced here showing us with 2 stores and one more due. Simpler times, so much simpler. Maybe that’s where the ‘passion’ went – perhaps we all got stuck in the complexities of life and that first youthful surge turned into something more sustainable, but maybe just a little less fun. We also got a first chance to be publishers as the “New Adventures of Hitler” story was for some time owned by myself, Grant and Jim as the first project of our company ‘Snobbery with Violence’. We didn’t really make that happen and now the strip languishes un-reprinted – I don’t even know who owns the rights now? Probably Grant – perhaps we should make an effort and re-publish it. 1988, Halcyon days……