(DFC Library Launch Poster designed by Lorenzo Etherington)

The DFC comic was a favourite in our household and we (10 year old Molly and myself) wrote about it many times here on the FPI blog. The subscription only weekly comic didn’t last, but material from the comic is now being released in album form starting with Dave Shelton’s Good Dog, Bad Dog on Thursday, followed by Ben Haggerty and Adam Brockbank’s Mezolith on April 1st and Kate Brown’s Spider Moon on April 29th. And to celebrate there’s a new preview website up to view a few of the pages of each of those books online.

But these three are just the first wave. Like we reported back here, the second wave happens in September with the Etherington Brothers  Monkey Nuts: The Diamond Egg Of Wonders, Vern & Lettuce from Sarah McIntyre and Neill Cameron’s Mo Bot High.

After that? Who knows. It’s all going to depend upon sales I suppose. Molly really wants to see Jim Medway‘s great Crab Lane Crew, Simone Lia‘s Sausage and Carrots, Emma Vieceli‘s Violet and Gary Northfield‘s Lil Cutie all get a release. Fingers crossed.

Kate’s been blogging about receiving her advance copies already – and they look really lovely, hardbacks  with a Euro album style:

But there’s also been a bit of blogging activity going on all around about other future DFC releases: The Etherington Brothers have put up a few sneak peeks from Monkey Nuts: The Diamond Egg Of Wonders, and Sarah McIntyre’s blog is full of titbits about not only her Vern & Lettuce collection (out in September 2010) but also Neill Cameron‘s Mo Bot High.

So maybe those three are part of the second round of DFC Library boks? Just in time for Christmas – which means I’m sorted for Christmas presents this year. I always try to have some comics to give out, one set for adults and one for children – 2009 was a rarity – Andi Watson’s Glister books for young and old. 2010 looks like being DFC books for all! Looks like this sad goodbye from Vern & Lettuce was a little premature…..

(Ben Haggarty and Adam Brockbank’s Mezolith, to be published by David Fickling Books in Spring 2010)

When the subscription-only DFC comic proved unsustainable it was a blow; we’d all become so excited over a major new British comic after years of decline in the number of titles published. The subscription model did bypass huge expenses of distribution and newsagents returns, but sadly it also meant that many of the target audience of kids simply didn’t know about the comic; given more time perhaps it could have developed more awareness and increased the readership, but with the current economic climate that simply wasn’t going to happen. Still, it was a bold endeavour and we’ve all been speculating that with the comics material and experience they had accumulated (not all of which saw print before the end) surely there would be some sort of new life for a number of the strips as collected publications? Especially given the increasing acceptance of the comics medium in mainstream culture, be it in the pages of the Guardian or on mainstream bookstore shelves and not just in specialist comics stores.

(Good Dog, Bad Dog Book 1 by David Shelton, published by  David Fickling Books in spring 2010)

Sarah McIntyre, who’s Vern and Lettuce was a particular favourite of Molly’s in the DFC, reports from a meeting at David Fickling Books recently to discuss the new range of titles. Fickling acknowledged that in UK, even with an increased acceptance of the medium, many book retailers hadn’t embraced the graphic novel to any great extent, certainly nothing like the extent it is represented in Europe and that would be a problem because they had to make that market where regular readers (he says ‘no real comics market yet exists in the UK’, but I’m assuming he means the more regular book reading public in bookstores and not those who already buy regularly in comics shops already) were aware of and wanted to buy these graphic albums and that publication of the next titles planned in the DFC Library range – including Sarah’s own Vern and Lettuce – would, of necessity, be dependant on strong sales of the first three titles to grow the rest of the library.

However Fickling seems to be in a pretty optimistic mood, as Sarah notes: “David Fickling was hugely excited at the meeting, saying he was gearing up to become the lead comic book publisher in the UK, and wants David Fickling Books to take on the huge comics industry in France and elsewhere.” Now that’s a pretty big statement; obviously we’d love to see a such a big push in the UK comics reading and publishing market, but, despite the aforementioned increasing interest in graphic novels, the general culture here among both readers and retailers, outside of specialist comics shops that is, is, for the most part, mostly quite different from France when it comes to selling and reading graphic novels. It is certainly better than it was, but trying to sell out the first print run of new graphic novels aimed at a mainstream book readership will be more of a struggle than trying to do the same with a good new children’s picture book, say (and there’s never any guarantee with those either). And as we know even in France the traditional, popular form of albums is increasingly having to compete with Japanese-style manga (imported and home-grown) which increasingly appeals to the younger BD readers.

(Spider Moon by Kate Brown, to be published by David Fickling Books in spring 2010)

Are they perhaps being too optimistic, especially given their reinvention of the Great British Comic didn’t make it? Well, perhaps, but obviously we’d want to see the DFC titles do well, not just because we like them and the artists involved but because its refreshing to hear a British book publisher talking about taking on the Continent and pushing good comics collections as strongly with UK readers as they do in France. Whether that will actually happen or not is another matter, of course – you can have terrific books, get great reviews and still not make the sale numbers you need, especially when pushing a medium many in the mainstream market (where they have to find new readers) don’t normally dabble. And as I said the comics album reading culture just isn’t as common in the UK mainstream bookshops as it is in France, so its an uphill struggle. But they do seem to be aware of these daunting problems and its exciting to hear that Fickling still wants to push on and overcome that challenge; we wish them the very best of luck and no doubt we’ll be reporting more on this as publication time comes closer.

News is leaking out slowly over the DFC Books announced last week. (I’m not going back over our DFC coverage – start here and have a look for yourselves.)

Covers to the first three  books of the DFC library are above. They’re being released as Euro-album sized hardbacks starting in 2010 with Good Dog, Bad Dog released March 04, Mezolith released April 01, and Spider Moon released April 29.

Over on their Mirabilis blog, Dave Morris and Leo Hartis give us some more news, including details that the first Mirabilis volume: Winter, should be out in September 2010. They also talk of  “all the great titles to come: Monkey Nuts, Robot Girl, Frontier, Spectrum Black, Mo-Bot High, Bodkin & the Bear… Oh, too many to mention. And then there are the strips that are on file but didn’t get the chance to appear before the DFC was closed, like Garen Ewing’s eagerly-awaited Tomb of Nazaleod, for example.”

Now whether that’s just Dave being optimistic about the future publishing possibilities of David Fickling Books or whether he has a little insider knowledge I have no idea. But sadly it’s not all good news, as Dave also talks in the comments about the financial implications of delayed publiishing and the possibility that Mirabilis will have to finish after just one book. Which would be a real shame.

Announcement over at the Booktrade.info site about the forthcoming range of DFC books to be released by David Fickling books in 2010.

For those new to this DFC thing or for those of us with short memories; The DFC was a weekly subscription only comic from David Fickling that was much loved around these parts (Here’s a selection of the posts connected with it). Sadly it bit the dust a while back but we’ve been wondering how long it would be before something was done with the strips. And now we have our answer.

Mezolith by Adam Brockbank and Ben Haggarty is due in March 2010, Good Dog, Bad Dog by Dave Shelton in April 2010 & Spider Moon by Kate Brown in May 2010. All published by David Fickling Books (naturally). It’s a good start. Now, would it be too much to hope for Vern & Lettuce in June, Sausage & Carrots in July and Crab Lane Crew in August?