More Money Moans - But There's A Cool Competition, Too!

By Regie Rigby

Note: Regular apology for being late. Insert lame excuse here…

Regular readers will already know how highly I rate the work of Warren Ellis. There are few writers who have done as much for the medium of comics in recent years, and even fewer who have done as much to experiment and keep the medium fresh and hard edged. There are also very very few writers in any medium who have the ability to make me laugh, wince and think at the same time.

So, it was with a high degree of delight that I opened a recent package to find not one, but two copies of his novel Crooked Little Vein. I’m not sure why I got two copies, but there you are. One of life’s little mysteries, and who am I to look a gift book in the mouth?

This isn’t a review, at least not yet, because I’m only halfway through the book. The back cover quotes suggest that it ate Joss Whedon’s soul, frightened William Gibson and made the great Kinky Friedman “shit standing”. Friedman also describes Ellis’ writing as “a bi-polar Raymond Chandler”, which might well be the description of Ellis I’ve been looking for all these years.

I’m certainly enjoying the book immensely so far, although I was a little unsure of the first chapter (for reasons I’ll probably explain if I get around to doing a full review), I was drooling like one of Pavlov’s dogs in a belfry. This is the first new prose that has made me laugh out loud this year. Still not sure what I’m going to do with two copies though, so I think it’s appropriate to share the joy.

Would you like a copy of Crooked Little Vein of your very own? Well, you could go and buy one of course, or you could enter this here competition!

Complete the sentence “Warren Ellis is a literary love god because…” in twenty eight words or less, and either e-mail me the result (click on my name at the top of the page) or submit it to the Warren Ellis Competition Thread on the Fool’s Errand message board. The entry that makes me laugh the most wins the book. Closing date is October 2nd 2007 – have fun! Oh, and given the shit storm I got into the last time I quoted somebody saying something negative about Southport’s finest writer, I would encourage you to play nicely, and also point out that you enter at your own risk!

In other matters, I note with some considerable regret that my little rant last week about the price of comics fell on the deafest of deaf ears, as 2000AD actually rose in price this week, from £1.75 to a whopping £1.90! I still don’t want to sound like one of the four Yorkshiremen but that means that the Galaxy’s Greatest Comic has gone through more than a sixfold price increase since the end of the eighties when it was a mere 28p. Once upon a time the cover bore the prices relevant to the Asteroid Belt and the major planets too. When that conceit was dropped a few years ago I thought it was a symptom of ‘Tooth’s increased maturity. I’m beginning to suspect that our brethren in the Solar System just can’t afford it anymore.

Of course, it is wrong to just compare prices between then and now and bemoan the seriously above inflation increase. Back in the day ‘Tooth was largely black and white and printed on bog roll. These days there are self published comics with higher production values that ‘Tooth had twenty years ago. These days, in common with it’s stateside cousins, ‘Tooth is a much slicker, glossier package.

So, is the “extra” we’re getting for our money actually worth it?

Well, this may be yet more “old gittery” on my part, but I really have no fondness for this new style glossy paper. It’s too reflective for my tastes, and it takes finger marks far too well. The old stuff might’ve been something akin to toilet paper, but it have a nice matt finish and didn’t mark as soon as you even thought of looking at it. The “new” paper has a tendency to fluoresce slightly too, which affects the way it takes ink. Modern colours are, generally speaking, just a little too bright.

On the other hand, the glossy stuff does give artists a measure of definition they never had in the old days. The computerised semi-photo art that has been a feature of recent Slaine series (unquestionably the best feature of recent Slaine series, I’d have to say…), and the work that Clint Langley is currently doing on The A.B.C. Warriorswould simply have been impossible on the sort of paper we had in the eighties.

Of course, I don’t really like this modern CGI art style myself (because I am becoming a crusty old git) but I have to concede that it is a good thing that artists now have the ability to get the images they want onto paper. Anything that aids such artistic expression probably has to be a good thing. Is it worth an extra £1.62 week? To me? No.

And lest this should become too Anglocentric, I feel the same about the use of glossy paper in American comics too. I can see the reason why the protagonists of certain types of art style would like it, and I’m not saying I’d storm the barricades to get rid of it, but glossy paper is, for me at least, an irritant rather than an asset. It is with considerable joy that I have observed a quiet drift away from glossy paper stock in American comics towards something with a more absorbent matt finish.

So. The paper doesn’t really impress me. What else do I have for my extra £1.62?

Well, I have full colour, more or less. I can remember a time when ‘Tooth was exclusively black and white, save for the front and back covers, and the centre pages, which were generally reserved for Judge Dredd. The comic, and the artists that worked on it did some amazing things with monochrome, but the lack of colour came to be something of a reproach – especially when it’s stateside cousins were in glorious technicolour, and had been for decades.

These days ‘Tooth still does black and white brilliantly - the recent Savage and Caballistics series prove that. These days though, it’s a choice. When a story fits monochrome art, that’s what it gets. When a story needs subtle colour tones, it gets them. When it needs photo-realism, it’s right there. The artistic range in ‘Tooth has expanded to the point where it far surpasses most of the mass market US comics.

As you know, I’m not somebody that buys comics for the art. I still think that the extra range and scope is worth the extra.

You see, in the end, however much I hate forking out huge wodges of cash every week, at the end of the day the crucial factor is not the price, but the value for money. And ‘Tooth, at least at the moment, is exceptional value. The same can be said for many (but not all) of the US comics whose prices have risen in similarly exponential ways.

I hate that I’m paying so much for my comics. I’d buy more if they were cheaper. But at the same time, I don’t feel cheated by the comics I can afford.

Oh, I dunno.

I need to think about it some more. Do you feel like you’re getting value for money?