Subsidy?

By Regie Rigby

OK – sorry I’m late, but lets start with the blatant (almost) self promotion anyway. Starship Troopers #5 illustrated by Paul Green is on the racks right now. I have to tell you, you’d be an idiot to miss it – and I’d be saying this even if Paul wasn’t “my” artist. Seriously. I can’t tell you how much I love this guy’s work. Couple that with some of the finest S/F Future War writing you’re ever going to see, and you have a real winner on your hands.

Buy it now at cover price, or pay over the odds on e-bay later. Your choice.

And while we’re on the subject of “ME!” I wonder if any of you are up for doing me a favour? I need some people to read some poems. If you have a way of recording yourself in mp3 format (like a ‘phone or an mp3 player) and you’re happy to record yourself reading a poem I’ll send you so that my G.C.S.E. students can hear people other than me reading, please drop me an e-mail or swing by the message boards and let me know. I’m grateful for any help you can give. My students are sick to death of hearing me read – help them not hate poetry! Be a hero of literature!

Which would have brought me to the topic of the day, which was going to be “reading” – and we will get back to it sometime soon. But recent news events in the UK have set me to thinking, and made me rather cross. So, buckle yup my foolish friends – there’s a rant coming on…

You see, there’s been a bit of a kerfuffle here about decisions made by the Arts Council – the government funded body which provides grants to Arts Organisations in England and Wales. (As I understand it, for arcane reasons of UK law, Scotland and northern Ireland have their own arrangements for such things…) It seems that although the amount of money they have to dish out has increased, they have removed some long standing recipients from their lists and redirected their funding to new causes.

I just spent a few minutes of my life listening to one of the people who has lost out whining on the radio about it.

Now, don’t misunderstand me here. I fully support the idea that some of my tax money should go to the funding of the arts. But some of the comment from people who have lost money has irritated me. On BBC Radio 4’s flagship arts programme tonight there was a guy complaining that his puppet theatre had lost its funding. This was unfair, he claimed, because the theatre had been working for twenty seven years, did outreach work in schools, and was one of only two such theatres in Britain.

No disrespect to the guy, who seemed sincere and I’m sure works hard to do good, but a couple of things sprang to mind.

Firstly, twenty seven years, and you still don’t have enough support to fund yourself?! How expensive can puppet theatre possibly be? If, after nearly three decades, you don’t have a big enough audience to support you, you might want ot reconsider what you do.

Secondly, if there are only two groups doing what you do, and you can’t turn a profit, perhaps nobody really wants what you do? Just a thought.

Thirdly, what makes you so damn special? In the two decades I’ve been involved in comic books I’ve been privileged to know a great number of people who have made their own comic books. Some of the finest, most innovative comics I’ve ever read have been tiny pen and ink jobs produced on office photocopiers. The people who produced these works all had day jobs. They all worked a full day, then came home and spent their time writing and drawing. Then they took the fruits of their labours to the local print or copy shop and paid for their print run themselves.

If they broke even, they were lucky.

There are still armies of hard working, creative and uncomplaining people who devote huge amounts of their time to producing graphic narrative for other people to enjoy. Let’s not kid ourselves – many if not most of the “small pressers” make a financial loss on their endeavours.

I’m not aware of any of their number who have applied for an Arts Council Grant. And you know what? I’m betting that if they did, they wouldn’t get one.

It really is important to remember that comics are an art form, not merely an industry, and that good comics are a positive force for cultural good. As art forms go comics are relatively cheap, portable, accessible and versatile. It seems strange that the body designed to fund creativity and cultural development in the UK should do so little for comics – if anyone knows of a comic that has received such funding I’d love to hear about it. If there are any, I suspect they are few.

And I wonder why this is.

Perhaps it’s because however much of an art form comics are, the comics culture in the west is very much focussed on industry and entertainment. Theatre is considered to be “worthy” and “improving”. Comics are considered to be mere “commercial entertainment”. As such our society regards the former as worthy of taxpayer support, while the latter is not. Has that attitude affected the way comics creators think of themselves? Is that why they don’t even ask?

Because if they did, maybe the aspiring creators of the comics I’ve enjoyed over the years could actually spend their time developing their art, instead of trying to scrape a living. That would surely be a good thing? Maybe I’m biased, but I have a strong suspicion that most comics creators who used Arts Council money to get themselves started wouldn’t draw on the public purse for very long before they were able to fly by themselves.

They certainly wouldn’t sit back and take the cheques for three decades.

Perhaps I’m being harsh on out puppeteering cousins. What do you think?