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Mark Simpson (1968-2005)

Posted: Thursday, August 25, 2005
Posted By: Stephen Holland

It’s been over three weeks now since Mark Simpson, my friend and business partner – and the artistic heart of Page 45 – suddenly fell ill, and died.

Mark was three years younger than me, several times healthier, and – in spite of my best efforts – infinitely more knowledgeable about the comic book medium that I fear I’ll ever be.

I am, like many, at a loss for words. Yet somehow I’ve had to find them, to break the news to our closest customers and the industry in general in our initial announcement, and then whilst preparing my eulogy for Mark for his funeral service on Friday 12th August.

But I’m fast running out of words, so if you’ll forgive me, this is a version of my private thoughts from that eulogy, rewritten for any member of our own community who cares to read it, which I hope will go some way to describing what I believe not only his friends and family have lost, but also the tiny world of comic book retail.

Mark was a discerning man, who considered things at length, in depth, and with great care.

But the very first day I met the guy, Mark did something indescribably stupid. He said to me: “Yes, alright – the job’s yours – and you start on Monday.”

That was fifteen years ago, down in Nottingham’s Virgin Megastore basement, where he worked for a comic book concession. And quite simply, it changed my life.

I had no plans for a career in comics. I was working in a pub, and I’d only come in for my weekly fix.

Yet from that very next Monday until this terrible Sunday, Mark and I worked together for five days a week, almost every week, for fifteen glorious years. I’ve never spent that amount of time, consistently, with anyone else in my life. We played it like a relay race, each spending an hour upstairs, then an hour downstairs… and as we passed the baton, we kept each other abreast of who’d been in the shop, what they’d bought, what they’d been up to, and how many strangers had strayed in from the street to ask if we sold 7” singles, dog collars or – on one notable occasion – egg whisks.

Upstairs, I’d concentrate on the accounts, Mark would seek out new comics through websites, I’d write ridiculously self-serving articles and letters, Mark’d order in self-published comics from here and abroad, I’d be dealing with legal stuff, and Mark… Mark would create out of paint, cardboard and sheer inspiration some of the most strange and beautiful objects for our window displays that the comics’ world has ever seen.

We even built this shop together, which I don’t think either of us would have had the courage to consider without the strength we lent each other.

Nor, it must be said, without the confidence of Dave Sim and Gerhard, the creators of Cerebus. We’d organised the Cerebus UK Tour ’93 for them, it had proved successful beyond our expectations, and they told us, quite bluntly, that we were wasting our time working for someone else. We should do it ourselves, and do it our way.

So, being good boys back then, we did. And it grew.

Unlike myself, Mark was a modest man, and would have been monumentally embarrassed several times this past month. For a start, it was standing room only at the funeral, where so many friends and customers appeared that Don and Pearl, his mother and father, were completely blown away. Then there’s the sheer volume of cards, emails and flowers that have flooded into the shop, and all the love, and respect for Mark’s craft, that’s come with them. Finally, he’d have squirmed at the eulogy and therefore hated this tribute. Mark never blew his own trumpet, and I only tricked him into making a speech at our 10th Anniversary party by throwing Mark in at the deep end at the very last minute.

But it’s right that his work in this field be celebrated, just as we did on that night, and I know that the evening in question, surrounded by so many customers who cared enough to come, meant a great deal to him, as it did to me. It’s my most savoured consolation, really, that although Page 45 would have continued to evolve in new and wondrous directions under Mark’s artistic guidance, at least he was here to see it all come to fruition - to a pinnacle. To reach our 10th Anniversary, to win the award for best retailer in the country that year, and to see that all his hard work and enthusiasm for this medium was appreciated.

What was it about Mark that made such a difference?

On a personal level, so many things. On the one hand he was a rock, solid and loyal, kind but unassuming, whilst bursting with a passion which manifested itself in music as well as art – and especially in friendship. He was also very trusting – perhaps almost too trusting, because I managed two particularly satisfying April Fools pranks which left us punching each other playfully in the ribs for ages. Some of my favourite times with Mark were those we spent in tears of laughter in the early days, round at each others’ pokey flats, drunk on wine and doing the order forms whilst working for someone else, playing surprisingly successful guessing games with their money.

Well, it was good practice.

On a professional level, what made Mark indispensable is that he had a unique aesthetic and an intuitive grasp, that would have eluded almost anyone else, of what the reading the Real Mainstream would be eager to embrace, if only they were given the opportunity. I remember thinking that the public weren’t ready for Good-bye Chunky Rice – I certainly didn’t think it’d sell 300 copies here. But Mark knew. He knew they were ready for John Porcellino, Jeffrey Brown, John Pham, Bryan Lee O’Malley, Allison Cole, James Kochalka, Tim Bradford, Leon Sadler, Marc Bell, John Scarratt, Jessica Abel, Paul Hornschemeier, David B, Andi Watson, Simone Lia… I could fill a good two dozen lines with a list of creators so woefully underexposed in the wider industry, but for whom Mark’s support made such a quantifiable difference.

Here’s one email I feel I have to relay in full, because I think it shows not just the effect Mark had on a professional level, but on a personal one, and it’s from the organiser of a gloriously quirky anthology called Milkkitten (new issue out now, my promotional head won’t let me omit), each of which, I might add in advance, has now found itself into the hands of more than twenty dazzled readers at Page 45 alone. Anyway, here’s Tanya:

Here’s another, from my favourite UK creator of all time, Nabiel Kanan, whose first series, Exit, used to outsell anything we’ve ever put on the shelves outside of Cerebus Zero (600 copies and counting…):

So you see, it wasn’t just my life that Mark changed. I know he never suspected, but he had a bit of a habit of doing that.

“One of my uncles died a few years ago,” wrote a customer called Devin. “He played an important part in my childhood, doing all the things parents are too protective to do - introducing me to music I would not otherwise have heard. I felt the same way on hearing of his death, as I did reading your email about Mark. I almost stopped reading comics about 7 or 8 years ago - without Mark and Page 45, I probably would have. It seems such a stupidly small thing, but there are things I have seen, other points of view that change how you think about the world, that I would not have encountered if Mark hadn't suggested them. And I almost certainly wouldn't be watching Miyazaki films without his admiration of their beauty. I'll miss his voice on the phone; he had a great voice - very laid-back and incredibly enthusiastic at the same time.”

Another, called Matthew, said:

We are in the realms of consolation here, but I do hope that the physical presence of Page 45 will continue to remind people of Mark, and draw them to his favourite comics for years to come. I believe that’s one of the ways he’d want to be remembered.

Mark and I created Page 45 to be a place of fun, laughter and enthusiasm, where people could discover works they’d never have stumbled across otherwise and enjoy this medium in all its splendid variety. A place, really, where everyone could relax, browse, chat, and leave smiling. A place where we would enjoy working.

I just never realised until these last three weeks how important all that is, because we have received back from customers, creators, publishers, distributors, and those who would in any other industry be described as competitors, so much more warmth than we have ever given out ourselves.

With their support buoying us up – and Dominique’s timely if brief return to our keyboard – Tom and I have managed to forge on. And now we’re joined by Caroline, and we already have the one person on board whom Mark would have trusted to do his treasured window displays justice: Alistair Bell.

No one can replace Mark. There is no one on the planet who understands that more keenly than myself.

But we’d be doing him a disservice if we faltered for one second and didn’t ensure that what we set out to do continues: to bring the widest possible variety of comics into contact with the broadest possible number of people.

I talk a lot. It’s my job.

But as I said, Mark was a private person, and here’s what is possibly his only written pronouncement on all this, from Page 45’s mailshot, upon our 10th Anniversary last year:

No boss. Wahey!
Nice people. We've got a lot of really nice customers. Some have been around for the whole ten years.
Comics. Big trucks come to the shop and deliver all these cool things.
Having a book I like take off and seeing other folks enjoy something that I do.
Going out of our way to find something new, something that few people stock and have it sell well.
Colleagues you can rely on. And get on with.
Still being here ten years later.

Yeah, I know.

As a customer called Julian wrote: “The divine powers must have needed advice on comics, and chose the best.”

Stephen L. Holland
Partner/Manager, Page 45

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