I’ve just come back from the Bristol Comics Expo. Phew! That’s over for another year.
I managed to get around and talk to quite a lot of interesting people, mostly from the independent comics scene and I’ve got to say I’m really encouraged by the level of independent creators here this year. Indy comics creators have really pulled out the stops in order to be there in force and they really are a force to be reckoned with. I hope this trend continues as it’s really encouraging. Not only that but many of them made a special effort to create an outstanding visual impact at their stalls. The most impressive display by an indy publisher, no the most impressive in the whole expo was the elaborate construction that the Blink Twice guys produced to promote their titles Malcolm Magic and Tusk. Truly impressive and it was nice to see some indy creators taking a certain amount of pride and professionalism in their work.
This leads on to another point I wanted to make. I’m quite certain that the quality and presentation of the indy titles has been improving year on year and now we are at a point where it is difficult to tell them apart from the majors (apart from the wider range of ideas and the virtual absence of superheroes in the indys).
Indys (or at least indys that are going to do anything that large numbers of people read) are no longer content to push a folded A4 sheet on people, no longer content to photocopy their copies, no longer content to go without editorial control and most importantly, no longer content to be consigned to the fringes. Indys have finally discovered the impact of presentation on people and have cleaned up good.
This is great in my opinion, the UK independent scene is really maturing as a medium. We are seeing some top quality titles from them now and there really is NO excuse not to browse the indys for comics when you have become bored with your clichéd male power fantasies. Independent comics are changing.
Indy writing has to change with them. Done right indy writing would not be consigned to obscure parts of websites and the back of magazines where no one is likely to read them except the L337. It is time to kill the spectre of the elitism in independent comic writing and realise that the whole world would benefit from a strong independent movement and the diversity of ideas that this would bring.
People have to realise once and for all that there is nothing good about being one of the chosen few who bother to read a specific comic…they have to realise that this doesn’t make them special, instead, it shows how empty their lives are. If its good, share it with all, if not, just let it die.
And there needs to be less of a precious touch about the way indy writers review comics. None of this softly softly approach. Time to call a spade a spade and a shit comic a shit comic. In the new modern indy scene there is no place for badly presented comics which have nothing to say and do not even say it that well and indy writers have to do all they can to discourage half arsed, badly presented and pointless work which is the comic equivalent of masturbating on the page.
All these comics do is create an impression that the entire indy scene is full of time wasting egoists and that the indy scene is populated almost entirely with shite.
Let’s stop creating that impression.
This column is due to change also. This column was born at a Bristol Expo 2 years ago and its initial conception was to promote indy titles and I now realise that the approach I started with where I would limit my review of the piece to a short para or 2 and the rest of the column would be factual information you actually needed to know was the right approach to take and the best approach to promote the indy movement. I will be returning to that concept and seeing how it goes.
One last thing…It is time to ditch the term “small press”. “Small Press” is a very loaded term and not in keeping with the truth of the current independent comic movement. Just think for one second about what it implies. To me and a lot of others it implies crappy wanky comics that no one reads except sad elitists that think they are so smug and superior because they like something so obscure that no one else has even heard of it, but really are just bitter at the world for their stupid fucked up lives.
Oh yeah, and I’m going to be less angry….
Maybe.
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