Irish small press comics?

Nathanual

I also would love to submit to this... horror or ghost story... you could pick... Halloween is always a good time for a launch...

I'll bring the candy....

Stephen

ztoical

Emmett wrote: »

I think Alan could be onto something with the tpb featuring the best of Irish comics. Contributors could share the cost so it wouldn't all fall on one person. How about themed tpb's such as a Humour collection, Horror collection, Superheroes etc. (If the Horror one hit at Halloween time it could get some good publicity. ) I'd certainly be interested in submitting.

Its a good idea but I do think it needs some decent editoral control otherwise your going to end up with having some weak work dragging the rest down and you've no choice but to include it cus they've contributed to the cost of printing. I def prefer themed anthologies as otherwise it can be very schizophrenic.

Not sure how doable a halloween '08 deadline is but 24 hour comics day* will be on the weekend before halloween and we're going to try and expand the reading table as that went down well last year even in very small forum. I'm getting a stack of irish zines/mini comics from Pádraig Ó Méalóid that will there for people to read. It might be a good weekend for people to drop in and chat about irish comics even if they aren't taking part in drawing a 24 hour comic.

*there will be a proper annoucement for 24 hour comics day - we were just waiting for dates to be cleared and once MoCCA is out of the way this weekend I'll have time to focus on getting site updated and posting all the details.

Fysh

Realistically the only way to have a decent TPB representing irish small press would be for the comic production and comic editorial/publishing side to be kept separate. So you'd need to have some sort of governing body/trust/foundation set up who were tasked with either performing editorial duties or appointing someone to perform them, and to take responsibility for the raising and allocation of funds with which to put out the first book.

Which sounds great and all, but is still open to exploitation. Look at what happens in the irish arts council or with animation grants. Any time there's signifcant money to be had (be it in the form of sponsorship or advertising money, or in the form of grants or government/public funding) it seems that a very incestuous cliquey situation comes to pass.

Personally I like the idea but don't think it'd work. Unless you had some mad patron willing to hand over loads of cash to fund the printing entirely separately from the editorial process, and have the editor be entirely unconnected to the artists submitting work, you'll run into nepotism and related problems.

(Which is why I think web-based initiatives are a better idea for this sort of thing; if you know you're probably going to lose money up front anyway, at least losing money to run a website is cheaper than losing money to print and sell a book).

thebaddy

Fysh wrote: »

I think web-based initiatives are a better idea for this sort of thing; if you know you're probably going to lose money up front anyway, at least losing money to run a website is cheaper than losing money to print and sell a book.

I honestly only enjoy reading webcomics a teensy tiny fraction of the amount I do traditionally printed ones. I think an awful lot of sh#te ends up on the web precisely because the overheads are lower. If you have the conviction to go through with something in print, seeing as it will cost you an arm and a leg chances are you're going to do your best to make it as good as possible.

That said, there are PLENTY of exceptions (Brian Ralph, anyone?).

cronndiesel

i wonder where would you hold it though? what hotel would have us?

still shir as long as we have the colour of money under their nose and were not going to pull the place down how could they refuse
fuc knows they ve had worse in behind the door:(

maybe an antholgy of lots of different genres i remember *takes out pipe and pulls up to the fire wearing blue tartan slippers with matching flat cap* dna swamp managed 10 issues but it was an antholgy of all the same stuff and didnt last -
i dunno

Fysh

thebaddy wrote: »

I honestly only enjoy reading webcomics a teensy tiny fraction of the amount I do traditionally printed ones. I think an awful lot of sh#te ends up on the web precisely because the overheads are lower. If you have the conviction to go through with something in print, seeing as it will cost you an arm and a leg chances are you're going to do your best to make it as good as possible.

That said, there are PLENTY of exceptions (Brian Ralph, anyone?).

Having the money and conviction to see something to print doesn't actually mean your comics are any good, it just means you've got money, time and determination/stubborn-ness. An awful lot of sh*te ends up in print too; it's just that a lot of people are less likely to turn around and say "you're comic is a load of crap" if they know you've spent several grand printing it up into a TPB than they are if you just put it on the web and you're only paying a few quid for hosting it.

(I'm not saying this with anyone in mind, just pointing out that as PODs have become more easily available over the last few years so has the amount of vanity publishing)
A good anthology will require good editorial control to separate good submissions from crap ones. At which point you immediately have a problem of "what constitutes good?" If small press comics are by definition not mainstream comics nor independent comics, then should the same quality constraints be applied to them? At what point do we say that someone is not so much a small press comic artist as an independent comic artist?

Then you've got the issue of funding. Sucky though it is, far fewer people will contribute a significant chunk of money towards the creation of a hard-copy small press anthology that their work isn't good enough to be included in than would contribute a few quid towards a small press focused website that their work isn't good enough to appear on, just because it's easier to get people to part with €10 than it is €250.

What about having a regular presence. What good is a one-off snapshot of the small press scene? Surely if it's worth a damn you want some regular update to that snapshot, so that you can see how the scene is developing? Trying to pull together a good-quality affordable anthology from small press creators every 3-6 months, where you're also having funding nightmares because you want to be particularly selective about quality, is the sort of thing that will put people in an early grave.

It's all very well saying "Wow, a TPB of good small press comics from Ireland, awesome!" I'd love to see it. But there are several realities that have to be accepted as part of the discussion, which include:

1. It will at best break even, and probably not even that - certainly not if it's a once-off job with a single limited print run
2. getting the money to fund it is likely to be a complete bitch
3. comments in this thread aside, how viable is this concept financially? how many people would really buy this? We don't really know at the moment
4. any kind of editorial control is going to cause fights

I still think that setting up a website to serve as the regularly-updated hub, perhaps promoted by a few print minicomics distributed to comic stores, bookshops and what have you, would cost less and allow you to better gauge audience response before committing to go to print.

ztoical

cronndiesel wrote: »

i wonder where would you hold it though? what hotel would have us?

still shir as long as we have the colour of money under their nose and were not going to pull the place down how could they refuse
fuc knows they ve had worse in behind the door:(

now I'm confused did I miss a post? why do we need a hotel room to put an anthology together?

alnolan

ztoical wrote: »

now I'm confused did I miss a post? why do we need a hotel room to put an anthology together?

Hold on, what kind of comic IS this??!!!

Fysh

alnolan wrote: »

Hold on, what kind of comic IS this??!!!

By the sound of it we're moving towards photocomics of a very specific sort...

Robert Curley

I have been reading this thread with great interest and there have been a lot of positive ideas coming from the posters involved. So I would like to add my own two cents worth. I'm not going to go into the pros and cons of producing an Irish graphic novel as I think that has been covered in depth already. What I would like to offer is an outlet and opportunity for Irish creators.

The first being an "Irish" free comic book day much like the American one except with (you guessed it!) only Irish titles on offer.

Anyone who has produced a comic is more than welcome to join in. You will of course have to donate a certain amount of your comic work to the cause, it's up to each individual what type of quantities they want to put foward but bear in mind the more you donate, the more people it gets out to.

I will do instore advertising for Sub-City Dublin and Galway and will contact the Forbidden Planet, Story, Other Realms, Comix Stop etc and I'm sure they will be happy to take part.

If you're interested in this idea you can contact me at robsubcity@gmail.com


On a similar note, in an effort to highlight upcoming Irish talent I thought it would be a good idea to have one or two page stories in the back of my own titles. The idea being that I will write a small piece to be drawn by a different artist each time, you can use this to further highlight your work, blogs, websites etc.

Again if anyone is interested you can get in touch with me through the afformentioned email.

Cheers.

Rob.

cronndiesel

ztoical wrote: »

now I'm confused did I miss a post? why do we need a hotel room to put an anthology together?

OOoops! i thought i read in one of the posts about some big of launching the anthology

:oi assumed.......

note to self:
ASSUMED- (makes and ASS out of U and an ass out of ME)

sorry about that ztoical

ztoical

Robert Curley wrote: »

The first being an "Irish" free comic book day much like the American one except with (you guessed it!) only Irish titles on offer.

Cheers.

Rob.

Just to update people I've been in thouch with Rob about his idea and combining it with 24 hour comics day in October - no further deatils yet as there is alot to figure out and organize but I wanted to give people a rough date that they could be working towards - the weekend of the 18th of October which gives people roughly four months of getting comics together time. I've got a little bit of free time now so will get the info for 24 hour comics day up ASAP and further information for the free comic day when we've ironed out all the hows, wheres, and whats.

Robert Curley

Just a quick update on Free Irish comic book day.

Creators taking part so far

Bob Byrne "Mister Amperduke"

Gerry Hunt " In Dublin city"

Alan nolan and Ian whelan "Sancho"

Robert Curley [me] "Freak Show"

And the shop's which are taking part so far are as follows

Forbidden Planet Dublin

Forbidden Planet Belfast

Sub-City Dublin

Sub-City Galway

Other Realms Cork

The date has been set for October 18 to conincide with 24 hour comics day run by Cliodhna.

Any other creators who want to get involved please do contact me.

more info to follow!

Fysh

That sounds like an excellent idea Rob, kudos for getting things rolling with this. Hopefully it'll garner enough visibility to get people who wouldn't normally buy comics to notice them.

Would it be worth trying to get bookshops involved, I wonder? (I know that to a certain extent they're "the enemy" in the context of comic shops, but even just getting them to display posters about the event would help since they'll have a lot of customers who might not normally think to buy comics)

Robert Curley

Yeah good idea, I will see who might be interested on the book shop front. The broader the audience the better.

Cheers

ztoical

Robert Curley wrote: »

Yeah good idea, I will see who might be interested on the book shop front. The broader the audience the better.

Theres a few non-comic groups that we can annoy for support - the visual artists ireland has always been great for getting non-comic people into 24 hour comic day and the Illustrators guild of ireland and their blog scamp, creativeireland, Artlinks, the irish craft association who are giving some funding to 24 hour comics day this year. It is well worth approaching Easons, thou i think we need have ironed out all the hows and whats before hand.

I for one would like to see this event kept focused on zines and mini comics as much as possible as that was the main reason Fysh started this thread to encourage new people to the irish comics scene to get their stuff together. For those who have the money and means to put together shinny, printed, full colour work, thats fantastic but I wouldn't want anyone else put off thinking they can't submit some of their black and white mini comics as well. The irish craft association might be up for having a workshop sometime in spetember in book binding and zine construction if enough people show interest.

Nathanual

Hey there...

For the free comic book day thing you can count me in. Rob just let me know what kind of numbers you are talking about.

Talk soon
Stephen

Down but not out....