Below you will find monthly updated articles from the world of UK Comics, covering everything from self-publishing and the small press, convention reports, or anything else related to the scene, including selected contributions from the ROUGH GUIDE TO SELF PUBLISHING                 (See articles for 2003.)

Barry asked if I would write a short piece on Dogbreath for the 3RD edition of his “How to Self Publish” guide. I said yeah sure, no problems, and then had a think: is Dogbreath small press? You understand that I'm not asking this because I secretly have more readers than Coronation Street has viewers. Dogbreath is a Strontium Dog fanzine, you see. And I kind of wonder if that is cheating, and I'm sneaking into the small press community under false pretences?

After all, my knowledge of fanzines comes from contributing to various Dr Who and Blake's 7 ‘zines at school and university, and then being introduced to Dragonriders of Pern fandom by a friend in later years. No-one ever described them as “small press” - it was just fandom and fanzines. So Dogbreath got modelled after those, rather than anything that comics fandom might have been doing at the time.

My views on the whole ‘zine scene are:

1. Basically I like the Strontium Dog Universe. I want to play in it. The fact that there are other playmates out there who are willing to join in just makes the whole thing that much more fun. Plus, regular contributors bring with them the added bonus that the world does not have to suffer my artwork very often…

2. Getting good at storytelling, be it in writing or art, takes practice. I learned to write through many years of writing fanfic, doing odds and sods for fanzines, writing up role-playing campaigns and a whole host of other stuff, most of which I fervently hope never sees the light of day! But bad Blakes 7 stories dating from over 20 years ago notwithstanding, I did get lots of time and opportunity to hone writing skills. Dogbreath - and Andrew Lewis' Zarjaz - present a forum for others to refine their skills and get a feel for the style of material they want to produce.

3. If it inspires people to say “Hey, I could do better than that!” and rush off to create their own zine, then so much the better. An active and lively fan community is a great thing to be a part of - and the next generation of professional comic writers and artists has got to come from somewhere.

4. Did I mention it was fun…?

I think the ins and outs of putting together an issue of Dogbreath are much the same as other small press ventures, with one addendum: for legal/copyright reasons Dogbreath has to be non-profit making. Not that I imagine most small press creators gather wheelbarrows full of fivers from their sales! Achieving this non-profit was dead easy for the first half dozen or so issues, but then my regular print and copy place became inexplicably cheaper, and I was in danger of making about 10p an issue. Oh no! The shame! The scandal! Fortunately, my number of contributors also increased about that time, thanks to a plug from Tharg (a.k.a. Andy Diggle), so the freebie copies that they all get sorted out that particular crisis.

By the time Barry prints up this article (if all has gone according to plan), Dogbreath #10 will be hot off the photocopiers and I'll be on the prowl for contributions to #11. A fangirl's work is never done…

- Dr Bob, a.k.a. Amanda, Editor, Dogbreath

A FREQUENT CONTRIBUTOR TO THE BUGPOWDER MAILING LIST IS IAN SHIRES , THE MAN BEHIND THE FORMIDABLE SMALL PRESS ASSOCIATION ( SPA ), THE REVIEW MAG ‘OBSCURITY UNLIMITED' AND DIMESTORE PRODUCTIONS, WHICH ARE EXPANDING TO INCLUDE PRINTING AND DISTRIBUTION SERVICES. IAN GIVES AN IDEA OF THE SCENE OVER THE POND.

Computerization has opened up the small press to a larger international mindset. The boundaries and related problems of having oceans between segments of small pressers have thankfully begun to blur. American small press, European small press, even the Australian small press, segments have found each other online and through sharing of ideas and trading of publications, are getting to know each other. Will the globalisation lead to international organization? It seems likely, and that makes this a very exciting time for independent, small publishers, with dreams of winning readerships for their publications. New ideas and projects are flourishing all over the world.

What does this mean to the individual writer, or artist? Options. There are more places to look today to get your work seen by more people than ever before. Lots of this happens on the internet, but often it translates into printed publications. The organization I founded, the Small Press Association (SPA) has been running an anthology (Mysterious Visions Anthology) and taking submissions from the Internet for it. We've printed work from 6 other countries besides the USA where we are based. And that's in our first year of doing so. There are tons of more international publications we've started seeing cross the desk of our review magazine, Obscurity Unlimited... and we've begun discussing with individuals in Canada and Australia the possibility of translating the prices of publications we review and the ordering information, to make country-specific editions of it (If anyone reading this would be interested in helping develop an edition for YOUR country, please contact us!)

The kid who makes his first minicomic today has more opportunity to be seen by more people than ever before. I've been publishing small press for 17 years now. When I first started, there were few computers, the internet was years away from jelling into the information superhighway it has become. The only small press review magazine there was in the USA - was done on a Smith Corona typewriter by hand. It had fewer than 100 subscribers at the time I found it and was starting to make mini-comics. Today when you find small press, you find dozens of places to get reviewed in print and on websites, thousands of publishers, tens of thousands of writers and artists.

A really different atmosphere, with just one real connection to the small press it grew out of: No one gets rich doing small press, so you better be doing it because you LOVE to do it. Yes, it can lead to professional work, just as it always has had the potential. But small press is about the free expression of ideas and telling of stories the way the individuals who make the publications want to, and I think that is one thing that will never change. It shouldn't either. If people are in small press for any other reason than they want to be heard, seen, and learn to grow as artists and publishers, they might as well go open a restaurant or dry cleaners, because small press is not just a product. It's a passion. One that people all over the world can share, and use to bring us together.

In a world that today is divided by many things, small press is one bridge between us that is a positive force.

Here's to stronger international ties through love of real art. The art of individuals everywhere.

- Ian Shires

6733 Erie Ave. Madison, OH 44057 USA

Ian@dimestoreproductions.com

www.dimestoreproductions.com

Dave West of Deva Comics, Founder member of the Accent UK collective, discusses the benefits of creative collective.

Looking back at the content of my first article for 'How To Self Publish' (HTSP) I can't help but smile. It's the smile of 'The Cat Who Got The Cream'. Not a particularly attractive smile, really more of a smug self satisfied smirk.

You see, the collective has started. Together with Colin Mathieson (M56 Comics) and Barry Renshaw (Engine) we have formed Accent UK. Accent UK is exactly what I had in mind the year or so ago when I penned my submission for Barry Renshaw's HTSP. It has already proven worthwhile. After meeting a couple of times to discuss what we all felt was meant by 'a collective' we documented and agreed our 'Declaration of Independents'. It seemed important to put some words around the working relationship and whilst nobody is going to hold anybody to the absolute letter of the Declaration, it is useful to set a few guidelines and if agreed up front then they can only help resolve any potential issues further down the line. For example, there is a section about 'all agreeing content of future Accent UK products' which will prevent the Accent UK logo appearing on anything that any one member sees as 'unsavoury'.

To help make the words a reality we decided that our first venture together should be exactly that. A venture together. So together with invited guests we pulled together and published our first collaborative effort. There is nothing like working on a comic together to bring a group of people with individual ideas and methods into a collective. More so than unfocused meetings or chats at conventions (or pubs). Working towards and creating our 'themed anthology' has provided both insight into each others worlds and a topic that cuts through any insecurities or self doubt that we may have carried with us as baggage. The result is not only a comic of which we are all proud, but also an easy friendship and mutual respect for each others work. This is an excellent start. But it is just that. A start.

Helping with the costs of comic mart stalls, advertising each others work in our own printed output and generally spreading the word is the next step and is already underway. I guess our next hurdle is getting our products into the pages of Previews. We intend to do this under the Accent UK line, as this will mean that there will be an Accent UK entry every two months (worst case), rather than a quarterly title under Deva, Engine or M56 Comics (and not just because Accent UK comes before Deva, Engine or M56, although we did have this in mind when choosing the name). Now the trick is to get some more titles under the banner and try to promote the Accent UK name.

This will be hard work. Getting people to buy comics these days is hard enough. Getting them to buy Small Press is even tougher. I was encouraged by what Page 45 haD to say in LAST YEARS Guide. I've never understood the difference

between Small Press and Independent myself really. I would like to promote any comic that is produced by Accent UK as a 'SciFi comic' or a 'War comic' and not run it down in the first sentence of a discussion as 'just a Small Press Comic'. I'm tired of apologising about our output. I actually believe in it's quality, otherwise I wouldn't waste my time and money producing it.

As to the future of Accent UK, we all hope to pick up other publisher members along the way. People who produce quality American Format output that we can advertise alongside other Accent UK titles, list in the pages of Previews and sell on stalls at marts and conventions. So if you are interested in putting in with us, then contact any of us and we can talk about it. We are not elitist but like anything we have certain expectations that need to be met, and like anything else, just because we might not accept a title doesn't mean we don't rate it. It just means it's not the sort of thing we want included under the Accent UK umbrella.

So have a go. The worst that can happen is that you get some feedback, which you can take on board or ignore. the best is that you my be offered membership or a supportive comic producing community. which you can welcome or ignore. It's entirely up to you.

Ah well. I'll leave it at that for now. Maybe when Barry pulls together the 3rd printing of this Guide I'll have more to say on Accent UK ... hopefully it'll all be good news and hopefully we'll have more members from across the UK.”

- Dave West

WWW.DEVACOMICS.COM

SELINA LOCKE is the editor of the smash hit anthology GIRLY COMIC, aimed at women readers and other sentient lifeforms. Here Selina takes us back to where it all began.

Art by MP MANN, from GIRLY COMIC 2

How it all started:
It all started on the way back from Comics 2001 when Jay and I realised that we wouldn't have anything to sell at the Comics 2002 festival. For the last 2 years we'd been promoting the charity Doctor Who books that Jay had edited, and helping out on the Violent! small press stall. I rashly decided during that car trip that we couldn't have that and maybe I should do a comic! I had been complaining that there seemed to be a lack of comics that appealed to me and that there had seemed to be quite a few 'comics widows' at Comics 2001 that I might be able to entice into buying a comic while their partners were perusing Violent!

Why it's called The Girly Comic and the general philosophy behind it:
The name came out of the fact that I had been chastised by a number of male friends for calling comics such as Strangers in Paradise and Scary Godmother girly comics. So I thought it would be fun to have something that was overtly a girly comic. Girly in this sense means that I am aiming its appeal to be a little more woman-friendly than some mainstream comics are, though that certainly hasn't restricted sales to just women!

When I first decided to do The Girly Comic I was thinking that maybe it should be a comic for women by women, but the more I thought about it the more I realised that a lot of the comics I enjoyed were by men so why should I assume that women are more likely to write strips that would appeal to women. Also, when you start out you tend to ask people you know to do strips and all the creators I knew were men! The important point is whether the submissions are interesting stories with good characterisation. I would still like to do an all-women creators issue sometime in the future as I think it would be an interesting experiment, and the more involved I have become with small press the more women creators I have discovered who I would love to have involved in an issue of the comic.

I have also found that, even though the name raises a few eyebrows and a few comments about porn comics, the name is memorable and that's always a good thing. Having a hook to hang your comic from and an angle which people might be interested in makes it easier to promote.

   Art by DEZ TAYLOR, from GIRLY COMIC 2

So let's get down to the nuts and bolts… funding and printing the comic?
We are slightly unusual in the small press world because we went out and bought a colour laser printer to enable us to do comics! Now I don't advise anyone else to take this approach unless they're planning on buying a laser printer anyway. We had various reasons for buying the printer, which at the time was on offer at about £1000 and came with a free digital camera worth about £300 so for the offer was good and came at the right time. We fund the comic out of our monthly outgoings just like we would any other hobby or interest and I'm happy to say we don't make a loss. We don't make a profit either but then we didn't expect to.

The pros of printing the comics in our back bedroom with a laser printer is that we can print to order, meaning we can keep all the issues in print indefinitely, and we don't have boxes of unsold copies cluttering up the house (unlike the boxes of charity Who books we have behind the sofa!). We can spread the cost over a longer period as we buy paper and cartridges as we need them. Also, we can have colour or black and white wherever we want to put them in the comic. Though we do tend to stick to colour cover and black and white interiors to keep the costs down.

The cons of printing it ourselves are that there were more costs involved in the laser printing than we originally realised, we'd factored in paper and toner but hadn't thought about hidden costs such as replacing the photoconductor unit regularly. The other major con is folding and stapling the comics ourselves. This wasn't too bad for the first issue as we did 100 over a couple of months, but for Bristol 2003 we'll have three issues out so we're looking at folding and stapling 250 comics!

Getting the comic noticed, getting it into shops and exporting.
We've had some excellent reviews from various sources such as Borderline, Comics International, Sequential Tart and Ninth Art. Regie Rigby has also mentioned us a lot in his SilverBullet column, helping us to develop a good reputation. Sending out review copies is one way to get publicity, and the small press community really get behind you if you're putting out good work. We're also involved in a number of online forums and always promote the comic in our sig files.

We have mainly gone for selling at conventions and online as a strategy. The impracticality of getting stock into shops has limited that avenue, and Diamond's rates are cripplingly high unless you have a really cheap printer and high profit margin.

We have had some sales from the USA via the website, using PayPal for payments but remember that postage costs and exchange rates mean that small press will cost the overseas punters a lot more than the British ones. We are hoping to get a few more US sales with Issue 2 and 3 as we have some American creators in those issues, and they are pushing the comic over there.

Editors, Writers and Artists.
If you're a prospective editor, you need to be prepared reply quickly to contributors. Yell at them when they don't appear to be getting their stuff done, and learn the art of turning people down if you don't like their submissions. I'm pretty bad at replying to emails, so I'm lucky to have an uncredited co-editor (Jay) who shouts at me to do it or takes matters into his own hands.

If you're a writer, I would advise against editing an anthology comic in order to get some of your writing in it… because, chances are, you won't have time to write! I was planning on putting more of my own stuff in The Girly Comic, but have only managed one single page strip out of three issues. You may prefer to write longer stories and bring them out yourself or submit to anthologies that are already going to get your work out there.

Artists are generally in shorter supply than writers so getting some good artists on your books for whatever project you are doing is vital. I was lucky to already know some artists and others approached me after seeing Issue 1. Keeping them on your books is quite another issue, as they tend to get very busy or move on to paying work!

Enjoy it.
The most important thing about small press is that you're doing it for love, not money. Even though editing has meant that I'm not writing much, seeing a finished issue of The Girly Comic makes it all worthwhile. Obviously I'm lucky to have great creators involved and be getting great feedback but the rush of seeing that finished comic on sale at conventions is pretty special.

  Girly Comic 2 cover by DEZ