Bit of a kerfuffle going on in the UK Small Press Comics world at the moment. Matt Smith, the editor of 2000AD and the Judge Dredd Megazine, is pondering opening up six pages in the latter to small press creators. They can do pretty much anything they want (subject to approval obviously) and retain copyright on their work but, and here’s the rub, they won’t get paid. Here’s the full message:
“We’re considering opening up 6 pages in the Judge Dredd Megazine for new writers and artists. It can be anything they like, within reason, and doesn’t have to be 2000 AD-based. It will unfortunately be unpaid, but they will get a springboard by being published in a mainstream professional title. It should be a self-contained story, and should be supplied fully lettered. The published art size for the Meg is: Panel Area: 189x256mm, Trim Size: 210x276mm, Bleed Size: 216x282mm.” And if you’re interested, contact Matt.Smith [at] rebellion.co.uk
The reaction from many creators who do get paid to appear in nationally distributed, professional publications was if it’s good enough to appear in the magazine then it’s good enough for some kind of financial compensation. And the reaction from many other creators, some of whom aren’t trying to earn a living from their work, was I don’t do this for the money anyway and this will allow me to reach an audience of thousands for free. You can read the comments on the BugPowder mailing list (starts here) and the Pencil Monkey forum.
Given that I’m slowly drifting away from the comics scene generally I don’t really have a strong opinion one way or the other, but I think a lot of the confusion comes from the perception of what small press comics are for to begin with. Of course the only accurate answer is they’re for whatever the creator in question wants them to be for, just like any self published zine or, for that matter, weblog, but that doesn’t help us at all in this situation.
I was reminded of a conversation I had ages ago with one of them there key figures on the small press scene about a debate he’d had with one of the luminaries of the UK comics industry (such as it is). The latter saw the small press as a breeding ground from which the next Alan Moore would emerge but the former thought drawing this kind of simple line from small press through British newsstand comics to American superhero comics and on to greatness was not only out of date but pretty insulting to many small press creators who had no desire whatsoever to work for DC Comics. Who’s right? Well, both of them, naturally. There are, and always have been, a significant number of people who publish their own work in the hopes that one day they’ll get to write/draw Judge Dredd or Batman. And there a significant number for whom the short-run photocopied pamphlet is the be and and end all of their ambition. And of course there are countless sitting at various points inbetween, with another countless not even on that matrix. Which is kinda the point.
The question, therefore, is what sort of small press creators is Matt Smith looking for? If he’s after the sort of people who eventually want to be working for 2000AD then, yes, I think this is a little bit smelly. But if he’s looking to publish the sort of people who wouldn’t normally be suitable for his magazines then I think this could be a very interesting venture indeed. Let me explain with a bit of personal history.
I pretty much owe my many years involved in comics to 2000AD. Back in the mid 80s when I was an early teen who hadn’t read a comic in years I spotted a dodgy reprint of Judge Dredd in the WH Smiths of West Wickham. For some reason I bought it, liked it, and started buying 2000AD regularly. I then discovered the local branch of booksellers Sherrat and Hughes stocked the Titan reprint volumes of 2000AD strips and I wasted many Saturday afternoons sitting in the shop reading them from cover to cover (which is why, when I was a bookseller, I could never justifiably complain about “customers” who sat in the shop reading for hours on end without buying anything…). This branch also stocked the monthly trade magazine Speakeasy who listed the forthcoming strips in 2000AD, so I started buying that, which introduced me to the concept of speciality comic shops which stocked 2000AD back issues. These shops also stocked American comics by old 2000AD creators, so I started buying those, erring towards the proto-Vertigo titles such as Sandman. Reading an interview with Sandman writer Neil Gaiman put me onto Cerebus, which in turn introduced me to the world of black and white alternative comics. In short, the fact that I’ve spent the last week or two re-working my way through the collected Love and Rockets can be directly traced to that dodgy Judge Dredd reprint.
(My route into small press comics starts in the same place and goes in different directions, but I won’t bore you with that. It’s probably buried somewhere in the archives of this blog anyway.)
So my point is that those people reading 2000AD and the Dredd Megazine aren’t necessarily closed to the notion of comics that don’t really belong there. In fact 2000AD has a long history of using artists who don’t fit the mould. I have no idea if this is still the case having not seen a copy in years, but the precedent is there. I think that while many of the readers will look at these small press pages and think they’re shit a significant number will like them and suddenly be made aware that the comics medium has a much wider potential that they’d ever imagined. That’s assuming they go with the full spectrum of stuff out there.
Of course it’d be nice if they paid a page rate too…
it all reminds me of old debates that used to create polorisation in the small press years ago…
The “what is the small press for?” thing – in that there was this perceived divide between those for whom creating a comic was the end in itself & those who were thought to see it as a ‘step up’ to ‘something greater’.
Essentially it was a perceived divide between ‘art & craft’ & ‘career’.
Nothing is as clear as the above assertion… I personally like good comics – but then I have my own personal criteria as to what makes such…