Dude, Where's My WEF?

It helped comics to find an audience, it helped people to find each other, and it even played its part in the formation of Ninth Art. Samuel Teer looks back at the life and death of the Warren Ellis Forum at Delphi.
18 October 2002

More often than not, the comic industry and all of its components is looked at like the best looking kid with Down's syndrome. It's often relegated to the status of second rate, third class citizens. It spends so much of its time wallowing in a perpetual cycle of regurgitated nonsense that it fails to get restless and forgets to get pissed off.

But Warren Ellis remembered what it was like to get pissed off. In Southend, of all places.

On October 6th 2002, on the heels of the final issue of TRANSMETROPOLITAN, the Warren Ellis Forum at Delphi Forums (otherwise known as the WEF) turned off the lights and shut its doors. Let's all bow our heads for a moment, and pretend I said something that straddles the borders of geniusdom.

With the WEF, Ellis created a place that was equal to what New York punk club CBGB's was in it's hey day. Except, ya know, no punk rock and more comic books. But really, to explain what the WEF was and what it actually meant to comics culture is quite a task. To some it was the headquarters for fist-pumping, pseudo-revolutionary graphic novel terrorists. To others it was a home away from home. To some it was an invaluable news source. To others it was just a place to kick it and be entertained. It was something different to everyone.

But I'm not going to sit here and pull punches when it comes to what I thought of the WEF. Half the time I visited there, I'd just close out the browser window in utter disgust at all the complaining. But on the other side of that coin, there were days when I couldn't help and be completely and utterly proud of this industry.

Most noteworthy was the day when Top Shelf Comics was on the verge of going under, and the WEF scrambled to its aid (not all on its own, but damn close). In less than a day the WEF managed to save Top Shelf from bankruptcy. Let me break that down again; The WEF, an internet community dedicated to pop culture, saved Top Shelf, a comics publisher.

There were no petitions, no battle plans, no protests. A call to action and a resounding answer.

It's difficult to imagine any other place where that could have happened.

The WEF rapidly garnered a reputation in outside circles as a den of "elitist snobs". It's a label that isn't wholly inaccurate, but its loudest critics often tended to be people who had been ejected from the WEF for various infractions.

Those people obviously hadn't been around on September 11th.

I spent that entire day at home. My time was divided between talking to friends on the phone, watching CNN, and obsessively checking the WEF for the absolute latest.

I recently went back and looked at the initial September 11th thread on the WEF. Over the course of 1,116 posts the thread provided reactions from across the globe and brought together information from numerous web-based news sources. People who lived in New York or were in the area took time to check in, making sure no one worried needlessly. On that day, the WEF provided enormous support to hundreds.

Then of course, we've got what the WEF actually did for comics.

Outside of exposing a wider audience to works that might've fallen under their radar, by creating websites like Artbomb and Orderingcomics and by creating something as simple as a weekly "what did you buy this week" thread, Ellis slowly exposed people - predominately purchasers of superhero comics - to something outside of the box.

It allowed up-and-coming creators to show off their upcoming projects to a like-minded audience, which often earned them a new level of readership. Larry Young, publisher of AiT/PlanetLar, could often be found wheeling and dealing on the WEF, pimping his comics, his friends' comics, or even just getting people to check out quality works, like TEENAGERS FROM MARS. Even more, it allowed retailers and creators to work hand-in-hand to promote those quality books.

The WEF also became a melting pot for creative people. More often than not there were always people looking to put together a comic, looking for an artist or a writer. Simply posting a thread was far easier than hanging out around an art school and proffering candy.

You could also log on any time of the day and find people who had already trodden the path into the industry, offering up their own secrets on breaking into comics and essentially providing aspiring pros with the tools that could put them out to pasture someday.

But the creativity went beyond people who just wanted to make comics, helping to fuel a resurgence in internet comics journalism. Sites like Popimage, Savant, Panelbleed and, of course Ninth Art. Even long standing comic-mecca, Comic Book Resources, quickly became overrun with various creators who could more often than not be found over at the WEF, dabbling in comics journalism.

I've recently taken to thinking; without the WEF, will people miss out on the sort of small press titles that would previously have fallen under their radar? Hopefully not, as savvy creators should by now have learnt the power of internet promotion. Even if you aren't spending days scouring the Previews catalogue, you should be able to find the quality books - or else, they'll find you. But I do hope the demise of the WEF will force the people who only bought Warren Ellis-recommended comics to try and seek out other things, things they haven't heard anything about, instead of falling into a new cycle of reading the same thing all the time. After all, what's cooler than finding something that no one else has heard of yet?

This train of thought often leads to this question; am I going to miss the WEF?

Probably not. But then, I don't miss high school in the slightest, either. Ask me again in a few years, when I'm grey, and maybe then I'll have time to wallow in nostalgia.

The readers of the WEF were made witness as change came and went. There's now a number of up-and-coming creators who have been given the kickstart to make their own way in comics. Long lasting relationships have formed via the WEF, professional and otherwise. And really, I could probably sum up my thoughts on the WEF in a single sentence;

It was a scene.

Samuel Teer is an employee at Comics Universe and the author of BY ANONYMOUS, out next year.

Ninth Art endorses the principle of Ideological Freeware. The author permits distribution of this article by private individuals, on condition that the author and source of the article are clearly shown, no charge is made, and the whole article is reproduced intact, including this notice.