DUDE, WHERE'S MY INDUSTRY?

Last Wednesday, the Magus and I spent an afternoon stapling 100 copies of our self-published anthology comic COMMERCIAL SUICIDE in preparation for Comics 2004, aka the Bristol Comics Festival, aka the UK's biggest convention. After we finished, I called an artist friend in America. Oh, the Bristol con, he said. He never went to that, but he grew up in Europe reading DAN DARE, and British football comics, in translation - and he had fond memories of how good those titles were. How is the British comic industry these days, he asked?

What British comic industry, was my response. All we have is VIZ, 2000AD, WARHAMMER, the kiddie stuff like DANDY/BEANO, and the BBC TV show tie-in comics. And we're about to have even less: WH Smith, the UK's dominant newsagent/bookshop, is tarting itself up for sale and is cutting all titles that sell less than 35-40,000 copies a month. So comics will soon only be available in comic shops.

'I'm sad British kids won't have the same easy access to comics as I did.' Now, there's nothing wrong with comics shops. But I first started reading comics because I could buy them in the local drugstore in Media, Pennsylvania. Eckerd Drugs would have, next to the magazine rack, a big wooden box full of comics. There seemed to be no logic to what was in there; it was like lucky dip every month. But there was usually a copy of X-MEN, and at ten years old that was my poison. (Although even at ten, I thought that whole 'bringing Jean Grey back from a capsule under the Hudson River' thing was a load of arse). I'm just sad that British kids won't have the same sort of easy access to comics as I did.

YANKEE GONE HOME

The increasing marginalisation of the UK comic industry was evident from the total lack of high-profile editors or foreign comic talent at Bristol. Chris Claremont was in London doing a signing at Forbidden Planet on Saturday, but couldn't be bothered to take a two-hour train journey to appear at Bristol. No Marvel editors came; from DC we had only Bob Schreck (BATMAN editor) and Scott Dunbier (Wildstorm). Dark Horse, Image, Top Cow, Oni Press - they rarely attend, and this year was no exception. It seems that the US editors know the British talent will come to them, so why bother visiting the UK when they can sit back and wait for the British invasion?

'It seems US editors know British talent will come to them, so why bother?' Bristol was full of the usual suspects. A big crowd of 2000AD writers, artists and editors, and the local British and Irish talent: Duncan Fegredo, Andy Diggle, Jock, Sean Phillips, John McCrea, Charlie Adlard, Mike Carey, Glenn Fabry. Chynna Clugston-Major also appeared, but the biggest crowds were reserved for Simon Bisley. So uneconomical is Bristol for most artists that this year we saw many artists charging for sketches for the first time. Too right - they have to pay to have a table at Bristol, and charging (which is the norm at most US cons) helps them recoup costs.

Very little of the crowd seemed interested in buying art, or in checking out indie/self-published comics (except other artists and indie publishers). Most people seemed keenest on exploring the comic mart for that rare variant copy of SUPERMAN #204 that would complete their collection. The Bristol convention seems to cater to an increasingly shrinking subculture: notoriously absent from all sales booths were manga and European comics... although strangely, many booths were selling manga board and HOW TO DRAW MANGA books.

ARTISTS & CRAFTSMEN

Speaking of how to draw, one of the high points of Bristol for me was getting a peek at two soon to be published artists' projects: Liam Sharpe's gorgeous collection of previously unpublished work, SHARPENINGS, and Glenn Fabry's sketchbook.

Apparently, every morning Glenn Fabry pulls out his sketchbook, puts on an exercise video, and goes through it frame by frame for thirty minutes to an hour, doing ten-minute sketches of women in leotards contorting their bodies. It's how he practices drawing anatomy. He's been doing it for years. The resulting book of his practice sketches feels like a modern Eadweard Muybridge - page after page of beautifully rendered, increasingly fluid explorations of the human form, utterly compelling in its repetition.

'Fabry is one of the most successful artists today, yet he keeps practicing.' Now, Fabry is one of the most successful comic artists today. Yet he keeps practicing, keeps working at his craft.

Not long ago, I took a life drawing class at Central St Martins with a painter named Martin Constable. As we all drew the model with our tetchy, hesitant lines, he told a story about when he was in art school, drawing models with equally afraid little lines. The guy next to him, he said, would draw with these great, long, confident sweeps - always right the first time - and he always wished he could do that. That guy was Glenn Fabry. (He also seemed to have illustrated an issue of WARRIOR NUN AREALA while in art school, which I now really want to see).

Confidence, tenacity, hard work, talent. The four things (well, maybe some luck, too) that you need to be really great.

There were so many people at Bristol who really cared about creating comics. Pros, wannabes, independents - far more than 2000AD (erm, I mean the British comics industry) could ever publish. One just hopes that the wannabes apply as much of those four qualities to their craft as Glenn Fabry does to his. Although the British comics industry may never again be more than 2000AD, at least the Brits can continue their conquest of the American industry.

Alex de Campi is a comics writer whose projects include the Eisner-nominated SMOKE with Igor Kordey and the forthcoming KAT & MOUSE with Federica Manfredi.

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