Sunday 25 February 2024

A Chat On Sunday About The Comics Publishing Business



 There are some 200 plus books on the online store front and take a look at that all time views number above -almost 116 thousand views.  

The question has to be; were these just 116K bored people?

As with my other blogs, say Comic Bits Online, the readership here is international. Okay no one comments but you really do tend to get used to that because...well, it's the internet! The biggest mystery is why, when it is so simple to order books worldwide with no overseas shipping, not one of those 116K people has even purchased a copy of the cheapest book published?  

Black Tower Comics and Books should be my livelihood but if I sell three books in a year it's a miracle. All the usual social media outlets get BTC&B news and those posts get high hits but sales from all that work (often until 0200hrs)?  I have always been open about the publishing business. 

Whether in the United States or UK publishers have always hidden true profits and losses for various dubious reasons  so I may be an idiot but I want people, especially anyone wanting to get into publishing, to see what the reality is.  

Take a look at my current sales.... 

And I am not alone. John Hanson has spent a couple decades researching and publishing The Haunted Skies series of UFO and related phenomena encyclopaedias. Books that, back in the 1990s, we would have grabbed like crazy.  Now? Very lows sales and no profit for the amount spent on researching those books. 

Another person I know had his comics mentioned on a big comic site in the United States and a great recommendation. Sales? None.  

My own interview on First Comics News is still up after a decade or so and the QRD interview is still there as are other online interviews I gave. Sales? Nope. 

Attending conventions is ridiculously expensive in the UK and with table and travel costs anyone would need £200+ (say $210 US or 233Euros) that they can afford to throw away. Also the smaller zine (small press) events are not open to having a comic publisher present as they tend to be very cliquey, local and usually consist of friends  and on two occasions I have been told my books "are too professional looking" (?!)   

Now considering that everyone wants my decades of  experience and advice for free you'll understand why I do not give it any more after this.  I hope so. I'm too old to start branching out into another career and  to dumb to just delete every book from the online store and retire (because retiring requires money...something they never explained to me when I was younger!).

For fun -the countries from the all time stats page.


United States
37.8K
Singapore
35.5K
France
10.6K
Russia
5.26K
United Kingdom
3.54K
Germany
3.14K
Ukraine
1.24K
Unknown Region
1.21K
Romania
1.12K
Canada
1.05K
United Arab Emirates
905
Netherlands
684
Sweden
579
Portugal
574
Poland
482
South Korea
446
Argentina
428
Spain
423
Ireland
345
Other
10.5K
LESS

Thursday 4 January 2024

THE CANCEL HAUS -Guest review by Paul Ashley Brown

 THE CANCEL HAUS ISSUES 1 & 2 by Hroge, Strawman Publishing ( 36 pages full colour comic book )



It's been a long time since I've felt the urge to review anything comic- book wise ( as my esteemed host Mr Hooper knows only too well !) .There's very little these days in Comic Book land that makes me feel even the vaguest hint of genuine drooling excitement,, whether it's sat on the shelves of your local comic book store ( sorry friend Meesh !) or the rear corner of your trendy Bookshop's Graphic Novel selection ( sorry nobody !). Oh sure, I'll occasionally pick up some overhyped title or latest lauded GN I'm meant to care about,to see what the fuss is, and yet a split second later put it back on the shelf - I couldn't tell you if it's written well because usually the artwork is so appallingly awful and visually uninspiring I can't get past the first page.

 Every now and then though, even a jaded old curmudgeon like me can be suddenly lulled out of their all-too- snug  cynicism by something that suddenly drops into view. So it was a week before Christmas, aptly enough, when a parcel arrived that made this tired old Ebeneezer Scrunge suddenly be reminded that there may well be hope and redemption, even when all seems lost.That was when I opened the package containing the first two issues of The Cancel Haus by Hroge.



What? What's a Cancel Haus ? And what's a Hroge ? I hear you ask.( And if you aren't then you really should !!)

 It's a very good couple of questions to which I still  don't know the whole answer.  What I do know is that Hroge is the writer /artist of The Cancel Haus, which is a planned 15 issue comic book series that he's been working on in splendid isolation for the last 12 years ( !!!), seperate from the somewhat hysterical and overhyped Emperor's New Clothes of the current comic book landscape, which he's got off the ground via a Kickstarter, like a lot of people whose work otherwise might never see the light of day. I've always had somewhat conflicting views on the value of Kickstarters, so it's rare for me to go and back one, but when I saw the artwork teases posted on the site, I felt it was my artistic duty to show support for what appeared to be a genuinely promising-looking project. I'm happy to report that on the receipt of the physical first two issues, I'm really glad I did.

Firstly, it's a rather beautifully printed book on some quality paper stock that has the added bonus of also smelling really nice.( yes I am the kind of person that sniffs paper stocks in art shops and strokes the textures of drawing papers and art boards if you must know !!! )  As well as the 24 pages of full colour artwork per issue, there are additional pages featuring quotations, lists of films and music playlists compiled by Hroge and mysterious design collaborator Esther, that act as almost supplementary indicators of influences and mood, and pull the whole thing into a very simple yet sophisticated overall design package, which suggest some serious proper thought has gone into creating a whole world for the reader to enter. It's the small details like this that impress me; in its modest way it's similar thinking to how each issue of the original Watchmen was a conceptual piece in its own right while being part of a bigger whole. Or the way Vaughn Oliver might design an album for 4AD say.  Congrats to whoever Esther is, but she deserves kudos for her collaboration here.

Anyway, what about the actual comic-strip content ?

The first two issues introduce a lot of characters and locations. There's a man in a stetson sat waiting for a motorbike courier to arrive in an exotic location who may or may not be our reliable narrator or veteran covert spook operative. There are a group of French detetives/police/ covert undercover operatives in the palais de justice, a bunch of twatty twentysomethings hiking in the middle of Scotland that come across a remote pub called The Broken Cormorant., some young women beachcombing and a couple of dodgy geezers robbing some reasonably well-off yuppie thirtysomething. Then there are some dodgy blokes in a curry house plotting something and talking bollocks that may be in for a surprise when their taxi turns up and a young woman poring through a bookshop for hidden messages. And who is taking dubious snaps of a young woman on the hospital bed at the end of issue 2  ?  Don't ask me, but I'm definitely intrigued already.


While I'm getting my head around just who everyone is and who fits where with what, I love the writing in this, alluding to the current climate of hysterical insanity and underhand conspiracy spook hauntology we find ourselves in, while referencing historical narrative leylines if you like, but having its own poetic tone and vocabulary that seemingly stream of consciousness crosscuts and cuts-up- the parallel visual narrative. As with all genuinely great work, what you have is a fully realised vision of a world which , as a viewer and reader you want to fully inhabit, are pulled into and want to know. Both the writing and art are creating a tension, threat and mystery, causing us to wonder at where these seemingly disparate characters are headed, and how they are linked if at all, and by what. On occasion it felt to me like it had an echo of the opening of the brilliant Dennis Potter's The Singing Detective - you're aware of a sense of uncertainty and unease, an undercurrent of darkness you feel drawn into.

These moods and tensions are ably aided and abetted by the art in the book, a significant part of that due to the thoughtful and considered colour palette that complement these narrative tonal shifts. As to the actual comic-strip technicalities on display here,  let me firstly state this . I'm someone who rarely has time for a lot of the reductive, poorly observed  and badly-drawn visually empty nonsense that passes for comic strip artwork these days. There are still a few out there whose work suggests all is not lost. I can assure you Hroge's drawing here can be more than added to those quality few. It was a pleasure to find a whole comic  resplendent with beautifully rendered, observed and considered drawing, perfectly realised and imagined consistently throughout, and having an understanding of how to move a story graphically along in comic-strip narrative language and form, utilising well paced and ,pleasingly constructed layouts and neatly visualised panel compositions.Initially Hroge's work reminded me of classic British artists like Arthur Ranson and John Ridgeway, beautiful drawers and immaculate renderers, yet he's definitely his own man, who's certainly made his own mark with the content here. It's rare for me these days to find a comic I'm drawn to by the sheer quality of the drawing alone, but this one's got it. 

The Cancel Haus is both an aspiring and auspicious debut which, in an intelligent, reasoned and nuanced cultural and critical landscape would be being rightfully lauded as a major new work by a major new artist. Personally, I'm not entirely sure that's where we are right now, but I really hope people out there recognise just what's being done here. It's an incredibly striking and commendable achievement thus far. I look forward to what comes next.

If you'd like to know more,including how to get your own copies, please go to  www.thecancelhaus.co.uk

Paul Ashley Braunhaus

text (c)2024 Paul Ashley Brown

Sunday 11 June 2023

1980s German Zines

 


This all started out as a rather simple post but things escalate!  Read, enjoy and comment!




 There is very little information online regarding Zine Zone/Zine Zone International or its Small Press and Independent mail order business, nor of its successor Comic Bits. Even my own existence in British comics is non-existent on the internet.  What are termed the "British Comics Mafia" (I used to think that was a joke for a long time) seem to try to delete any mention -I know two people who tried several times to place Wikipedia entries on myself and comics/Small Press but each was deleted after "complaints".

However, what cannot be deleted are items on my work in Amazing Heroes and Comics F/X, I exclude the mention of The Comics Journal as I have never seen the issue so cannot comment. I even wrote a regular page for Comics F/X -"Tel's From The Crypt".  But I was not just part of the spear head of the "British Small Press Explosion" into the United States.

 I was also very active in writing and communicating with Small Pressers in what was then West Germany and even East Germany where there was an illegal underground exchange of Small Press comics -German and English.  See how old I am?  My badge of honour is that I was on a list of "persons to be detained and questioned" by the East German VoPos (Volks Polizei)!

Not sure how they might have greeted the lovely cover by American creator Donna Barr who was interviewed in this issue along with Roberta Gregory, Canadian Colin Upton and some Bristol rogue Paul Brown (aka: Paul Ashley Brown)...and some German creators.

In my collection of Small Press publications I have, obviously, a large number from Germany. Heiki Anacher's Plop!  Although Heiki later left the zine it was taken over by Andreas Alt. From 3 DM to 3 Euro...hmm.




Above  the 2007 edition of Plop! and  the 1986 edition -both showcase new talent and genres of stripwork.

Now I may be wrong but I'm quite sure that Jo 84 was publishing Spruhende Phantasie while doing his national service in the German Army.  He was still around a few years back but not in good health. Hopefully he is better now. Spruhende Phantasie was one of those German zines that it was always a pleasure to receive and look through.
 Above: Jo 84 in Spruhende Phantasie nr. 9 and below the cover of that July,1989 issue!
And I helped to push German publications to a wider audience -oddly, back in the pre-internet days far more people were willing to look at foreign language comics than they are today. Certainly, despite so many having been 'borrowed' from me by visiting Small Pressers, I have a large number that would take all day to scan and some of these were available via Zine Zone's mail order service.

Below is the back page advert from Zine Zone International 13


Another publication that was a joy to receive was Georg K. Berres' Zebra. Below is the Ad sheet that was included with ZZI 13.  Interestingly, rather like the bulky Previews Comic (a new talent showcase) I got Forbidden Planet in London to put copies on sale.  They sold.  And as with Previews Comic the store refused to pay out the sales money.  Crooks from top to bottom.


I had thought that Zebra was the first publication I had seen the work of Rudolph Perez and Martin Frei in (both were interviewed in ZZI 13).  However, I have a copy of Lippe published by Andreas Anger (1985/86) in which both contribute strips Frei with "Diamanten" and Perez with (still my favourite) "Die Ruckkehr von Jack The Ripper"

Perez is still working in comics but online -I think!- and every link I follow seems to get me nowhere. Now there is modern tech and communication for you!


Below is a Perez cover for Gringo Comics Kurzer Prozess and I think this one is from the early 2000s. I lost contact with a lot of the old Zinesters such as EmdE, Helge "Herod" Korda and so on after one of my numerous address changes-I was keeping one step ahead of the Vopos! :-)

Martin Frei did some work on a comic adaption of the very popular cop/detective show Schimanski that starred the late Götz George who died in 2016 -http://hoopercomicart.blogspot.co.uk/2016/06/gotz-george-dead-at-77.html



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Frei later produced covers for Kurzer Prozess though I have no idea, as with Perez, what he contributed strip-wise.  And below -the man himself!
In case you never noticed in that photograph, Frei is signing copies of his detective book Kommissar Eisele...or did you notice?




Another artist, with a much different style, was Hannes Neubauer.  Loved this cover to Zebra nr. 9!





Somewhere....I use the term "somewhere" because this is Room Oblivion and things are in boxes or tucked away in other places for safety...are one or two colour postcards that Hannes sent me with a letter back in the day -we old folk say "back in the day" because we really do not want to think how many years ago it really was!

I will need to try to find them.

Below -I have no idea where I got this from or where it is but that's Hannes signing or drawing and I doubt that it was that long ago.

Trawling the internet to see what I can find I came across this piece.  Again I have no idea what from or when but it is lovely to look at!

As for this....I love it!

Of course, Hannes has a book out...I assume that it is still available and I have seen some pages online and it is stylish.

Zebra was always printed on a lovely thick paper and this added to the overall feel of the issues and the printing worked well whether it was Frei's precise line-work or Perez's free style...or even Neubauer's particular style.

Let's look at some of the covers.  I know I have others but this post has already taken a few hours with scanning and so forth!








From 1988 I also happen to have the red covered A5 Dummy.That was the brain-child of Joachim Ullmer and while corresponding with him I urged him to copyright the whole crash test dummy idea but he wasn't interested. I hope he never kicked himself a few years later when the crash test dummy toy craze hit!

Creators in Germany were doing the same as creators in the UK -experimenting with formats and genres as well as art styles.  A great day for German comics came in 1989 when a certain suave and angry bearded English-German comicker saw his super hero team published in Watcher....oh. That was me! :-P
Oddly, the cover was drawn by American Dave Fontaine and I have no idea what happened to him -he contributed quite a bit of art to Watcher and  via Zine Zone so did a few British zinesters.

Tobias Schwarz published a German language music theme comic titled Crash and things were a little complicated as Roland Altermatt was also involved in publishing -he was based in the town of Muttenz (Switzerland) and Tobias was in Krozingen (Germany).  I think there was only one issue but based on the international pricing on the cover they hoped for a much larger readership.



Nice back cover advert, too.

This post started out as a look at some issues of Zebra but not all my posts go as planned!  I have many German zines and the idea of looking at all of them and the amount of scanning that would be involved (I can find no internet presence for any of these publications) makes me faint.

Now, apart from the zines there are the Independent publishers such as Editions Quasimodo, Zwerchfell Verlag and so on.  All catalogues but absolutely not scanned yet and when I last spoke to some German comic folk I was told some of the books I have are very rare and "worth a good few Euro"...I do not have comics to sell, however.

Maybe one day.  And if you are one of the artists or zine publishers mentioned then please get in touch as it would be interesting to see what happened since the 1980s!

And if you publish a German comic, fanzine or whatever -send a copy and I'll review it.

hoopercomicsuk@yahoo.com

Tschuss!

Maakika Art and its Origins

 


Whenever I try to explain to someone the origins of The Maakika I get odd looks. I have no idea why, unless the people I'm explaining this to have no artistic minds and have never known a fevered mind!

However, the story I told on the original Maakika Art site in 2008 is factual. These pieces have been called some of the best work I've done -my comic work getting swiftly dismissed! I'm also told, though I never saw it that way myself until I went through all the pieces again, that the pieces seem to form a type of mythology or at least hint at one.  I'll let YOU decide.

The Origins
"What is Maakika Art?"  I get asked that a great deal and to be honest it is a very brief story!

In 2006 I had a serious respiratory infection.  It came and went but,in 2007,it came back with a vengeance over several months and with complications I thought it would see me shift this mortal coil -and I am NOT joking!



Around May, 2007, it got really bad.  Then, suddenly,pouring with sweat, while seated on a bus, my mind started getting a rush of images -maybe 50-60.  I got home exhausted but I sat down and began to draw.  Honestly, at 50 years of age I had drawn many things but these new images were so out of my usual frame of image reference that I was stumped.

I drew a few, sat back and thought "What the bloody hell have I drawn?!" Almost instantly the word "Maakika" [pronounced "Mah-kee-kah"] came into my head.  At the same time I got the definition "solid black and white art under guidance from the Maakika".  Ahh, a fevered mind -and no drugs involved!

I've searched the word on the internet, in books and anywhere else I can but it seems not to exist. I cannot find anything similar.

And with each came a title or description.

So,a divine gift from the Maakika pantheon seems credible!

And lucky.

The original images are all 21x29cms and though I've not parted with the first "inspired" drawings which look crude to my eye, several were sold for between £150-£300 each.

I still have the original images in my mind [they won't shift!] but I've been inspired to work on larger images [60x42cms]. 

So,if you have any questions or comments get in touch! 

And remember:only one person does Maakika art -me (and I have absolutely no idea what's coming next!)


The Maakika Art ~ you can buy the book!

Paperback, 
A4
32 Pages 
Price: £10.00 (excl. VAT)
Prints in 3-5 business days

According to comments:

 J Stransky

"Unique and eye catching. It is equal parts disturbing and wonderful. I've cut a few out and put them in frames on the wall in my work room. They are, I tell you, really quite though provoking. Recommended to someone with an interest in primitive art or hypnosis-state painting. Look at these images deeply for a while, they will seep into your soul."
SMITH
"i said in another post that these make me think of some hinted at mythology. you should do a book of these with just title s to hint at things so we can read them and let our mind run wild!2

GUEST
"I love the way these are all part of some implied story or mythology. Just enough info suggested to make you think about what the story is and let your mind make up all sorts of fabulous things"

Guest
"Seriously, these are the best things you do and you should concentrate making more or using them as a design project (T-shirts, posters whatever). Clean 'em up just a little and they'd be incredible."

Molly Williams
"These Maakika pieces are wonderful Terry!! I find them really fascinating."