Three weeks ago I had an idea for a collaborative comic book that would bring a few artists together to depict positive actions that anyone can take when faced with hard political times.
I suppose I imagined nine or ten of my comics friends jumping on board. If I was lucky, I thought, some of the bigger small press fish might get involved. We might do a little good.
Fast forward to the present moment, and we have 130 artists signed up. Thanks to the daisychain effect, where my contacts have other contacts who have more contacts, some of them are very big fish indeed. The past few weeks have passed in a blur of Facebook posts, spreadsheets, emailing and copy writing.
We have a committee (thanks so much for all your help, Graeme, Zara, Karrie). We have a new plan: an online presence first, then the book.
The artists all received their briefs this week. Matching them together turned out to be a labour of love: originally, the plan had been to do it entirely randomly, but it soon became evident that the variety of style and the diversity of actions meant that we’d get much better results making our selections manually. Some artists have told me they are thrilled with their picks. That is a very nice feeling.
So, that’s where we are now. Hopefully there’s a bit of breathing space before the submissions start coming in and we have to get them uploaded to our brand new website.
Except that — oh yes, I allocated an action to myself. I’d better get drawing.
Myfanwy Tristram 