Politics, activism, social memoir, reportage and fashion comics
I’ve shared another comic from my work in progress, The Noisy Valley, on my Patreon. This one tells the story of an ill-judged landfill site at the top of a Rhondda mountain, and how the local community mobilised to get it shut down.
You can see it here. It’s on the £3 tier of my Patreon, which gets you a comic every month and a whole lot of blog posts about how I’m approaching this project, and comics in general, in between.
I just tried something new: I sat in an empty room and gave a presentation to no-one at all, while recording it.
It’s the talk I gave at the Pen and Ink comics and book art festival in February, and it’s about a) making comics even if no-one asks you to; and b) changing the world through comics.
I run through my three most recent comics projects – Draw the Line, the protest book, and The Nosy Valley – each of which tries to change the world a little bit, and for each of which I used a different method to get it to audiences.
You can see the video – and 7 other posts about the process of making comics – by becoming a £3 patron of my Patreon.
I start a bit stilted – well, it’s hard to talk naturally to your computer – but I do warm up eventually. And you can also enjoy my very shouty cat getting outraged that the door’s closed, a little way through. Hope you enjoy!
Here are some quick recommendations for great Patreons to follow. If you want to check these out, many creators have some posts that are open so you can see what they’re like without having to subscribe.
Julia is a very successful illustrator and pattern designer living in NYC.
I came to her through her books and illustrated documentary work: she has a weekly newspaper gig interviewing people in New York around a different topic each time, and drawing the results. But she’s also illustrated books, designed fabric and wallpaper and drawn for big brands.
Julia is extremely generous with practical advice in her Patreon – basically she’s sharing the tips and knowledge needed to forge a career like hers.
Julia Rothman
As she’s super busy at the moment, she’s recently slowed down on posting, and lowered her prices accordingly. This means that you can subscribe now, and get access to everything she’s posted in the past for practically nothing!
In fact, I’ve just had a look: you could subscribe for £1 for a single month and gobble up all that content before unsubscribing. I recommend sticking around for longer, of course, but it is an option! See Julia’s Patreon here.
I met H-P through my happy connection with the Finnish comics community and gradually became aware that they are producing comics on a variety of topics that really interest me – and challenge my way of thinking.
I think the strand I find most interesting is their anti-consumerism project – an attempt to buy nothing bare the necessities of life (see the image above which depicts them dumpster diving). They are also vegan, anti-capitalist, planning on standing as a local councillor, trans, and in a longstanding polyamorous relationship (another of the people in this relationship, Sara Valta, also makes excellent comics about it).
All in all, these comics are food for thought. See H-P’s Patreon here.
Full disclosure, Zara is a great friend! But even if she wasn’t, I’d still be admiring her amazing comics work. You might know her as the creator of Coma, the graphic novel that takes us on a journey into the subconscious.
Now, along with academic Gregory Norminton, she’s bringing her incredible drawing skills to Sweeny’s Tale, a retelling of the medieval Irish poem Buile Suibhne. In this Patreon, you’re treated to previews of the lush artwork in progress.
Illustrations by Zara Slattery
I also follow a number of Patreons without currently subscribing – it’s like dipping my toe into the water; eventually I will probably jump in.
These include Michi Matthias, who’s making a graphic adaptation of a Victorian cycling/camping manual; Lucy Bellwood, who’s a stalwart of indie comics, currently looking after an elderly parent and carving out time to keep her practice up; and Emma Carlisle who appears to run an extraordinarily efficient community that includes videos and an online sketchbook drawing club.
Yeah, you probably already know this because I’ve been going on about it a lot recently. But if you[re checking out the Patreons above, don’t forget mine. I’m sharing a lot of the kind of thoughtful blog posts I used to put on here, as I create The Noisy Valley, true stories of protest from the Rhondda Valley.
While I am building my audience, quite a few of the posts are free to access. Check it out here.
I suspect ‘patronise’ is not the right word, eh.
Because I’ve set up my own Patreon, and would love more people to follow me there (for free, or on one of the – very small – payment tiers), I’ve been doing a lot of thinking. What got me following creators over there? Why did I make that leap of faith onto a new platform?
I can see that it is a bit of a leap, because I had to make it myself. I definitely remember when I first heard about Patreon, thinking, ‘Wait, these people want me to pay them to create stuff? When what I really want is to be creating stuff myself?!’.
I’ve had a gradual shift in mindset. I think the first Patreon I subscribed to was Dan Berry’s, because Dan was putting out regular podcasts in which he interviewed comic creators and I found them so useful.
It didn’t feel like I was subscribing to the podcast – in fact, I could download and listen to them for free whether I was a patron or not. No, this was a way for me to show support for Dan’s work, and help ensure it could carry on.
I guess that’s also when I discovered that a Patreon subscription is not, typically, a huge amount of money. The model encourages a large number of people to make monthly ‘micro payments’ of, say, one or two dollars/pounds – hopefully, an amount that most people won’t much miss, but which, in aggregate, can really help an artist out. These are totally flexible, so you can switch them on and off on a monthly basis – follow one person for a bit and then switch over to someone else, if you want.
Anyway. Since following Dan – and, sadly, his podcast days have now come to an end – I’ve become patrons and followers of a few other people. It’s helped me understand the model before taking the plunge myself.
I created my Patreon as an experiment to see whether people are willing to help me carve out some time to focus more on my comics. Those comics will undoubtedly be better, more thought out, ultimately more valuable, if I have the time and energy to spend on them, and that means trying to readjust the balance of my work life and my creative life.
But, if you don’t have the time or inclination to pay, do follow me there anyway, and I’ll make sure I continue to share some of my content for free. Cheers!
In my latest Patreon post (this one is for subscribers) I’m pondering a challenge that comes with making documentary comics: drawing real people who are going to be seeing the finished work.
It can be tricky to get a likeness once, let alone over several panels – and what will people think of how you’ve drawn them?
Read my thoughts and see some examples of the people I’ve drawn so far, over on Patreon.
In this week’s Patreon post, having finished the pencils for my current Noisy Valley strip, I’m showing my process for putting a page together. Even though I work digitally, it’s no scanner required, as I’m learning!
This one is for patrons only. Access it here.
There are two new posts up on my Patreon.
The first is public and free for everyone to read. It contains thoughts about drawing from historic photos, the ageing process, and how words can affect the way you think of visuals. It also has the link to an incredible Ken Russell film. Read it here.
In the second post I’m actually sharing a strip from The Noisy Valley, which I haven’t done in public before. And this still isn’t in public because it’s for patrons only! I aim to be sharing a strip a month.
This one tells Jenny’s story. Jenny is a 70 year-old woman who has always been law-abiding and responsible; therefore she was pretty surprised to find herself deliberately going out to get arrested, sitting with a friend who attached herself to a gate with a D-lock around her neck.
And arrested she was. You can find out the cause that was important enough for her to put herself through this ordeal, and the surprising effect it had on her house’s interior design, via this post (become a patron to view it).
As I mentioned in my previous post, I’m moving my blogging over to Patreon, but will let you know every time there’s something to read over there.
Today I’ve posted about starting a new story – the memories of David Hurn, who’s a Magnum photographer. I am keen to do him justice – it felt like every word he spoke was absolute gold dust.
Anyway, that post is open to everyone so you can read it even if you’re not a patron. Hopefully it also gives a taste of the sort of content I’ll be sharing as I progress. Read it here.
I’ve set up a Patreon – check it out here.
I’ll be sharing my work in progress on The Noisy Valley – 12 stories of protest from the Rhondda – over the next 12 months, as well as thoughts and advice about comics. My sort of comics, that is: political, personal, a bit scribbly.
I think most people are familiar with what Patreon is by now, especially if you follow arts-related people, but if not: it’s a platform that allows you to support creators with micropayments. Your few quid each month helps contribute to a larger pot, and in return the artist shares content that you might not see elsewhere – artwork, conversations, merch… and community.
If you enjoy this blog, you’ll get the same kind of writing over there, plus I’ll share the actual comics from The Noisy Valley that I haven’t yet shown in public. Twelve people telling stories about all kinds of protest, large and small. If you’re in need of inspiration for activism, you’ll get some!
The biggest frustration for me in creating this project hasn’t been material – there’s plenty of that – or inspiration – I could hardly ask for more. It’s time. With a 9:00-5:30 day job, time and energy are very rare commodities. If enough people chip in with a couple of quid, I am hoping to put some of that time into my creative work.
Obviously money can’t make more hours in the day (imagine if it could! Elon Musk would be fiddling with Twitter 240/7), but it does help in the very practical sense of making up for time taken off my paid work to make comics.
And for you? The reward will be better comics, made with more energy and enthusiasm. You’ll have helped those come into the world.
I’ll also be blogging on Patreon – occasionally in public posts, but mostly for patrons only. I’ll post on here to let you know every time there’s something new to see on Patreon.
I hope that all sounds good – if so, head over and sign up. Thanks!
I received the surprising but pleasing news that a page of one of my comics is on display at Lewisham shopping centre in London, as part of the Procreate Project Archive.
I subscribe to quite a few newsletters which list opportunities for artists. I must say that the hit rate is quite low, in terms of things that I’d either want to apply for, or qualify for, and I sometimes wonder whether I should just unsubscribe and save myself the cumulative time it takes to read them each week.
But a few months ago, I saw an invitation to upload a picture to this archive, which is a collection of work by artists who are mothers or parents, and thought, ‘Why not?’.
I chose this page from Satin and Tat, the graphic memoir I was working on for a couple of years before putting it to one side to concentrate on my protest comics, basically because it was easy to find on my hard drive and it’s a reasonable example of my work – there was no deeper reasoning behind it than that!
And this is the result – a large format print in a public space – the side of Boots the chemist. Several images from the archive have been hung all around the shopping centre for the period March 10 to April 17.
Images by Katie Edwards:
And because those pictures could be literally anywhere, here’s an image with a bit more context!
As I say, this was a really nice surprise, and a whole new way of getting my artwork seen – it’s great that the Procreate project is putting art into everyday spaces.
I wonder how many Lewisham shoppers have stopped to read my page, and what they thought if it.
A rising tide lifts all boats. I love that saying, partly because it’s such a visual image. And it’s true. And it’s also true metaphorically.
In comics – or I guess, any art practice – it’s a reminder that the success of one is good for us all. Take, for example, the reception to Kate Beaton’s recent publication Ducks: stellar reviews across mainstream press, topped off with an appearance in Barack Obama’s books of the year. A comic artist can only dream of such things!
But should we gnash our teeth and choke on our envy as we scribble away on our less-celebrated works? No, and here’s why: the breakout of a book like Ducks puts a graphic novel in front of people who wouldn’t normally consider one. It expands our audience, it clears the way for those same people to look around and, having enjoyed one graphic novel, ask what’s next.
Presumably it also does a tiny bit towards opening the eyes of agents, publishers, newspaper reviewers, and all the related industries around books, to the potential of comics.
So that’s one example – as little rowing boats, we’re all bobbing that bit higher on the estuary. Thanks Kate.
But, at the risk of overstretching the idiom, I try to be the water as well as the boat. I try to do a small part to lift up my fellow creators, knowing that their success will benefit us all (plus, it’s nice to do so in its own right!).
This translates into small things. If I go to a comics festival, I’ll buy comics and if I think they’re good, I’ll make sure I say so on my blog and on social media, tagging the artist in.
If I’m speaking at an event, perhaps one with the risk of low attendance, I’ll make sure I go to other people’s sessions as well, increasing their audience and potentially sharing a few photos afterwards.
As a side note, even if you’re not a creator yourself, a mention on social media when you’ve read someone’s comic or heard them speak goes a really long way.
This benefits the festival itself, as well. It’s easy to think of events as something that “just happen” but they’re often only possible through the endeavours of very overworked people working to tight margins. If you help out, even in a small way, with publicity, they’re more likely to be there next year and the year after, supporting comics makers like you.
Plus, the more you can support them by sharing that the event is happening on social media, the more people will know about it, the more potential customers you’ll have coming by your table.
Day to day, retweeting artists’ messages and sharing opportunities all helps to make our community more welcoming and more successful.
You might think “well I’m not going to share this competition because then lots of other people will enter and I’ll have less chance”.
But wouldn’t you rather the best comic won, rather than knowing you won but only because no-one with better work knew about it? Wouldn’t you rather improve your skill until you are good enough to win against an open field?
Anyway, some contests may not be for me – I’m not going to enter a horror category or whatever – but could be just the fit for someone else. Let them know!
In the same spirit, share what you learn, and you’ll save someone else having to go through the same long process. When I was applying for an ACE grant, I benefited so much both from friends and from online resources, all people who took the time to explain what had taken them a while to get to grips with. Knowing I had benefitted, I wanted to pass that on.
By practicing all of this day to day, you also begin to find that you have a great network of comics friends and acquaintances, who are happy to see you when you fetch up in the same events, who think of you when they need someone to fill a space in a panel or contribute work to a project, and who will extend the same favours to you as you did to them.
And that’s my philosophy. *Steps down from lectern*
The Newton Abbot comics and book arts convention was great: I’m really glad I went down to Devon to be a part of it.
Here are ten reflections, in no particular order:
I’ve been putting together my presentation for Pen & Ink, the new comics/book art convention in Newton Abbot on the 24th and 25th of this month.
If you’re down Devon way, it looks like it’s going to be small – first year, after all – but worth a visit, with appearances from Sarah McIntyre, Phil Reeve, the LDComics crew (including Wallis Eates and Emma Burleigh), and A Wolfgang Crowe among others.
Tickets for sessions are either low in price or ‘pay as you can afford’. See everything on offer here.
I’ve got a luxurious 45 minutes to speak, which seemed like a long time until I realised I could break it down into 10 minutes about each of my last three projects – Draw the Line, Sorry for the Inconvenience and The Noisy Valley, and then have 15 mins for a Q&A.
And once I started getting my slides and notes together, I realised that as well as the theme advertised in the programme – “Changing the world with comics” – there’s a definite sub-theme emerging, which is around the idea that if you want to make comics, you don’t need to wait until someone asks you to.
In fact, each of my recent comics uses a different method to get around the fact that no-one has ever asked me to make one – from self-publishing to crowdfunding.
I hope to get across the idea that absolutely anyone can do the same. There’s no entry test for making comics!
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I’ve put my Arts Council funding in! Done. Even if it’s unsuccessful, that feels like an achievement. (And even if it is unsuccessful, Karrie‘s been telling me that it’s imperative to take on board their feedback, tweak and try again).
I thought I’d start a list of all the cultural input I’m getting this year so far, in the light of my new year’s resolution to see more art, and expanding that out to other visual inspirations.
Ten Years With Hayao Miyazaki: a newsletter about artists’ working habits alerted me to this free documentary, a four partner, about the founder of Studio Ghibli. Things that stood out: he works really, really hard – basically does nothing else but devise and draw. His drawing skill is amazing – no reference pictures in sight and he can seemingly just draw figures in any position and from any angle like *that*. His process is loopy: he doesn’t write a script, but begins with diving straight into the storyboards. I was thinking ‘well no wonder he’s in such creative anguish’ – but then I’ve always been a ‘words first’ person. And he chain smokes; that’s a bit disconcerting. Overall a recommend, though.
The Makanai: Cooking for the Maiko House I almost gave up on this series, as it seemed slow and, I guess, unlike anything else I was used to, but I gave it a second go and I’m glad I did. It’s like a gentle soap opera. A lot of small things aren’t really explained, though it’s hard for me to know if that’s just stuff that hasn’t been translated, or if the storytelling style is to leave the viewer slightly befuddled. Visually it’s very soothing and overall it’s just wholesome. I wonder if it is an attempt to bring tourism back to Japan.
Brighton Museum I popped by last weekend to look at three exhibitions: a small one about Aubrey Beardsley, who spent much of his short life in Brighton; ‘Down From London‘ (great title) displaying paintings that were displayed in Brighton 100 years ago; and a collection of memorabilia from the group The Jam.
The main thing I took away from the exhibition of Edwardian paintings was their frequent pairing of greens and violets, which I liked a lot.
Also, a caption about how the original show had been received with some outrage (what? It’s just oil paintings of scenes!) reminded me of how often in my Art History A’Level the tutor would say ‘this exhibition caused a riot’. Like, so often, people were so incensed by, I don’t know, impressionism, or a new use of colour, that they’d literally be breaking chairs over each other’s heads. You just don’t get that sort of passion over the arts any more.
On the way to the museum I took a slight detour to see the newest developments in Brighton. These replaced some old college and market buildings, including the redbrick block where my MA lectures were held and of which I was rather fond – but I must say I was surprisingly taken with their replacements, which actually have character.
Julia Rothman’s Patreon I splashed out on this for a year, and I’m so glad I did. I couldn’t tell you specifically what tips and advice I’ve picked up or will act on – I mean, she lays them out and they’re there for the taking, and it’s clearly invaluable stuff for a anyone launching a career in illustration or pattern design – but that’s not me. I will say that I’m absorbing her entire approach to sharing work, putting a very real self out there, which is just A++.
I am greedy and I want more more more! I’ve been eyeing up the Fashion and Textile Museum. I mean, if I want colour and pattern, Kaffe Fassett has to be it. I’m in London for work next month, so I might see if I can squeeze a visit in or if that’s too optimistic in two long days of meetings.
It’s going to be a year of travel, so that should also help. Nothing wildly ambitious, but it makes me happy to see new places, or revisit old ones.
Over the Xmas break I booked our summer holiday, Eurostarring to Lille, Brussels and Dordrecht. Brussels is a comics paradise. Museums, murals, even a comics hotel (that I didn’t book because it was tons more expensive to go for a flexible rate, annoyingly).
I’m accompanying my daughter to a university interview in Liverpool soon; I’m down in Devon next month for the Pen and Ink convention. If my funding applications hit the mark, I’ll be returning to Rhondda for some more interviews and research. In June, it’s our 20th wedding anniversary and I’ve been trying to think of somewhere special (but achievable with sustainable travel). I thought maybe Portmeirion.
There’s a possibility of my being selected to speak at a conference in Oxford; at work, there’s another potential conference in Gothenburg that we’re trying to shape a business travel policy around (ie, is a staff member taking 21 hours by train, each way, an acceptable outcome of our environmental commitments). That last one probably won’t be me, but I will say that I’m willing to try out the train travel and see if it works for us! Oh and we’re definitely presenting at another event in Sheffield in May.
Comics pals have been discussing the possibility of going to Angouleme in January 2024 for the comics festival. Yay for travel.
I’m nearly ready to submit my Arts Council England (ACE) grant application.
I keep saying that, but this time it’s true. I think. Every time I say it, I learn a bit more and start again, but I’m definitely further along the path than I’ve ever been before.
This is the key thing I’ve learned so far (thanks to Dan): ACE doesn’t care (as much) about the making of your work, or even – and this was the real surprise to me – the form and quality of your work. What they want to know is how many people will see the work and be enriched by it, and who those people will be.
I suppose this makes sense if you go back to their first principles. They can’t really take a view on the quality of the art being produced, because that’s always going to be subjective. But they can write policies describing what they want the Arts in England to do: that they want it to inspire a new generation of people to make their own art; they want it to reach communities who might not otherwise have access to it; and they want it to contribute to a vibrant, cultural country.
As Dan pointed out, until you get your head round this, it’s quite hard for a comic artist to approach the application form. You’re coming at it as someone who wants money to fund the time it takes to sit at your desk for weeks or months on end, and as far as you’re concerned, the end product is the comic.
But the ACE funding doesn’t just support comics: it gives grants to musicians, theatres, acrobats, and all sorts of creators, and those people will be using the same form. At first, the questions being asked make far more sense to performers, who will be used to budgeting their project in terms of a little bit of rehearsal followed by a tour, ticket sales, bums on seats.
And so, as a comic artist, as you put the full stop into your final speech bubble of the last page and send your work merrily off to the printers, you can’t call it ‘job done’. No, you have to think: how will this work reach the maximum number of people, and how will I make sure those are the right people to receive it so that it inspires them and enriches England culturally?
No pressure, then.
In my case I’m approaching this from two angles. First, yes, I will produce a self-printed book, and I’ll be sending this to grassroots and radical libraries across England. This is good, because such libraries tend to be in areas where austerity cuts have closed down public libraries and communities have stepped up – in other words they are in some of the most deprived areas of the country, but where there’s still an interest in culture. It also ensures a built-in longevity for the books: by their very nature, libraries maximise the number of people who can access each volume.
The other side is again sparked from something Dan said: the book is not the only possible end product of a comic. The artwork can be exhibited large scale; or it can be talked about and the topics it deals with can be debated to spark new ideas. With this in mind, my second proposition is a small series of talks (and hopefully in a couple of them, exhibits) in a variety of towns across the country. Approaching the libraries in the first part of the plan has, delightfully, opened up new potential collaborations in this second part.
As a bonus, every venue that offers its space and time for free can be counted as ‘support in kind’ and can be part of the 10% match funding that you need to prove you have access to.
In other words, by making you jump through all these hoops, the ACE application process actually forces you to not just make the work, but become an expert in how to disseminate it to the places where it will do the most good. That’s good, right? I think so, much as I hate the new trend of artists having to be their own PR and marketing agencies.
Another thing ACE is keen on is that the funding supports as many people in the arts industry as possible. So, you can ringfence part of it for paying a mentor, or, as I am doing, inviting other artists to join your events.
The slightly disconcerting thing about all this, though, is that effectively you are encouraged to have a detailed daydream about your plan. You throw yourself forward to a date when the work is all finished and you imagine yourself on the road, talking about it.
It’s a beautiful daydream, and one that you then have to fully cost up to the last budget line.
And once you believe in it enough, you have to then approach other people to buy into your daydream: you have to email venues and say ‘IN PRINCIPLE would you be interested in hosting an event about a comic I HAVEN’T DRAWN YET but which I hope, if all goes to plan, may be finished by Spring 2024?” and you email artists to ask if they’d like to take part in these as-yet-imaginary events.
The pleasing thing about all this is that, having taken the plunge, I’ve found venues to be very welcoming. I guess they’re all a lot more familiar with this process than I am. And the artists? Of course, the artists are all lovely too.
So, I’m waiting to hear back from two more key venues (but it won’t be the end of the world if they opt out) and I will then be polishing my day dream and pressing the submit button on the Grantium platform.
The Grantium platform, by the way, is an absolute abhorrence (and massive thanks to the Uncultured for providing a Google Docs version of the blank form), but that is a topic for another time.
I am blinkin’ well determined to get my Arts Council grant application in this year, and ideally before the end of January. Look, I am an educated woman and I enjoy filling in forms. I know what I want to make and how to disseminate it – and still, the process is daunting.
Thankfully I have some excellent support around me – at least four people who have fought the (terrible, glitchy) online system and won, and it’s coming together. It is.
Other than that don’t have anything radical to resolve for 2023: rather, I’m refreshing my commitment to the aspirations I always hope to keep in mind.
Many years ago I resolved to do something toward my comics practice every day: if not drawing, that might be something as simple as reading or rereading a graphic novel, or joining in a comics discussion online.
For a long time I’ve been drawing before I start work at 09:00. When that slips, as it has been doing recently, it feels like a sign that my mental health is taking a bit of a battering. I’m trying to be kind to myself and pursue less demanding schedules, while still sticking to that ‘something every day’ edict.
Secondly, for pictures to come out of the fingers, pictures need to pour into the eyes. Does that sound like a proverb? I just made it up.
What I mean is, I’m making a conscious decision to submerge myself in art, taking every opportunity to visit inspiring exhibitions and watch lush films.
To that end I’ve resubscribed to all the London galleries, despite having a general intolerance to email newsletters.
I’ve already booked to see this exhibition at the Barbican – Alice Neel is an artist I know nothing about, but the images on that page and the accompanying blurb make it clear that it’s right up my street.
In November, the Tate is going to be staging Women in Revolt, on Art, Activism and the Women’s movement in the UK 1970–1990, so that’s firmly on my calendar too.
This immersive digital piece from David Hockney looks interesting, and I enjoy that he pushes the boundaries of media even at an advanced age – but it is expensive, so I’ll think about it.
The other recommitment is to try to say ‘yes’ to opportunities. Talks, conferences and festivals don’t always translate into sales, or even into many more people having heard of my work, but they do always result in new connections, new friends, and sometimes surprising new avenues.
First of these is the brand new comics convention down in Newton Abbot, near my home town and very much home turf for Satin and Tat. To be honest, this was an easy one to say yes to, as it’s near my parents and I need to be down there quite a bit at the moment.
The Lakes festival sent out their invitations to exhibit this week, and I’m currently thinking over whether I want to table or to attend as a visitor.
And I’ve submitted a session to this conference.
My publisher, Liz at Street Noise Books might be surprised to see this commitment to saying ‘yes’, given that we had a Zoom call last night when I was a) keen to promote Draw the Line further but b) trying to be highly realistic about how many hours I can spare beyond the day job.
Not to mention that actual drawing I want to do. It’s been a couple of weeks now since I actually drew anything; instead it’s been all about planning and emailing around the ACE grant.
Of course I’m going to chip away at Draw the Line marketing, but I’ll say one thing – years of trying to do something significant in comics while working full time has taught me that it’s nigh on impossible to do both properly – something I always bear in mind when the debate about MPs taking second jobs comes up.
Let’s not end on a negative note though! I am certainly going to explore the ideas we discussed and eventually say yes, yes and yes to the ones that seem right.
I haven’t left Twitter yet. To be honest, I found it too interesting, watching the seemingly bad moves Elon Musk was making at every turn. I wanted to see every twist and turn of its demise – which, er, appears to be taking a bit longer than predicted.
Others, with higher morals than me, have already closed their accounts, disgusted at Musk’s tweets and at who he’s let back onto the platform. I suppose I’m waiting to see if the community reaches some sort of equilibrium – will its long arc bend toward justice?
When you put the bad actors and extreme right wingers and stupid culture wars aside, Twitter does actually do something for people like me. I think in his big ideas about platforming free speech (for which read, hate speech) and blue ticks and all, Musk has forgotten the ordinary people who just want to have a chat or a laugh, or who find Twitter useful for making connections in their own niche.
When I think about what I value on Twitter, it’s being able to ask and give small pieces of advice; socialise with people I might just see once a year at comic festivals; find out about opportunities for submitting artwork, and so on. The shouty politics and bad faith arguing? I can get that anywhere.
Incidentally, for those also still on Twitter, the best thing I did this year, prompted by advice from a colleague, was to create a List that only contains comics people. It means you can swipe right on the app and see only their tweets – and it totally cured the fact that my main timeline was full of politics (plus now weeks later, my main timeline seems a lot less political as well; I suppose all the likes I made on the comics list re-educated my algorithm).
But. During that time when it seemed like Twitter might implode and collapse on itself overnight, I did explore the other platforms that people were migrating to – Post, Hive, er, something else that I can’t remember the name of but which I patiently waited in a queue to join.
And Mastodon. Mastodon has stuck. It was moderately painful learning the ropes of how to join – specifically, I joined a server that then went offline, and sat there for a couple of weeks waiting to see if it was going to come back to life. But then I tried another one, specifically for artists, and that was fine.
More than fine, actually. It’s taken a few weeks but I’m actively enjoying it. One smart thing I did, more by accident than design, was to follow the #comics hashtag, which means that I get a constant flow of posts in my feed, even from people I’m not actively following. OK, I’d prefer to be able to whittle this down further to ‘my kind’ of comics – indie, self-made, etc – but for now there is a really good hit rate of interesting stuff.
There’s a lot of visual art. Posts are longer, and so far people seem kinder, more engaged. What has really blown my mind is that every time I make a post (using hashtags) I get a flurry of new followers, ‘boosts’ (like a retweet) and comments. It feels like, because the community is new, everyone’s actively looking for quality content and people to follow.
One acid test for me came yesterday when I asked a quick question – not comics related; travel tips this time – and got a useful set of responses. So that’s definitely one thing I got out of Twitter and can now find on Mastodon.
You know what it reminds me of? Live Journal. Only, a bit shorter form and more immediate. I like it.
Here’s my Mastodon account if you’d like to follow.
I haven’t seen a way to auto-post from WordPress to Mastodon yet – someone kindly pointed me towards a plug-in, but I’m on a cheap tier and it doesn’t allow for plug-ins so I’ll just wait ’til it’s added to the standard WP suite, I guess.
Talking WordPress. I saw this – a project to make a directory of bloggers that aims to revive the old habit of reading via RSS. If you want to be included, the first step is to fill in their form and then pledge to blog a minimum of three times in January.
I always blog a lot in the Christmas holidays, so I’m sure I won’t be keeping up this level of posting, but I’m still going to go for it. Maybe you will, too!
I should say this early in case you don’t read the whole post – my book Sorry for the Inconvenience, We Are Trying to Save the World has been nominated for a Broken Frontier Award. You can vote for it until 1 Jan and I’d be so pleased if you did.
Broken Frontier have made it very easy: you don’t even have to register to vote, and you can skip any categories you’re not interested in. Here’s my category (and I’ve just realised, mine is the only self-published one, which feels kind of good!).
And now onto the rest of the post!
This time last year, I was using my Christmas holiday to frantically draw some of the most complex crowd scenes I’ve ever depicted, true to my absolutely typical habit of thinking ‘Oh, this single picture won’t take long’ – before finding I’m chained to my desk for two days straight.
It was worth it, though – I’m still pleased with this picture, and proud of the book as a whole.
What’s been gratifying this year is that other people seem to feel just as enthusiastic about the book as I did when making it.
The award nom is a case in point: it’s particularly meaningful because Broken Frontier are the UK’s champion of indie comics and one of the few hubs that the community coalesces around. Andy, who runs BF, and his team of volunteers, are genuinely passionate about self-published comics and encouraging creativity in the scene; without their efforts we’d be less likely to even recognise ourselves as a community, let alone make connections and gain new inspirations. And just to be recognised as a nominee is a stamp of approval from people who know!
That aside, it’s been a real pleasure this year to have chatted to so many buyers of the book, in person and online. I’m not used to having a popular comic! Popular in my terms, of course, which only means that I sold out of the first print run and am reaching the end of the second – compared to my other offerings, that’s a runaway success.
I guess it hit the zeitgeist: I was so cross about what was happening to our rights around protest that I grumbled about it the only way I know how – with furious drawings. Turns out, others were angry too.
What with my day job and life getting complicated (elderly parents, basically), it’s not like I’ve put full effort into promotion, either – rather, I’ve taken opportunities where they arose. Of course, the major opportunity was the exhibition at the Workers; and the other significant outlet in terms of sales and exposure was the Cartoon Museum in London. I’m grateful to have been stocked by Gosh comics, the Jam bookshop and Blunt Knife in Edinburgh – these were some of the opportunities that came about unasked (well, in one case, asked by my friend Dave, who was passing – thanks Dave!); which becomes all the clearer when I say I haven’t even offered them to Dave’s Comics or the Feminist bookshop in my own town. I feel like I haven’t currently got the headspace to deal with that (although, in the spirit of marketing, I should say that my books are available at wholesale prices for shops – enter the code WHOLESALE when purchasing three or more volumes).
This year I also shared a table at the Lakes festival with friends, and sold at a small ad hoc comics fair with the Cartoon County crew here in Brighton. Again, on both occasions I sold much better than I’m used to (ahhh I begin to see why people do these tables, beyond it just being fun!), and it was lovely chatting to customers.
Once people started talking, they always wanted to tell me about great banner slogans they’d seen themselves, and marches they’d been on, but the most surprising encounter for me came in Brighton, when a lady looked at the cover and said, “Oh, that’s my banner!”.
I told her that the title had been taken from one of the pictures inside, and showed it to her.
“That’s me!”
All the pictures in the book of people holding banners were based on reference photos I found online (though I often changed who was holding them) – and this one, it turned out, was from the local Lewes Extinction Rebellion group. Of course she had to buy a copy once she knew she was in it!
Anyway, it’s been lovely to have given this book its wings and see it fly out into various pockets of the world, even if I haven’t given it as much support as I could have.
I still have a few copies left and it’s available online here (but I can’t speak for how quickly it’ll reach you, given the postal strikes…).
At work, colleagues were having fun with the new AI chatbot chat GPT .
They fed it little tasks related to what we do, like “write an explanation of how Freedom of Information works in the UK” or “create a strapline for our new website where people can look up councils’ climate action plans”.
As Communications Manager and head copywriter for the organisation, this made me feel more than a little uneasy. At the same time I’m as curious and entertained as everyone else by this tool, which seems to have come on in leaps and bounds since it was last in the public consciousness.
In my own time, I even enjoyed a surreal conversation in which it described me a comic book artist and invented (as far as I can tell) two graphic novels out of thin air.
Click the images to see them at a larger scale
Does… does AI lie?
Fun and intriguing, right? But my day job pays my mortgage, and while colleagues are kidding around with this stuff, it feels like the writing is on the wall – for them as well as for me: coders, designers, moderators are all at risk.
Now that we’ve created this potential, I don’t think there’s any going back. Who needs a brain, a person that gets tired? We’re not quite there yet, but the way the quality has leapt forward in just a few months makes me believe it will soon be pretty flawless.
There is one thing I’ve noticed lacking in text-based AI and I’m interested to know if it can ever be realised. One of our websites makes it simple for people to email their elected representatives, and the chatbot was invited to compose a letter to their MP (something that might, I guess, actually be useful for our users that have lower literacy). In this case it was about black mould on the walls of the supposed correspondent’s flat; AI turned out a well-written and factual message but… something was missing. There was no emotion behind it. Having seen thousands of the types of emails people send to their MP, I know that they often begin with the human experience of their problems: “it’s heartbreaking to see my little boy cough himself to sleep” or “The flat looks so awful I don’t feel like I can have visitors round”, etc.
Spam. That’s going to be the other massive problem as well. At the moment I clear out our email daily at work, having to open up the ones with titles that look borderline convincing because they’re in the same sort of language that our genuine correspondents might use. Moderators of the near future might find themselves wasting time writing back to bots.
So that’s the day job up the swanee – but at least I can find respite in my hobbies, eh? Or maybe not.
During a recent work webinar with other charities, another attendee happily mentioned that she’d asked AI to design a logo – she seemed surprised when I mentioned how artists and designers are feeling about that sort of usage.
Artists are scared and angry, as the same escalation happens before our eyes with AI like DALL-E and Midjourney. This technology pulls from a massive archive of work by real artists, dead and alive, to conjure up a fully realised image in a matter of seconds.
Professional illustrators are, understandably, terrified that they’ll be out of a job. For me? It’s not my livelihood: I’m more scared that there will be no reason for me to draw any more.
But then when I think more about it, I use my comics as a way of communicating, from what is inside me out into the world. Just as an AI currently seems incapable of replicating human feelings about black mould, it certainly can’t replicate me.
My artwork isn’t about trying to make a technically proficient picture (though obviously the better I become at drawing the more pleased I am with my work); it’s the communication of an idea or ideas.
Here’s an AI generated comic:
This does not spark joy. Admittedly, I didn’t spend much time refining my prompt.
AI also, at this point in time, can’t reliably draw hands. It seems to ‘know’ they have fingers, just not when to stop adding them or how they might be used. The sausage fingers are a particularly amusing feature of this stage of AI and I would be delighted if it just kept getting better and better but was never able to overcome that one flaw – how perfect would that be?
I see artists trying to fight back against the AI generators with a legal argument that they did not consent for their work to be fed into the big soup pot from which they take the elements of their outputs.
It must be especially galling if you’re an artist with a distinct aesthetic which anyone can summon up by typing “in the style of”, but I suspect this argument, which plays to people’s sympathies, is not going to work – it’s too technical, too small an objection in the face of the enormous juggernaut of progress, and money.
Some, enterprisingly, have been feeding in images from Disney – that most litigious of companies – to see if they’ll bring the might of their legal team to the table. It will be interesting to see if this causes any blip in the AI’s progress – but overall I doubt it. This is a Pandora’s box that once opened cannot be shut. If it can be done it will – and now here we are.
So – stop worrying and embrace it? The first AI comics have been created – of course Dave McKean (whose work was already so reliant on digital collage) was quick to get onto that. You might have seen the uproar from the illustrator community when someone proudly posted a picture book on Twitter.
One response went like this:
Of course artists are quick to carp, and it’s understandable that they’d point out errors – but are they just educating the next generation of AI, providing user feedback that will inform future development?
Sigh.
For me, I’m reaching a conclusion that AI is going to transform my paid work – who would employ someone to spin out a blog post about their work when it can be done by a machine so easily? – and the work of practically anyone who works in the creative industries, including web design, development, copywriting, book writing, illustration. We will be getting a taste of what blacksmiths had to endure when the motor car took over from horse driven travel, or skilled typists experienced when the word processor became common. One would love to think the result might be liberation from the current structures of a five day work week but weary experience tells us it’s unlikely. Perhaps it’s time to be retraining in something that machines will never be able to do – once I’ve figured out what that is.
But as I say, when it comes to artwork, there’s no AI that can express my feelings. OK, it can produce a great script. I bet if I said ‘give me a script for a comic about the feelings and concerns of a 54 year old woman in Brighton UK’ it would come out with something uncannily convincing. But they wouldn’t be the thoughts and concerns that come out of the unique set of synapses and chemical compounds that make up Myf. Only my synapses and chemical compounds can do that.
I could say ‘give me a set of stories of protest from the Rhondda Valley’ and it might be able to come up with true life examples – but they wouldn’t be the ones I discovered when visiting the Rhondda, talking to whichever real people I happened to meet, through chance, about their lived experiences. Truth has to count for something, right?
Of course, the script is only half the work of making a comic, and once one has generated the text you could imagine feeding it into an image generator to make much quicker or more adept work in whatever style one desired, than the sad old method of being hunched over a desk for hours, honing one’s craft over a period of decades.
I’m less sure about this. It’ll never do quite what I do. In some ways I feel a bit like an unpredictable black box of a machine myself – I tell myself what I want to draw and am always slightly surprised by what emerges. My drawing is a set of habits, shapes – faces often look alike (and surprisingly similar to ones I was doodling in my teens) if I’m not putting effort in; I like certain types of line, etc.
I’m not saying that my own style is one that people would necessarily want to replicate but they certainly could. The big question for me then is: with AI at my fingertips, would I be asking it to make work that looks like mine, or work that looks like mine would be if I’d studied drawing harder and spent more of my life practising?
I suppose the future will come, and then I’ll know.
PS: of course I couldn’t resist giving those prompts to ChatGPT. The results are almost the opposite of what I expected – the first is unsophisticated and without much value (but could probably be improved greatly with better prompts) and the second would actually provide new avenues of research to follow up on.
Prompt: Give me a script for a comic about the feelings and concerns of a 54 year old woman in Brighton UK’Response: Sure, here is a script for a comic about the feelings and concerns of a 54 year old woman in Brighton, UK:
Panel 1: 54 year old woman sitting at her kitchen table, staring at her computer with a worried expression on her face.
Caption: “I can’t believe I’m turning 55 next week. Where did the time go?”
Panel 2: Flashback to the woman in her 20s, standing on a beach with a group of friends, laughing and having a great time.
Caption: “I remember when I was young and carefree. Life was so easy back then.”
Panel 3: Back to the present, the woman is now standing in front of a mirror, frowning at her reflection.
Caption: “Now I’ve got wrinkles, grey hair, and my metabolism has slowed down. I don’t feel like myself anymore.”
Panel 4: The woman is now sitting on a couch, talking to a friend on the phone.
Caption: “I’m so worried about the future. What if I can’t afford to retire? What if I get sick and can’t afford medical bills?”
Panel 5: The woman is now outside, walking through a park.
Caption: “But then I remind myself that I’ve still got a lot of life left to live. I can’t let my fears hold me back.”
Panel 6: The woman is now back at her kitchen table, smiling and looking at the computer with determination.
Caption: “I may be 54, but I’ve still got a lot to offer. I’m going to make the most of every day and not let my age hold me back.”
Prompt: Give me a set of stories of protest from the Rhondda ValleyResponse:
Here are five stories of protest from the Rhondda Valley:
While I’m writing these 2022 roundup posts, there’s one topic that can’t be ignored, The year brought something really special: it introduced me to the Workers Gallery and the people behind it, Chris and Gayle.
When I first read the email asking if I’d be interested in exhibiting, I had no idea that it would set me on the path to making a significant new piece of work, still less taking me into unexplored (by me) areas of the country where I would discover new friendships and new stories. Gayle and Chris opened the doors not just of the gallery but of their own home, putting me up for the night, and introducing me to local residents who had stories to tell.
Apart from anything else, it was an education in what you can do with a bit of determination and vision. The Workers, once Ynyshir’s public library – closed down in austerity – subsists on a mixture of grants, shop income, events space rental and (as far as I can tell) an awful lot of goodwill, and somehow manages to bring a programme of arts and culture not just to its own village, but also to extend these to surrounding areas with the help of their electric cargo bike.
Now, I am an outsider, coming in and finding out what I can, obviously without the benefit of lived experience and relying on what I’m told, so bear that in mind as I continue to pronounce on what I saw: but in an area where public services have been cut, there’s poverty and unemployment and other social issues, the Workers is a bright light. It’s talking a language of culture and arts, with an undercurrent of acceptance that pushes boundaries in what has long been a region with ‘traditional values’. In other words, the gallery is challenging long-held beliefs in the region, modelling acceptance of more progressive world views, just by speaking them out loud.
And they are big supporters of indie comics makers!
Like so many small concerns across the country, the Workers, which already survives on something of a shoestring, will be facing increases in costs that will cause them serious problems, not least an electricity bill that has multiplied beyond all imagining. I’ve said it before but if you’re in a position to support their Patreon or buy something from their shop you’d be doing a very good thing.
—
So what has all this meant for my own practice? At the start of the year I had picked up Satin and Tat again, having taken time out to make Sorry for the Inconvenience. As documented in this blog, though, I was beginning to have real doubts about the sanity of carrying on with a detailed full colour graphic memoir. It had already taken years and it was going to take years more, especially while I am working full time in the day job.
Part of me is glad that I have worked on it so intensively even if it remains unfinished – I got better not just at drawing, but at the nuts and bolts of making a comic, of lettering, layout, panels and all the rest of it. And it still exists! I could go back to it at any time if I wanted to.
But last year, along came the Workers Gallery and their invitation to display my protest pictures from Sorry for the Inconvenience, and this set in action a series of events that have started me on a different project.
My way of making myself do anything slightly daunting, whether it’s convincing myself to go on a run or starting a new project, is always ‘well let’s just do it, it doesn’t have to be the best ever’.
It was in this spirit that I suggested to the gallery that I would make a little comic to go alongside the exhibition. I even remember having conversations with my Brighton comics friends, saying ‘stop me if I get too intricate’ – I wanted to make something small and quick with all the qualities of a zine.
But the other thing about me is that once I get started I often do have to put the effort in and make it the best I can. And actually, once I visited the Rhondda Valleys there was so much to try to convey – not just the stories I heard but the astonishing landscape and the people who were doing amazing things and who so kindly took me into their community. In retrospect, this was almost inevitable – anyone who remembers my holiday sketch diaries will recall me going through much the same arc with each of these: “But there’s so much to record!”. Plus, I’ve always wanted to emulate artists like Olivier Kugler and Julia Rothman with their reportage comics.
And so, as usual, I’ve come away with a more time consuming project than I originally intended. In all I want to draw twelve stories. Once bookended with an introduction and a conclusion, there’s a good 100+ pages there – still less than Satin and Tat, and I’ve deliberately chosen to do it in (mostly) a single colour which has made things quicker – plus, thanks to all the learning the ropes on Satin and Tat, I’m not spending so much time making decisions about things like panel borders or fonts.
I have to thank Gayle and Chris at the Workers for their patience as I worked through all this, from ‘oh it’s a quick zine’ to ‘hmm there’s enough here for a book’ which might sound like an easy transition but has actually been through a few twists and turns.
I visited in August, and wanted to have something to show at the Lakes Festival in October, so I printed up what I had at that stage, which was the intro and one story (as it happens I want to redraw elements of the intro now, as it was rather rushed and I hadn’t got into my stride yet). This was useful, if nothing else, as a tangible model of what a finished book could look and feel like.
So that was a waypost really.
In 2023, I want to go back to Rhondda to explore three more stories I’ve been told about. By meeting people face to face I know I’ll get richer detail. I’ll be able to see photographs, make sketches and walk down the streets where the stories happened – having now conducted a couple of interviews via email and Zoom as well as face to face during my previous visits, I can see the difference it makes to the amount of detail you can capture when you do it in person.
When I’ve finished this collection of stories about protest and activism (each of which is really quite compelling) they will present a snapshot social history of protest in the Rhondda valley – one of the most deprived areas in the UK and often overlooked by central government – which could inspire current and future generations to have their voices heard.
Slowly, I’ve built up a plan that I hope I’ll be able to put in action this year. I want to apply for funding – in fact, I have already applied for some (it will be March before I hear back) and plan to spend my Xmas break applying for the big one, the Arts Council England National Lottery fund. The astute among you may spot the issue there – Arts Council England fund work that is intended for an audience in England (Arts Council Wales on the other hand, fund Welsh people or those that live in Wales, and despite my name, I am neither).
But to my mind, the stories I’m telling are universal. I would like to share them across the UK, and one economical way to do this would be to donate a couple of copies to radical libraries around the country. It turns out there are many of these – grassroots, people-run libraries, sometimes with themes like feminism or socialism, sometimes just there because the ‘official’ library was closed down (incidentally the reason the Workers exists) and the community realised they’d have to make their own.
Ideally I’ll also be able to secure some further funding to allow me to donate to Rhondda schools and libraries. Basically I’ll be looking to find a way to do three things:
In all of this is also the hope that a publisher or agent might find it interesting enough to consider – again, the emails have been sent off, again, a reply generally takes weeks and months, during which time one begins to wonder whether the topic is too niche, or whether one has simply failed to convey its universal appeal!
Anyway – if none of these approaches work, I will go on trying other avenues. It’s not like I haven’t self-published before, and crowdfunding exists. It’s a matter of seeing what works and keeping on trying.
What really helped me get through 2022? My comics friends and communities, online and in real life. I am grateful for all of you.
There are the monthly Cartoon County pub meetups here in Brighton, in which Alex Fitch interviews a comic artist (you can also hear the recordings he makes on his Panel Borders podcast). It’s nice to be part of the gang who help put this together, even if only a small way – there’s a very well-organised division of tasks and I handle a bit of the admin.
I’m excited about some plans to step up our activities next year and become more formalised as an organisation. I should say ‘become more formalised again’, as Cartoon County has been running for more than 30 years and originally had a constitution, a Treasurer and a Secretary etc. Can’t wait ’til we revive those boring Board Meetings exhibitions, get to work on an improved website, and can offer increased support for artists.
Out of Cartoon County, I’ve also gained a solid gang of pals who have loosely become Bungaroosh, a comics collective that shared tables and an AirBnB at the Lakes Festival; came out en masse to meet Liz from my publishers Street Noise Books when she was over here in the UK; and even (thanks largely to Simon) organised a whole Christmas fair in Brighton where I sold more comics than I’ve ever sold in a single day before. Big love to all of you.
Allied to Cartoon County – in that it’s also an Alex Fitch enterprise – is the conference Graphic Brighton. This year I offered my sofa to a visiting speaker, Cole Henley, and made a new friend. Not only that, but later in the summer, I looked after his house, fed his cat and walked his dog – both a bargain holiday and a chance to get started on my comic project The Noisy Valley.
The first half of the year was punctuated by fortnightly online meetups, hosted by the ever-inspiring Rachael House. They were a great chance to connect and chat about everything, comics or not, while drawing, or not. Thank you, Rachael, for organising these.
Then LDComics, having taken their meetups online, keep offering a seemingly unending global parade of comic artists with so many different styles, subjects and processes. Often their evening meetings were after a long day at work, when I’d had quite enough of staring at a screen, but it’s always worth it. I reckon all those thoughts and pictures sink into my brain and must surely come out in my work somewhere.
And finally, I feel like I gained a whole new community, and certainly a couple of new firm friends, when I visited the Rhondda Valley for my exhibition Word on the Street at the incredible (and I am not using that word lightly) Workers Gallery But that deserves a post of its own, and I’ll be writing one soon.
Thank you and a very happy Christmas to everyone who’s been there for comics chat, celebration and commiseration this year: Hannah Berry, Joe Decie, Hannah Eaton, Karrie Fransman, Alex Fitch, Liz Frances, Cole Henley, Rachael House, Dan Locke, Michi Mathias, Danny Noble, Corinne Pearlman, Woodrow Phoenix, Gayle Rogers, Simon Russell, Zara Slattery, Nicola Streeten, Chris Williams, Ian Williams, and all the people I’ve no doubt left off this list out of pure forgetfulness. xxx
Myfanwy Tristram