Santa - The White Paper

Santa’s links with international corruption creates a fault line through history. This new report examines his links with elf abuse, the occult, eugenics and the propaganda war of Chris De Burgh.

The entire document can be read at http://www.scribd.com/doc/23718833 or you can read it in daily digest through RSS or at the blog on http://santawhitepaper.blogspot.com

Andrew Smith in New Expenses Abuse

Number of months gone by I wrote about an incident involving the HMRC. The full piece of investigative journalism is here. Quick summary:

Coachload of pensioners on a community away day get stopped by British customs at Calais. They’re asked to leave the bus and declare all goods. Five of them are hoisted aside for interviews while the others wait the extra hour and a half. Three old folk have their 3kg of tobacco confiscated, despite their being no law prohibiting that amount but for ‘suspicion of criminal involvement’. The Customs office reeks of foul play, and I take detailed notes and interview and distribute.

I write to my local MP in Oxford East who is Andrew Smith. His office gives me a call a week later. They’ve read the reports I’ve sent them apparently and are quite annoyed particularly about their perceived racial discrimination. I answer their questions and allow their facts to be verified and I’m told the MP will be raising this matter in the Commons. I get a letter in the following days signed by Smith confirming he is going to do this.

April ends, May passes. I run a search on the Hansard Reports but theres no mention of it. June passes. July opens with a letter from Andrew Smith. Hes gotten his understudy Stephen Timms MP to contribute a page and a half of, well bullshit, to create the illusion the issue has gone away.

“I hope that you find this reply useful, and that it explains why coaches are regularly searched. I know this isn’t recompense for the bad treatment you experienced and I would be more than happy to look into this more specifically, however that would require giving more personal details, and I’m not sure if this is something that would be acceptable to you.” - Andrew Smith, July 1st

Stephen Timms opens up his bit, addressing both myself and Smith in some sort of literature seizure face. Stephen Timms, according to his website, “has strategic oversight of taxation as a whole, including overall responsibility for the Finance Bill, HM Revenue and Customs, and European and international tax issues.” He references a letter on 16 April between Smith and Phil Woolas MP, before going on to offer a page on the mission statement of Customs and guide levels. Information I knew and cited in my original article. He goes on to remark,

“HMRC’s intelligence and experience at the points of entry of Dover, Coquelles and other ferry ports continues to indicate that individuals and criminal gangs intent on smuggling tobacco into the UK are using coaches. We know for example that gang organisers pay passengers to pose as legitimate cross channel shoppers and purchase excise goods, which will later be sold for commercial gain. Other individuals utilise coaches to avoid the risk of having their own vehicles seized. This is a multi-million pund fraud, which HMRC are determined to tackle robustly. Accordingly their efforts are focussed on those who appear at risk and this does not include making selections based on ethnic origin, sexuality, religious belief, age or any such factor”

- Stephen Timms, 29 June 2009

So, there you have it. Stephen Timms responds to a sustained and reported pattern of abuse over time by citing the Pythons’ Hells Grannies skit. I emailed Timms asking if he was aware of the full context of what he was writing about in the “correspondence” either Smith or Woolas sent him. I emailed Smith back asking what exactly hes done about this and What hes doing about it.

Timms claims to be a Christian Socialist. Woolas claims for nail polish and shoes. Smith claims for expenses and he claims rather a lot. They’re all aware that there is a strict parliamentary protocol forbidding them from intervening on behalf of other MP’s constituents.

I’ll not be naming any of the pensioners I was on the coach with. I’ll not be commenting on whether they should come forward or not. Its not my decision. However, I might meet with Mr. Smith. I’m not happy at being lied to, and fobbed off. He clearly could use my help but he should have asked for it months ago. What personal details of mine can he possibly want?

If any professional journalists would like to pick this story up, link to it or re-tweet it please do so.I’m going to be offline between 12th-23rd July but I can be reached over phone at 07783129431.

Memories of LUC's early days at Camden Market

I’m clearing up my bedsit, doing a lot of filing, when I come to a sheet of A4 gel pen inks. Its the start of an article I wrote on my first visit to Camden Market in 2007, the 3rd week  London Underground Comics had their stall there. Smith, Baillie and Lambden were in attendance.

A draft of Europeans dander past the new graphic novel of David Baillie and the virgin ink toner ‘tween pages infused with seabreeze. Theres a fantastic mix cd playing courtesy of a modest DJ, a scenario uncommon aside good sales of Tales From The Flat. Oli Smith has made up a song, “Come buy our comics, its where its at, Words and pictures, they’re for everyone.” Camden market, two sales and we break even. About 500 people pass by our table, and only one of them is already familiar. We had no idea she’d be there, she was just passing. Theres something very relieving about being surrounded by comics publishers, editors, writers, artists, colourists.

Then theres just four columns of words listed on page, presumably the basis for some poetry I told Oli when he asked. The words are:

perma-banner, brick and peach, pizza, soaps, mannequin, pineapples, soul, “covered rent”, sculpture, weaved basket, micro-lamps, beechy rafter, cake, peppermint tea, cleantiled floor, bijou, loop trinkets, Shinies, Gift Wrap, Oli Bop, fresh mesh fabrics, round beauty mirrors, homeliness, hand painted, christmas, Batman logos by, perfume fresh cool air, pattern, twinkies, baubles, living lights special lights, women over fifty our loyal audience, attractive, saffron, dress variety, tactile plants, scarves, woolies, herbal tea, rosy cheeked women

London Underground Comics 176 event is not going to have every one of those sensations, though a number: it has been heavily influenced by them. So, June  27th? More details on LUC176 here. Its free entrance, of course.

Customs police resort to bullying and intimidation of pensioners to enforce closed nation spending.

“Where are you from? What are you studying? Is that your money? Do you plan to spend all that? Where do you live? How many places have you lived in the last five years?”
I’m on a day trip by coach to Europe, and as I leave the coach at customs’ routine request, I joke with passengers and officers, “Its because I’m young, and Irish!”
The twenty-five minutes they spend questioning me is unnecessarry. I provide my passport, student and university staff cards, as quickly as asked. When I return, I get a round of applause upon return and kind consoling words from a number. Consensus is a senior officer is putting young recruits through a training exercise.  we’ve missed the Eurotunnel sailing and have to wait another twenty minutes. I wonder if perhaps is it just that a friend booked the ticket? Or is it age-ism, or my status as British-Irish which has made me the target of segmentation and racial profiling.

“Customs officials have more power here than anywhere else” says the driver in resignation, as he moves to his seat.

An elderly lady I’ve gotten to know over a few trips sits forward in her seat. She tells me of an unemployment benefit claimant on one of these trips who was asked “Where did you get that money?….So that belongs to the state, its not yours. Someone I spoke to said he was told, “you have no right to that tobacco”. It was confiscated. I’m skeptical, but stranger things have happened, and several other customers confirm the story.

The service provider is a small though progressive travel agency. Among their regular services, this route caters for mostly retired pensioners. On this particular trip I’m the youngest traveller at 35, everyone else is over sixty. The journey takes us to a hypermarket and a well-known European tobacco shop. In my four trips with this operator, I see the same faces again and again. I ask them why they come out here so often? Mostly, its to escape the isolation of living alone and to see these familiar faces from different towns. The service fosters a kind of extended family and community away-day.

Upon our return we pass through Calais UK customs and Immigration office. I breathe a sigh of relief as I get through, admitting to the customs officer that I brought three and a half kilos of rolling tobacco. The recommended allowance is three kilos. Hes done a drugs check and lets it pass. I board the coach and soon discover officers have detained five passengers. We wait an hour and a half before the pensioners are released.

“I don’t think I’ll do this again”, says a grandmother behind me.

Talk is all around the coach expressing fears that they could stop people coming from the UK to Belgium on these sorts of trips. On a previous excursion, I’m told, passengers waited an hour for one girl. When she emerged from the office she was crying her eyes out. “*****’s wife used to join us. They kept her in for questioning one time. She never came back on the trips again.” The passenger’s wife passed away.

While we’re waiting, the driver remarks on meeting company schedules.  We can’t leave. Customs will turn coaches around if they try to leave delayed passengers, he tells us. “They don’t want the responsibility of taking people to Calais..they’ll strip the coach and confiscate passports. We’re caught between the devil and the deep blue sea.”

The driver had hoped to be back at the yard for 11pm, instead he’ll be home after 1. He was due another 10hrs driving daytrip tomorrow at 9am.

“They’re a law unto themselves. They have more power than the police have got. A mate of mine had his tobacco confiscated” says one of the passengers. I’m told how he successfully appealed against the decision, but had to travel ***100 miles*** to Dover to collect his tobacco. When he arrived, customs hadn’t kept the appointment that was set. They sent him a cheque out for the amount he had spent in Sterling, ignoring travelling expenses.

“They see the destination on the front of the bus and decide, thats it, we’ll hold them. We’ll have some of theirs”.

People are beginning to disappear from this unique group, and new friends are warned off. The detained begin to emerge, and later on in the coach I make a point of talking to them. Two seated together included a man in his seventies with a walking stick and an elderly coloured woman. It certainly seems to further the suggestions of ethnic selection and racial discrimination. They described to me what happened in the interviews. “You’re not working? How did you get this money? Are you going to smoke all those yourself? Are you travelling alone? Shes not your friend! How do you know that she is?” The pensioner communicated to me that the procedure was quite a lot of duress. When it ended, the officer left the room, and returned minutes later. He said “I can confiscate these goods, or you can submit to another interview”. The pensioner informed him he would submit to another interview. At this point the offier began to fill in a new form, and stopped. I was told how he erupted at the man, “You’re a liar! You’re taking the piss!” the officer yelled at him. He scrumpled the form up on the table and left the room, leaving the interviewee alone.

“It was about ten by ten” he tells me on the size of the room. The elderly working class man, who cannot walk without the aid of a stick, left after a while, saying he found the surroundings oppressive. When he met with officers outside the room he was told he would be sent papers to return to Dover for another interview in thirty days.

“And yourself?” I ask the lady. Asides from myself, she is the only other person on the coach that could be interpreted as of non-English origin.
“They told her she could have an interview but they were going to take her tobacco anyway.” says her partner.
The officer began to ask her questions, and she told me that at first she refused to say anything. “He began to write down notes. I said ‘I didn’t say anything. Why are you writing down answers that I haven’t given you?’”

The gent travelling alone is a regular, and he seems less angry by comparison but this later reveals itself as shock. “you could see it in his face, he’d lost everything”. I agree, he looks like hes just been robbed, and has little in the way of savings.
“There was a recording device in the room, but they didn’t switch it on”, he tells me. “Is this your credit card? Where do you get your money from?”
“They just took it away. They said how can it all be for you?”

I ask the three pensioners, did you try to bring over the legal limit? Each of them tells me they hadn’t. In each case, the tobacco is confiscated, the reason given: “thats not all for you”. In several instances, of the five interrogated it was heavily implied by customs that each fortnight they travelled they brought back full caseloads, and to sell these.

I don’t quite understand if these confiscations are actions with any basis in legality. The pensioners were too upset and traumatised to request names or badge details from the officers.

Several travellers including myself plan on communicating with their MPs, and the internet has already been contacted. You can make it better by linking to this url, voting for it on Digg and Technocrati, legitimise it further with own expanding research. I will try to respond to queries, privacy and personal priority respected.

Sheridan Cottage Special: The Coroners and Justice Bill

Killing the UK Comics Industry before it can step out of chrysalis into the success of the Japanese model?

Many have become aware of the latest controversy relating to cartoonist freedoms and sales in the last few weeks. Section 49 of The Coroners and Justice Bill which makes “illegal the possession of “prohibited images of children”. The consultation documents citation of a police raid on an individal in possession of powers, and the critical interpretation by individual police offers has grown worries. Telling tales too is the rejection of Obscene Publications Act definition of obscenity in the formative process of this “closing loopholes” legislation.

John Ozimek makes some points at The Register, worth a read.

This throws concerns. grounded, on manga translated and imported into the UK that may contain themes of sexual displays between juveniles. Certainly with mangaka’s work increasingly promoted by mainstream booksellers, if passed it will affect freedom to place orders. As recently as 1980, UK residents in Northern Ireland convicted practicing homosexuality have ended up on Sexual Offenders registers.

On The Thing message board thread campaigner GM Jordan take a more skeptical approach. Jordan writes,

“There was also the question of the use of the word ‘Image’. The Justice department told us when we contacted them about the article that the word ‘Image’ was in reference to still photographs; yet the dictionary definition is completely different. It is the visualisation of human, animal, object form as a statue, painting, photograph, film, cartoon etc”

GM Jordan’s article on how the bill may affect comics is enlightening. Jordan’s research and contrasts present an educationally based analysis. A visual from Tezuka’s Astro Boy presents virtue to me as just another student of comics, but may have a different interpretation by a Daily Mail cultureconsuming police officer. Jordan concludes with a quote from the former head of MI5, Dame Stella Rimington that supports his case. Full Article

Shane Chebsey has created an accompanying petition on The Downing Street Website.

Government Documentation

The Consultation Document

The Criminal Justice and Immigration Act 2008

Coroners and Justice Bill Section Chapter 2 Sec.49-55 (Amended March 11)

Kenny Penman (on fine lines, and tilting windmills), and Paul O’Connell (on civil liberties and interpretive context) and others on other aspects articulate on The Comic Book Alliance group over at The Smallzone Ning Forum. (Ning and Facebook Group access by invite only, though do ask - process is easy and the discourse is quality) O’Connell also links to the Backlash academics statement. Given the huge cross-proliferation between comics and academia, the petition by lecturers and research in cultural, media and social sciences studies this is a must read. Backlash-uk.org’s Statement to the Criminal Justice and Immigration Bill Committee can be found at this link

The Backlash site appears to have the fullest information resources on this, given academic standards, as well as the faculty statement. From Wednesday night GM Jordan put out this call to the ComicBook Creators Guild and Alliance on The Ning Boards,

“A researcher for Jenny Willott MP has asked if anybody would be willing to go to Parliament and talk to her about the impact the Coroners Bill and Criminal Justice Act COULD have on the industry. If anyone based in London or around London is interested please email as soon as possible because we need to sort out the meeting. email: comicalliance (at) aol.com”

Opposition via lobby against the measures has been promoted via other known industry figures such as Bryan Talbolt, Leah Moore, Gary Spencer Millidge, John Reppion and John Freeman The web is filled with masses of information on this.

On a somewhat related note, I recently discovered the work of Educational Activist Leonard Rifas. Off to read this promoted interview with him now.

Sheridan Cottage will return to Comics Village for a third series in the coming months.

EXTRA: I neglected to update that the human rights campaigners organisation, LIBERTY were none too hopeful on this bill either. Their take on the issue  can be found here.

Thanks to GM Jordan and the Smallzone Ning Comics Alliance for sourcing much of this information.

Sheridan Cottage: King of Comics

Grave Graham Bettany had been warned if he was drinking with Bisley he’d end up in a hotel in Amsterdam dressed in girls clothes and unable to feel his legs. The next morning he sat on the steps outside the Birmingham International Comics Show (BICS) with me - a cigarette in his hand, and Simon Bisley’s guest badge subtly rested on his jacket. “It must be an awesome responsibility to be the King of Comics”, his statement a moment floating smoke. Still everyone gets their shot here. Everyone’s the King of Comics for a day.

The BBC’s Brilliant Comics Britannia series propagated this publicly
held myth of a dead comics industry. Bar the Dandy, Beano, 2000 AD and Viz, cartoonists only work for Stateside publishers. In fact, the comics
industry has been booming for many years. Currently several hundred publishers are contributing and the financial health…um….this calculator worked fine when I was looking analyzing the profits of the defense employees.

The cracks in the system are most noticeable at big events. Case
study fair - Birmingham (BICS). The average event in recent years is about £40 per table per day. (BICS gave special priority for to Indy publishers – allocating at least 30 tables and selling them at a £70 lower rate [for two days]). Split between three creators this is manageable. Equivalent to a print run of well over a hundred copies of a base 28 page black and white booklet. These publishers rarely break even on profit, as generally this means raising cover prices, and selling nearly all their product. Then there are costs of beer, sandwiches, travel, beer, accommodation, beer, meals, and time off their jobs.
These contributions help to pay appearance fees for already financially capable
A-listers hotel rooms, flights, manilas, coronas, and sometimes, damn selfish egos. Oddly enough, the money rarely barely stays in the hands of those who organize these events. Shane Chebsey, front man of BICS, and the main distributor for self-published comics over the last eight years was a little out of pocket after the previous event. As Shane told me, “You live and learn”. Organizers of previous large gigs, such as Kev F Sutherland (Comics99, 2000), and Dez Skinn (Brighton Comics Expo 2005), have also faced similar problems with being out of pocket at their events. The Thing is an exception to the festival management earner rule, were the management income is an executive wage conservatively estimated from different soures at between £1,500-£3,000 (edit - post time of writing estimated at five grand). Sources close to organiser Finlay state that the paid team under him are kept to a minimum, and at a minimum wage. This figure includes outgoings, though a post-profit outgoing of hall rent (between £1,000-£2,000) and payment for the website in the year ahead maybe where this profit is going. That, and any plasma screen that’s given to him.



I’ve not the figures for the 2008 Bristol Expo to hand, but exhibitors costs have risen. For The Thing 2008 is costing between £60-£70 a table and BICS 2008 has risen to £90 for the weekend for small pressers.

There is a serious concern among commentators that the comics scene unwittingly slides to a vanity press situation. One example: the Judge Dredd Megazine work-for-free controversy, where editor Matt Smith offered a six-page platform to small pressers to “show off their wares and plug their titles/websites.” It’s been interpreted as exploitative, encouraging, as opportunity for advertising, as sponsorship-with-a-catch, as good CV material, and as a destructive in-road to a long-term reduction of wages for all creators. A worrying signifier that The Megazine, owned by one of the country’s top gaming companies, Rebellion, can’t even pay some of their cartoonists minimum wage.

<p><a href=”http://www.e-merl.com/”>Daniel Merlin-Goodbrey</a> is the most exciting comics creator since Grant Morrison. He makes brilliant web and print comics, and at the ‘Big Futures ?’ panel at he outlined the differences between Small Press creators supporting ‘convention’ festivals. The mini-comics crowd, involved with photocopiers and self-assembly, people who really shouldn’t be paying £40 per table per day. The second group of self-publishers adhere more closely to a business model, including monetary returns, and have better harnessed their skill. These are useful classifiers and the trend amongst festival organisers is to take account of this, though it’s not always a divisive behaviour. The panel makes some talk about comics printed by book publishers like <a href=”http://www.randomhouse.co.uk/ “>Jonathan Cape</a>, after higher profile serialisation in broad-sheet newspapers. These trends must surely encourage the cartoonist seeking to trade their art for cash. However my comics don’t sell that well and spurred on by the Guinness fuelled proclamations of the night before, I ask the panel why I might subsidise Mike Mignola and why I should stand for it? 2000 AD group columnist and self-publisher <a href=”http://www.davidbaillie.net/”>David Baillie</a> answers in front of the audience in his diplomatic way, “If the small press were to decide they wanted to boycott, or withdraw from these festivals then they simply wouldn’t happen. End of story.”

Comics Expo 2008 : Small Pressers on Strike. The line of skinny indy kids requiring entrance via <a href=”http://www.climatecamp.org.uk/”>ex-Climate Camp</a> tables loaded up with <a href=”http://www.favouritecrayon.co.uk/”>Favourite Crayon Stories</a>. The coats and backpacks that usually hide under convention tables are strewn all along the front of the hotel, a nearby patch of green provides anchor for one of the protestor’s tents. Star guest can’t get near the entrance, a ‘Fair Trade Comix’ placard is thrust in his face, sets off his panic alarm. Hotel security can’t get past the six xerox machines blocking the door. A few of the pettier arguments of yore resurface- resurrected as horrible, bloody,punch-ups. There are small boys crying. A pensioner drops his groceries ! For those of you with faint constituents, some of these people are faking. Three minutes later, police mini-bus day trip. Fathers For Justice at the hotel windows. Familiar slacker and punk-art students, and the Scottish accent ! Handcuffs behind backs. Oh, there are a few screamers and howlers, folk raised in the land of exclamation after all. In the end though, copies of <a href=”http://idlechild.co.uk/ ” >Summer Ball</a> and <a href=”http://www.appallingnonsense.co.uk/”>Banal Pig</a> are confiscated, creators Oli Smith, Gareth Brookes and Grave
Graham loaded into the back of a van. I’m in there too – charged with
very poorly impersonating Mark Thomas. A Diamond representative goads on Judge Dredd and his baton. Ironic weapon of choice too, considering the 2012 London Olympics seriously detract opportunities for Arts Council funding away from many comics festival events. </p>

Let’s skip that relay.





One of the main reasons for these cons is the joy that is of rich friendships, met and making. Through cons I’ve met people who have offered me a bed and tea, demanded I make myself at home while I was out on the street, and comforted me when loved ones passed away,&nbsp; I’ve danced and tattooed with these people, dissected pop culture and been a listening ear after breakups. Loads of times I’ve accidentally modestly smiled at legends in human form, and discovered that the isolation of my time in Ulster was just an illusion. These and the chance to share productive talents with our friends and new faces and the outside spaces – it’s wrapped in the why we bother with ‘maybe-make-a-few-quid-ulp’. While the comic community is no angel, the social factor is one of its greatest strengths in this trade and club, outside the power of the medium. Placards fit right in at comics festivals. Think; you ever
see one without a banner ?

Who has the time for a picket line about comics, really ? <a href=”http://aeinstein.org/organizations103a.html”>Or
197 other methods of non-violent action ?</a>

Over the next few columns I aim to re-present varying
business models creators and exhibitors should and do utilise to face the
difficult and interesting years ahead. We’re towards go for a scene with air
conditioning, coat hangers, and cloakrooms, gigs that positively rock,
exhibitions were the cartoonist is queen, or king, or both, or their chosen

states in between. Creator respect, fun, money, and rights.

- Andrew Luke

“I’m king for a day, I’m a beautiful lay,I’m gorgeously brave, Won’t you take me home to bed ?

I’m back in my job, I’m back in my job, every Monday morning

I’m back in my job, I’m back in my job, I’m back in my job, I was King for a day”

- King for A Day, <a href=”http://www.bobbyconn.com”>Bobby Conn</a>

This column came out of a previous paper, <a href=”http://andyluke.livejournal.com/92237.html”>Comics Expos and Distribution on A Budget</a> (April 2006) It has been updated to take in information accurate as of December 2007, and verified January, 2008.

Comics Expos and Distribution On A Budget

Drifted into the Uk festival scene last year after a long absence, to the Quality Communications organised Brighton Expo. I had a whale of a time ! Lovely location, rum smuggled into over-expensive pub, new and old and discovered friends. Snotty dalek, cheery badges, optimistic enthusiastic comics collectives. Self-publishers of photocopied, printed, laminated works as far as the eye could see in surroundings air-conditioned and stately. Not just looking as good as the Marvel/DC/2000 AD exhibitions, in many cases surpassing them! Not a dream, not a hoax, no imaginary story !

Except it came with a price: £150 for a table and back-board for two days. The Bristol Expo is similarly priced  at £75 for a table for two days. A table at the Memorabilia Convention costs £175 for two days. As the average small presser might tell, that £75  would buy a print run of 150-200 copies of a black and white A5 28pager. Lets say safe on copyshop house or printers deal, and make that 200 copies.

Now lets draw those things together.

To break even on the day that would require a sale of 100% of that stock at £2 a copy per day (or, incorporating the promotion provided by the weekend). Selling a hundred copies in a day is not bleeding likely by the most outlandish what if of stretches, but it covers table costs and printing costs. I realise I’m simplifying this, not counting the snowball effect when applied to larger prints on collected works., and leaving out notable exceptions like John Allison. <i>(While I’m not a devotee of Allison’s webcomic ‘Scary Go Round’ it has gained fan devotion that has made it probably the UK’s greatest circulated new comic outside the newspapers. People seem happy enough to pay for his gear although his comic is free in digest. Check out www.scarygoround.co.uk for more details. ) </i>To extend the comparison, raising the price above £2, small publishers have a fighting chance, and its still an incredibly slim one.

These sums do not take into account other costs to do with getting your own short-term showroom : not lunch, not transport, not the bed and breakfast, not the beer, not dinner and certainly not the cost of the comedy dvd you promised to reward yourself with when it all got to according to plan.

By taking part on a table-holder level, are we selling ourselves short ? Have we started to drift into becoming our own vanity press ? If you as a self-publisher with a table at these expos, are by way of parting with your cash, a important component of said exhibit’s existence, doesn’t that then give you a sense of power that enables you to decide on how much or if at all your table might cost you ?

Clicking on the link below will take you to an extended version of this essay picking up from were I have left off above. It offers some solutions to the problems which those of you very familiar with the UK comics scene are quite likely aware of, and further explanations as to this stance. If you’re relatively new to comics festivals, and interested, by all means, read on. I would like these comments to invite discussion in the various boards, forums, pubs, and if yer so inclined, by clicking on the comments links below. (I don’t talk about comics very often here btw). If you want to link to threads on the subject, the floor is open for that too.

Exhibitionism on a Budget : Coming Soon and Brief History Of

Paying the similar rates to Marvel, DC and the larger independent corporations is a dangerous strategy, without having their better established acceptance. There are alternatives, competitive rates on offer.

Shane Chebsey is one of the organisers behind this December’s Birmingham Comics Show. For more information on this go to www.thecomicsshow.co.uk Costs for exhibitors are, Dealer or Pro Publisher: 140.00, Pro Creator: 100.00, Small Press: 70.00. Given Chebsey’s track record as a hard-working supporter of the small press it might well be interesting to watch how he fares on the festival organiser circuit managing the bigger names. I’ll probably be too full of wine and stew and too light on cash to attend, but Birmingham and comic arts have a great history.

The UK Web and Mini Comix Thing held in London around March each year offers its tables at £35. This is a one-day event with comics predominantly the focus, but also sold alongside the works of other self-publishers of badges, woollen wears and other home-made self-product. Close to an arts fair but without the pressure, evidenced by self-publishers expanding their wings some and a quite noticeable lack of tension in dealers tables. As with any good comics expo, it incorporates games, panels, reading space, drawing space, internet accessibility, a chill-out zone and access to food and drink by way of vending machines. It’s the expo that is the exception to the must-have-a-pub rule. Pubs of course are near enough, for that all important social fun, networking and winding down after the selling and shopping is done. There are a few minor changes that can be worked on, I’ll get to those later.

A few good ideas have quite possibly been taken from Caption, the Uk’s longest running festival. : fifteen this year ! Caption is very much the forerunner in the Uk community festival. Instead of renting table space to individuals/groups of artists, The Caption Table(s) provide room for around one to three products on a sale-or-return basis. 10% of your cover price per copy sold goes to Caption, and is used to either subsidise the event, or go towards the following years event. With the Caption table manned by volunteers and committee members, it frees up the hard-working artist to participate more fully in the weekend festivals other facets. Workshops, Galleries, Performance art, Pizza sharing and the Charity Auction join the usual forms of things to do as part of a festival.

During the committee re-shuffle of Caption last year, the suggestion went around that Caption need not necessarily be Oxford-based. Caption this year is being done on a budget in a good-sized community and arts centre. The cost is approximately £150-£200. Community Centres with bars appear to get around the new licensing laws and this is something that folk looking to organise their own small scale festival might want to look into. I have no findings on the laws regarding a sales-dominant venture, such as The Thing model being placed within this type of location. It has been suggested by committee members that the model of the Caption Table might be exported more widely to mainstream exhibitions.

In 1997, Dek Baker, Jez Higgins, Pete Ashton and some others put together Brumcab, renting a pub for a day, with quizzes, dealers tables, panels and walls covered in posters. Rented tables in a balti house that evening, and an agreed but non-hired pub gathering provided the setting for the following day. Again, this may run into trouble with the law for a sales type event nowadays. Relating to the second day event, for an informal get together and networking opportunity it’s a great strategy that relies only on getting enough interest and finding a quiet enough pub  Brumcab was based upon and is the basis of several of the comics pub meets in cities and towns running up and down the country.

From the floor, Through The Door: Distribution and Festival Future

Selling comics and exhibiting them for sale need not be confined to festivals and expos, and there are other ways of doing it, and other people who can do it for you, and do it with you. Shane Chebsey is opening up new channels online by offering his catalogues contents in .cbr format. Short for comic book reader, .cbr is a ,pdf style file which is completely free, incredibly easy to use and reasonably versatile. These e-books are created by the simple process of taking jpegs and gifs and renaming them in order of narrative alongside a .cbr extension, and kept in a folder as intended. This allows the pages to be read in sequence in much the same way as a .pdf . Comic Book Reader Files help to substantially decrease publishing costs. Capability for far wider distribution; and for those readers so inclined and founded upon creator policy relating to shareware and freeware, consumer printing is too, possible.

Chebsey of course is the management behind Smallzone, the UK’s prime mover in distribution circles in the last six years. Taking 33% of your cover price on sold items seems like a hefty cut, but I happen to know that Shane is not making a profit from this, has been greatly successful in getting comics out, and travels with a sizeable amount of product to each major festival. With the momentum gathered by Smallzone, rumour has it that Chebsey and Accent UKs Barry Renshaw, are moving rapidly towards a scenario with solutions were he can reach as many comic shops as Diamond UK, along with mass printing easy costs and acceptably meeting market fancies.

(And quite frankly, that’s a relief . The rise in prices in the 90s meant I can no longer afford to buy new comics from my well-endowned tastefully diverse local shop of glossies) And knowing on faith they have no photocopied minis relegates me comfortably to after hours window shopping.)

Smallzone and similar collectives must be the only way to go. The festival/expo circuit is not a survival opportunity for single creators who have been making comics for less than five years. In fact, I know of only one single creator (John Allison) and one team of two  (The Rubins Sisters) who managed to turn a profit at the Brighton Expo.

There are many ways to circumvent the need for full-on festival prices. Local pub meets, friendships outside the expo environment. Networked advertisements and reviews, capital available through sp and indy publicity. You may even be quite capable of saving money if you can find a way to organise your own Caption or UK Web and Mini Comix Thing.  This brings me to a point I stated earlier I would return to and that’s the facility of comics festivals to provide a comfortable day for the attendees. The idea of fresh air has begun to circulate and if festival organisers can manage to keep to a straight path, the days of body odour masking freshly printed pages may well be long behind us. I’ve also noticed (and used) tableholders space for baggage and a cloakroom. With attendees travelling distances to get to these meets, a cloakroom or baggage space at fifty pence a time might be a suitable addition.
(Update: I passed this essay to Shane Chebsey for a pre-publication read-through and he agrees this idea is long overdue. The idea seems set to join his distribution list and may well be in reality at the  December Birmingham Show. Shane wrote,
“… the idea of a cloakroom for coats and bags. This is very simple and very logical. I always have a myriad of bags and coats dumped on my at the smallzone table, which I never mind, but a secure cloakroom for these items at a festival would certainly be a great service to offer.

I’ll bring it up the next organiser meeting.

I’m also pretty pleased the BICS has the lowest table rate for a whole weekend for small pressers compared to other events.”

Presumably on-site shower services may be on offer at all festivals in the next five years. Leather sofas, with throw-overs, ice cream vendors. Actually the latter seems a really natural idea, but decidedly un-natural at the same time. Organisers should also aim for a reasonably priced bar, if they can’t organise a cheap one.

The Uk comics scene from homegrown copyshop users to visiting foreign students really need to address the question of who pays for the representation and is it worth it ? Should Johnny Xerox be subsidising Jim Lee and Brian Michael Bendis ? Unlikely headline, though this could be a realism. The recent move by the Megazine to print small pressers work without any page rate concession is an example of just how strong we are, how vulnerable and what a tasty morsel to preying talons. Visibility is not a problem for Uk comics but sustainability is, and its quite possible we should stay with a discordian like distribution of our resources inbetween our triumphs..

My thanks to Jeremy Dennis for the initial spark behind this essay, and to Selina Lock and Shane Chebsey for getting me some important information in the research.

Andrew Luke, April 2006