Welcome to Pageturners, a book I’m writing in which I share what I’ve learnt – and am still learning – about comic writing, film writing, novel writing and how new writers can sell their stories. I’ll publish a chapter or a section per week, available for free here on Iconoblast. And I welcome your feedback or questions, so do leave a comment below!
Missed the Pageturners intro? Read it here.
FOOTBALL COMIC ANTHOLOGY
I got involved in one such project in 2021 purely as an advisor because I could see the commercial possibilities and wanted to point those concerned in the right direction. I just wanted to see a football comic back on the newsstands and it looked like a possibility with some heavy hitters lined up. Then I’d have happily faded away and gone back to my other projects. Meanwhile I was glad to devote at least two unpaid weeks of my time to it because – like the Bovril Brigade comic – it could reach working-class kids. And because I think it’s important to put something back into the industry. And because my Muse insisted on it.
Bear in mind, when the Reverend Marcus Morris started the Eagle it had more of a religious flavour, with Dan Dare was a space chaplain. As the comic developed it lost that holy tone but still had an educational ‘teacher flavour’. The devisor of the possible football comic also wanted to make it too serious and too appealing to teacher, which meant certain death at the box office today. I felt I could wean her off that awful middle class route and still give it an important subtext that was missing from Roy of the Rovers etc., but with the emphasis on football action, character and excitement.
In this, I was not alone. A top British sports writer with impressive connections was happy to be involved. Like me, he could see the potential. We both agreed that it could attract a huge audience of working-class kids. He was definitely up for scripting it. In fact it all originally kicked off when he recommended the devisor got in touch with me.
AFAIK, football comics have currently died the death, apart from the excellent sci-fi hybrid Rok of the Reds by John Wagner. Almost certainly they’ve died because they’re bland – lacking in ballsy, powerful, emotional story and art. There’s no Bend it Like Beckham to be found in comics.
It’s probably easiest to start by saying what not to do. Number one – don’t do a football one-shot on the life of a famous footballer. If he’s long dead, kids may not know who he is. And there aren’t enough comic-buying dads out there to take the risk. Plus you need to know his speech pattern, etc. and if you’re getting it from a book, you may have to pay rights. If the famous footballer is alive, I’m fairly certain he’s going to be ‘difficult’. And if he’s not ‘difficult’, his agent will be. They’ll want too much control, won’t like the way he’s drawn, will hamstring the dialogue, and so on. I’d say the risk was too great.
Story content is the second hurdle. If it’s just like the traditional Roy of the Rovers, it ain’t going to fly. I know there was a football film that looked like it was inspired by Billy’s (magical) Boots, but I still feel its time has gone, unless it was seriously updated. It’s got to have hard-hitting material. Just how hard-hitting is the problem and always has been. Thus on Action, we featured a female soccer hooligan in Look Out For Lefty. The establishment hated it and turned on us, even though the readers loved it. Today, there are other subjects that could be looked at, too: abuse of power and the consequences of failure, drugs, alcohol etc. They are all there in the world of football and past ‘nice’ comics pretending they don’t exist is as ludicrous as hitting the audience over the head with them with worthy and woke polemics. The conclusion the sports writer and I jointly came to was to ‘drip feed’ them into the drama. A little like the way I drip fed anti-war issues into Charley’s War. Damned hard to get right, but if you love football and kids comics, not impossible.
I also looked at the artwork and realised there was equally HUGE potential for artists to attract the same fan following as on 2000AD. IF they drew extreme and passionate action.
If!
And some of them do!
My feeling was to go for an anthology aimed at a mainstream comic audience aged 10-15 years. Younger and older readers and adults would also buy it and it can appear on newsstands on the bottom rack. This is crucial, because if it’s considered adult material, it goes on the top shelf which – apart from Viz – can be a desert. So the world of football Wags, Towies and strong drug use would be out! But it doesn’t have to be a boring, sanitised comic either. Problems can be referred to obliquely, without dominating the action.
The setting is important. Grange Hill was in London but it could have been set anywhere. The school in the TV series Sex Education is a ‘Never Neverland school’, more akin to American high schools, even though it’s based in the UK. It too could be anywhere. So this football world would also be ‘anywhere’. Both these TV series, and similar series like the excellent Misfits, have the right tone.
I suggested a 48-page comic, priced around £3.25, with four football hero stories set in a shared universe/city. Each story to be ten pages long.
Expected sales would be around 5000 units on Issue Zero from newsstand sales, kept on the shop shelves for three months to establish the market. Thereafter monthly. Could be well in excess of 5000, but that’s a minimum likely figure if it’s well done.
Stories:
Younger player under 18
Academy player
Female footballer
Adult team story
The shared universe connects them, just as my Spacewarp sci-fi anthology comics unites its characters. I think that’s really important. Long term 2000AD readers sometimes get defensive when I say I should have done that on the original comic, but it’s true. Spacewarp demonstrates how it enriches the stories without restricting them.
The story needs a minimum of 70% action, on or off pitch. But social issues and problems can be in hero’s head on pitch and positively or negatively affect the football action. Or from the terraces. Or from the coach. So it’s not just action without substance, relying on great art, while the writer pisses the script off (as they so often did in the past).
Stories can be collected into graphic novel collections, retailing for around £15.00. That’s too much for many kids coming in from cold, but if they know the comic first from the newsstand, they will pay for a collection. That’s how it worked on 2000AD in the early years.
Creating a new comic aimed at mainstream readers like this is not an easy process. By comparison, a sophisticated graphic novel, aimed at adults, and well-regarded by The Guardian, is a walk in the park. Kids are far more demanding. But this gives you an idea of some of the possibilities. If someone has a vision and are driven, they’ll find a way to make their comic work.
The ever-looming problem on this proposed football comic, for me at least, was schools and educationalists getting hold of the project. They would have made it too worthy and thus killed it stone dead. In the end, I couldn’t see a way forward so I had to exit. But I still feel a pang at another great opportunity for a weekly comic lost.