Pageturners: Self-publishing Pt 4
Girls' Comic Anthologies
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.
The obvious contender for a new girls’ comic would be another Misty-style anthology. Rebellion have originated some Misty material as well as reprints. They don’t seem to have followed it up, which doesn’t mean it was right or wrong – maybe just not dynamic enough. But there’s nothing to stop others doing a supernatural/mystery comic and not coming from a nostalgia label may even be a good thing. It would be a similar template to the football comic, but probably without a shared universe. Serials as opposed to short stories, because ongoing tales create reader loyalty.
The biggest obstacle to making it happen is the lethargy of our industry. Back in 2010 I gave a passionate talk about girls comics at an event and an agent from Pickled Ink (an industry outsider) heard it and put up a prize for attracting new talent. Here’s how Down the Tubes noted it at the time:
Working with Jenny McDade, the creator/writer of the TV series Super Gran, who cut her teeth writing strips for the British girls comic Tammy, and comic book author and editor Pat Mill , the agency is searching for an outstanding character-led artist to illustrate Jenny's first graphic novel script, Party Girls. The winner will be awarded £1,000 and a contract of representation at Pickled Ink.
You might imagine that a £1K prize would bring artists out of the woodwork. It didn’t. I only recall three submissions! But one of them was the fantastic Fay Dalton, the clear winner. Artists of this calibre only come along once in a generation, but it seems I was alone in this view. I tried getting her work on 2000AD without success and she is now doing prestigious James Bond illustrations. A huge loss to comics.
I did however manage to work with Faye on several ‘Reaper Files’: short stories I wrote that are set in the world of American Reaper, (the screenplay and graphic novel I created with Clint Langley and Jeremy Davis that was optioned by Maven Pictures). Here’s an excellent page from ‘Buddy Holiday’.
Given the Slough of Despond that is our industry, it’s unlikely anyone from within it will originate a girls comic anthology. But if you’re an outsider you may feel differently. It’s usually the outsiders who create change.
In fact, I’d also like to see a more general girls anthology – like Bunty or Tammy. But that’s even riskier than a mystery comic, which is more likely to appeal to general readers and to fans.
I’ve found male comic professionals of my acquaintance typically react in a sneering way to ‘stupid’ stories for comics like Bunty. It would be easy to let them get away with their contempt, but I need to challenge it here with examples to encourage you to think beyond that typical negativity.
A girls comic story high on any list could be an animal story. Consider how many animal videos there are on social media. An animal sanctuary story would be a strong contender if you know anything about them. When John Wagner and I started in girls’ comics we were commissioned to write a serial entitled Anne’s Animal Sanctuary. It was a great idea but we were the wrong writers. The golden rule of creativity applies as always: write what you know about. We didn’t know anything about the subject matter and it was beyond even our fertile imaginations. So after a long, hard week of struggling on it we eventually gave up.
Today it would be very different. My wife Lisa is a strong supporter of our local animal sanctuaries and she follows various sanctuaries on social media that have huge audiences. Every story about their work is endearing and pulls at your heartstrings. For instance, a resident dog who is the guardian to the animals. He wards off predators and also protects the guests from each other!
Animal sanctuary stories are emotionally engrossing without even trying. Rescue animals invariably have powerful stories about how they ended up there and the tales almost write themselves. The chances are whoever runs the animal sanctuary will also be a good basis for a young female protagonist. That’s certainly our experience with our local animal sanctuary – the young woman who runs it is an excellent character to base a story on. Finding the right artist is the challenge, of course: not everyone can draw appealing animals. So that requires careful thought, but it’s been done most successfully in the past. If you got it right – and I would encourage anyone knowledgeable to try – there wouldn’t be a dry eye amongst the readers.
And if that seems too young, sentimental, or ‘cutesy’, and a ‘soppy girls story’, let me counteract that with some harsher alternatives. There’s also got to be a great girls’ comic in a toned down version of a story like the movie The Favourite. An historical story with a difference. And Gillian Flynn’s novels such as Sharp Objects and Gone Girl have great insights into the female psyche that could inspire a dark psychological thriller for a younger audience.
But publishers only seem interested in cool fans, not mainstream readers who enjoy reading what might be cynically described as ‘tearjerkers’. Particularly not children. So excellent, cool, fan-orientated female stories like Love and Rockets will get a positive reaction from them, despite it being only a cult success with relatively low circulation. But not the stories in Tammy, which sold over 200,000 copies a week at one time. So publishers are reflecting elite rather than mainstream taste
It’s not changing demographics, or video games or all the other excuses that has brought about the decline, it’s simply that the British industry doesn’t like producing comics for children. Especially female readers. It’s a male sandpit and they’re not welcome.
Yet female readers are known to read far more than male readers and to buy more books and magazines. So that gap – actually a yawning chasm – in the market is there for someone, probably an outsider, to take advantage of.
That's very encouraging. Getting into W. H. Smiths is the challenge. I'm sure Commando will. We managed it with Spacewarp and it made a significant difference to sales. But it was not without its problems.
The Commando editorial team have produced a range of DC Thompson heritage comics that includes a 'Spellbound' collection. The same team who produce The 77 created Pandora, a femalecentric anthology, which includes a great new story by Alan Hebdon and Annya Morozova. So there are some attempts to revive the genre. whether we'll see anything like that in WH Smith remains to be seen.