Now, we’ll end with a simple one… What do you think is the way forward for kids comics?
JF: Obviously, with any creative enterprise, there will be some missteps, and not everyone is going to like everything that is being published, but the ongoing success of 2000AD, Beano and The Phoenix shows it is possible to make a success of the newsstand with some determination and ingenuity, for all the barriers in place courtesy and retailer idiosyncrasies and awkwardness.
Look at sales of Beano – they’ve come back from the brink and are around 48,000 a week, on average, with a huge element of subscriptions in that figure that was almost zero a few years ago. There’s still demand for comics; comic creators aplenty will tell you how much schoolchildren enjoy creating them when they do workshops, for example. Comics are hugely important for reluctant readers, too. Those that say comics aren’t for “media savvy” kids are, in my book, simply wrong.
Obviously, we don’t yet know how the Coronavirus Pandemic is going to play out and the impact it may have on the retailer environment. Worryingly, we do know that there will be comic shops that sadly will not survive this, unless their customers stay loyal and return to them. Goodness only knows what will happen to WHSmith. But local corner shops are benefitting from what’s happening, and hopefully will be even keener to offer a larger range of comics and magazines in future, when in recent years they have been stymied from ordering them for their customers by some distributors, which is utterly bonkers; and perhaps supermarkets will expand their range, although some already carry a huge range of titles.
Rebellion has been building its 2000AD brand in general, and the Treasury of British Comics, and it’s amazing just what a footprint they have achieved with, I assume, a small but dedicated marketing team and a budget in comparison with, for example, game companies, who in normal times don’t think twice about writing a cheque for £20,000 to boost the coffers of an event, seeing it as small change in the building of brand.
Comics publishing, like other forms of publishing, is a commercial enterprise. You pitch to the biggest potential audience. That is not a few fans in relatively small social media groups, simply because the algorithms of those platforms appear to give them a louder voice. You have to have your own vision; by all means listen and appreciate, but make your own creative choices based on facts and figures not misinformed conjecture.
If comics weren’t a vibrant, powerful medium, which has expanded massively over the past twenty years in terms of reach and audience, why are there so many comics projects on Kickstarter? Why are so many determined creative teams publishing their own independent comics anthologies and stories? Because comics are still relevant, that’s why – for all of us.
Well, you did ask!