“BAM! POW! Comics aren’t for kids anymore!”
The state of mainstream discourse about the comics industry has historically been… poor. For years, pretty much the only coverage the medium received in national newspapers or magazines was occasional breathless articles when a comic broke out past the gatekeepers to find “proper” acclaim in literary awards, cinema or scholarly work. Never mind the fact that, even since the 1980s, with Alan Moore’s Watchmen, Frank Miller’s The Dark Knight Returns and Art Speigelman’s Maus, such events happened with alarming regularity – each individual occurrence was still largely treated as an aberration, proof, not of the viability of the medium, but of the exceptional nature of that particular work.
In recent years, that has changed. Respectful treatment of the gamut of comics has become the norm, with reviews of comics now a common feature alongside reviews of films, prose and video games in most papers. The New Statesman used to do round-ups of the latest graphic novels, but they fell by the wayside; we will now be reinstating a weekly comic review, starting with yesterday’s review of Joff Winterheart’s Days of the Bagnold Summer.
Comics are strongly associated with a small pool of countries. America superheroes, the mythos of the modern age, are the biggest influence in Britain; Franco-Belgian comics, including the classic Tintin and Asterix & Obelix series, exert their own pull; and Japan, with its strong manga tradition, has a home-grown industry which only started to be exported in any quantity in the 1990s.
But Britain has its own comics industry. For years reduced to a stub of little more than 2000AD, the Beano and the Dandy, as better money and bigger audiences in America sucked away the best and brightest, a new generation of writers, artists and publishers have revived the scene.
That’s why the New Statesman website is having a special week celebrating British comics. Everyday this week, we will be highlighting the best British creators, as well as looking at the life of an artist, the state of all-ages comics, and some much-missed bits of the scene which are no longer around.
If you have any suggestions over what we should cover, leave a comment or find us on Twitter: @newstatesman
Monday: Karrie Fransman and Tom Humberstone, comics journalists, by Alex Hern.
Tuesday: Al Ewing and Henry Flint of 2000 AD, a British institution, by Colin Smith, and the rise and fall of the great British football comic, by Seb Patrick.
Wednesday: Philippa Rice and Luke Pearson, small press, big talent, by Michael Leader, and Kids Read Comics: a popular revival, by Laura Sneddon.
Thursday: Why we’re banging on about comics so much, by Hayley Campbell and the British are coming (again): Jamie McKelvie and Kieron Gillen, by James Hunt.
Friday: The lovely mafia of British comics, by Hannah Berry, and, finally, So You Like British Comics. Where Next?, by Alex Hern
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