THERE BUT FOR THE GRACE OF GROTH

Dan Clowes' GHOST WORLD. Joe Sacco's SAFE AREA GORAZDE. Chris Ware's JIMMY CORRIGAN. What do they have in common? Well, they're three of the most highly regarded comic books on the market, that's true. They're also all Fantagraphics publications.

You may have heard that Fantagraphics is in trouble. A combination of bad planning and bad luck has placed the publisher in jeopardy. It would be a serious blow to the art of comics to lose a publisher of their calibre, and while consumers should never feel obliged to underwrite failing businesses, there's no question that Fantagraphics publishes books you should already want to have in your collection, whether you realise it or not. If they go out of business, you may miss your chance.

Now, Fantagraphics also publishes The Comics Journal, and not everyone loves The Comics Journal (winner of Ninth Art's award for Outstanding Achievement 2002). Not everyone loves Fantagraphics owners Messrs Kim Thompson and Gary Groth, because they say they're highbrow elitist snobs. Several people have noted that when Top Shelf was in similar financial straits just over a year ago, Journal contributor Tom Spurgeon spoke disparagingly about the publisher's appeal for help.

'It would be a serious blow to lose a publisher of Fantagraphics' calibre.' Fantagraphics isn't seen as a friendly publisher with a warm, embracing attitude towards its audience. Nor is it seen an efficiently businesslike publisher that maintains a healthy professional distance from the community at large. Rather, Fantagraphics is perceived as snotty, brusque and arrogant, and offensively intolerant of the concept of community, and there's a good chance this slap in the face won't teach the publisher any humility.

Yet none of that matters. Notions of community, activism or 'Team Comics' shouldn't be brought to bear, here. It's not about 'us' the readers, or even about 'them', our dear friends the publishers; it's about you, the reader, and your relationship to the art. Quite simply, business, politics and personalities be damned; Fantagraphics is too important a publisher to lose from the ranks of the bookshelf. You should want them to stick around so you can be guaranteed that next issue of Dave Cooper's WEASEL, or Jessica Abel's LA PERDIDA, or Peter Bagge's HATE.

Support Fantagraphics for purely selfish reasons.

Monday's Shipping Forecast will include recommendations of some of the best Fantagraphics has to offer. In the meantime, visit the Fantagraphics website for a full catalogue of available works, and further details on the current appeal.

BORAG WHAT?

Speaking of community, I was at the Bristol comic convention this past weekend. It's always a high point of my year, more for the chance to catch up with old friends and make a few new ones than for the chance to stand in an ill-ventilated hall straining to hear the panels on a jury-rigged PA system.

(I'd still recommend the convention to anyone, but it being a British con, overseas visitors should expect something of the spirit of the Blitz - lots of making do and heavy drinking. Possibly sing songs, and probably some Germans. Though this year it was mostly Danes.)

I spent an awful lot of my con-floor time at one particular table, where Steve Yeowell, Sean Phillips, Phil Winslade and - my personal art hero - Duncan Fegredo were all sketching. All great artists, none of them particularly speedy, and all of them inclined to go for lunch at inopportune moments. With all the waiting, I spent a lot of time flicking through their art pages, to the detriment of eighty quid from my wallet for a splash page from X-STATIX.

'I hope comic readers can be turned into consumers first, cultists second.' I was particularly drawn to the one Yeowell book there, RED SEAS. A swashbuckling adventure yarn with clear Ray Harryhausen influences, it looked like something I would love to read. So I asked who published it. 2000AD, Yeowell told me. Hence, I've never read it, because I never read 2000AD.

Now, partly that's because it's an anthology, and anthologies are usually uneven and can therefore scare readers away. But it's partly also because of the culture that surrounds 2000AD; it's got its own freaky geeky language, its own heritage, its own worlds. Me, I'm used to the heritage, worlds, and geeky language of Stan's Marvel universe.

Comics is terribly tribal; DC readers have an aversion to Marvel books; the indie crowd won't follow a creator onto a book like TANGLED WEB, and the Spider-fans are just as reticent to follow them back the other way; manga fans stick to their corner, and fans of bande dessine stick to theirs.

Yet with self-contained graphic novels increasingly common on today's market, there's less excuse than ever before for readers to avoid the unfamiliar. RED SEAS itself may not get a trade, but 2000AD publisher Rebellion has significantly stepped up its trade programme recently, and readers should be able to approach a 2000AD title in graphic novel form without fearing any of the cultural baggage. Browsing has never been a habit for entrenched comic readers, but the democracy of the bookshelf should make it possible for members of every tribe to look beyond comfortable horizons.

I hope the book market won't just have economic repercussions. I hope it'll do a great deal to turn comic readers into consumers first, cultists second.

SERIAL VIEWAGE

Speaking of cults... BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER is over. I mention this not because all comic fans are BUFFY fans - although that's almost true, and wouldn't we like it if it were also true the other way - but because BUFFY was one of the first shows in modern television to get away with the sort of ongoing arc-based narrative that's so familiar to comic book readers.

'The pleasure fans get from a series doesn't just come from the quality of the series itself.' As such, it built up - and suffered from - the same sort of loyalty that has afflicted many long-running books. The very thing that creates the tribal readers I mention above. After the final credits rolled, some fans observed, "Well, it never really recovered after season X", leading other fans to ask, "Well, why didn't you stop watching it?" It's the curse of the die-hard, the fan who'll only stop watching the show or reading the series when they're absolutely confident that it's never going to get better, which many of them never do. And by 'better', I mean 'when the good moments don't necessarily outweigh the bad, but are just about frequent enough to make the bad seem worth sitting through'.

Now, while I do think it's a shame for these 'cults' to cut readers off from other works, I don't think fandoms are in themselves a bad thing. It's true that, if the audience keeps propping up the ratings regardless of quality, there's no impetus to change, and yes, that's a shame. On the other hand, the pleasure fans get from following a series doesn't just come from the quality of the series itself. There can be just as much pleasure in the sense of ownership, the sense of continuity and, yes, the sense of community a fandom provides.

It's easy to sneer at, and God knows there's been sneering aplenty, but I think it's a perfectly valid response. It's giving the audience what they want, even if what they want is something to bitch about.

For the record, I think they should have cancelled BUFFY with the end of season five. I mean, did you see what they did with Spike? Jeez.

NEW READERS

I've always thought it might be nice to write a 'society' column, since that apparently mostly involves falling over drunk and wearing feather boas. Unfortunately there isn't much call for that in comics, and the divine Heidi MacDonald has filled the only vacancy.

Still, just this once I'm going to indulge in a couple of birth announcements. It sets a dangerous precedent at a time when pregnancies seem to be sweeping through the industry like Sars through a Toronto shopping mall, but I'll try not to make a habit of it.

In the ongoing bid to bring more women to comics, two brand spanking new young ladies were brought into the world this past week. Raise a glass to Jeff 'INTERMAN' Parker and his partner Jill Powell, proud parents of Allison 'INTERMAN' Powell Parker. (For the record, I believe Jill did most of the work. Jeff's a renaissance man, to be sure, but not quite that multi-talented yet.)

Then give three cheers for Jen 'HOPELESS SAVAGES' Van Meter and Greg 'QUEEN & COUNTRY' Rucka. Jen gave birth to the couple's second enfant terrible just this Wednesday; Dashiell Natascha 'HOPELESS-& COUNTRY' Rucka. Her first Oni work will be solicited in roughly eighteen years time, and we confidently expect it'll be a doozy.

Congratulations to the proud parents, and the best of health to the wee nippers. Is it too early to start weaning them on to BONE?

Andrew Wheeler is a London-based entertainment journalist.

This article is Ideological Freeware. The author grants permission for its reproduction and redistribution by private individuals on condition that the author and source of the article are clearly shown, no charge is made, and the whole article is reproduced intact, including this notice.