Black Static

The Girly Comic debuted in 2002, and subsequently published nineteen issues before going online in 2008.

The Girly Comic Book Volume 1, a retrospective collection, was published in 2008 and has been short-listed for the British Fantasy Award in the Best Comic/Graphic Novel category.

I put some questions to editor and co-publisher Selina Lock.

PT: Hi Selina. As a starter, perhaps you could tell us a bit about your own connection with comic books/graphic novels. What is it about the medium that appeals to you, both as reader and writer? What advantages does it have over prose storytelling?

SL: I think what appeals to me most about comics is the wide range of storytelling techniques that can be used because of the combination of words and images. The juxtaposition of text and pictures can tell several different stories at once, which can be harder to do in other mediums. I read an eclectic mix of novels, short stories and comic books, so I don't prefer one medium over another, it's just a case of whichever medium works best for the story you are trying to tell.

I usually choose to write a comic strip if the story is coming to me as strong, defining single images. One of the major aspects of writing comics is deciding which images to focus on out of the hundred that could be used to tell the story. Or I might decide to write something as a comic if I want to reference, or was inspired by, a famous piece of art, for example one strip I wrote based in World War One was partly inspired by a poster asking women to do their bit, and the artist incorporated that poster style in the final panel.

From a creative point of view, I also enjoy collaborating with artists. I've been very lucky in that all the artists I've worked with have added their own touches to the strips to make them even better than I could have alone.

PT: What led you to create The Girly Comic and how would you say that it's different from other publications in the field? What's a typical Girly Comic story, if there is such a thing?

SL: I got into comics when I met my partner Jay Eales, and started going to comic conventions when the Bristol Comics Festival started in 1999. I generally didn't buy much at those first few Bristol festivals, as there was only a handful of titles that appealed to me. On the way home from Bristol 2001, I was complaining about the lack of female role models in comics and Jay basically suggested I put my money where my mouth was. So, I created The Girly Comic, initially as a vehicle for my own writing and that of other women, and aimed at a female audience (primarily the comics widows who are dragged kicking and screaming by their boyfriends to comic conventions). It quickly became clear that we knew far more male comic creators than female, so I changed the premise of the comic to requiring that each story had a female protagonist.

There isn't really a typical Girly Comic story, as they range from space adventure to paranormal detectives, and from comedic superheroine hi-jinks to autobiographical. The main thing they all have in common is that they feature a female main character.

PT: And where did the name Factor Fiction come from?

SL: It was the name Jay came up with for the imprint he created to publish Doctor Who charity fanthologies (fan anthologies) at the tail end of the 1990's, and we kept the name when we moved into publishing small press comics. He liked the Fact/or/Fiction interpretation, and wanted to avoid an imprint title that seemed too limiting. Plus, as a dyed in the wool comics aficionado, I don't think he could resist the alliterative name.

PT: Which comics were an inspiration for what you're trying to achieve with The Girly Comic?

SL: The comic that finally convinced me that there were comic books and graphic novels out there that I would love was the first volume of Strangers in Paradise by Terry Moore. This was because the main two characters; Francine and Katchoo, were the kind of women I could empathise with, that made me laugh and made me want to be friends with them. So, I was more inspired by the idea of a comic containing female characters that readers could relate to.

PT: You decided to take The Girly Comic online in 2008. What was the thinking behind that decision, and do you feel the move has been a success?

SL: To be honest we haven't put the effort into promoting the online version that it needs to make it a success. I'm also unsure how well an anthology translates into a webcomic, compared to an ongoing storyline that keeps readers coming back every day or every week. These are issues we're going to have to explore and work on, as we do plan on moving over to more online publication, and using print on demand services such as Lulu.com.

The main reason for moving online is the escalating cost of printing and lack of distribution options for print comics, something I'm sure is all too familiar to independent and small press prose publishers. Small press comic very rarely make a profit of any kind and we publish because we love the medium. It tends to be something of an evangelical pursuit for those of us who become involved for the long haul. Our main sales opportunities are at comic conventions, which we generally do well at, but still cost a lot in terms of time and money, when you factor in all the hotel rooms, eating out and bar tabs. It is increasingly difficult for small press publishers to get into comic shops because there is one main comic book distributor: Diamond, who usually take around 60% of your cover price and only carry products that will sell over US$2500 worth of stock. Small press just doesn't fit their business model. To side-step Diamond, it takes an immense amount of energy to convince comic shops to deal directly, as it's such a small part of their business to deal with the hassle of individual invoices for as few as ten comics at a time.

Another interesting thing we discovered when we first announced our intention to take the anthologies online was that everyone was positive about it as the right thing to do, and yet it became a lot harder to convince creators to stick to their deadlines. With a print issue, we would set the deadlines around comic convention dates, and the pages would come in by those dates. With the online webcomics, we planned to have a rolling deadline, with a new page going up each day, drawing on the archive of strips we had already published, mixed in with newer material as it arrived. In practice, without the looming deadline, creators who had otherwise been as regular as clockwork, stopped dead, and pages would dribble in, months late. Obviously, the print medium still counts for a lot.

Online publishing gives us the potential to reach a much wider audience, once we find appropriate ways to market the site! It allows us to conserve our finances in the short term, to concentrate on printing fewer periodicals, but higher end books later on, which will hopefully appeal to some of those new readers we've picked up online, who want a collection for their book shelves.

PT: Looking further ahead, in the long term do you think electronic publishing is going to replace print?

SL: I think some forms of publishing will become electronic only. For example, I also work as an academic librarian and the vast majority of academic journals are online subscriptions because that's what the academics want.

However, I think print is still going to have a place for a long while in publishing fiction, as there are those of us who still love to own and hold print copies, especially special editions. I know webcomic creators who make their living from their comics, as although their strips are freely available online people still want to buy associated merchandise, such as books of the collected strips, prints and t-shirts. We've been doing The Girly Comic and Violent! (the other regular anthology title Factor Fiction publishes) for a long time, and always been complimented on the quality of our comics, but we've received a lot more attention from the release of our first hardback collection, printed by the same printer who does such a great job on books for the likes of PS Publishing, Telos and Elastic Press. All culminating in the short-listing of The Girly Comic Book Volume 1 for the British Fantasy Awards this year.

PT: On your website, you say that initially, you were receiving far more submissions from men than women. Five, six years on are you still seeing that imbalance, or has the gap narrowed? More generally, far more men than women seem active in the various fantasy genres (e.g. you're one of only four women nominated in the BFAs). Why do you think this imbalance is?

SL: It's nice to be able to say that there are now far more women visibly active in comics than when I started The Girly Comic. The introduction and popularity of manga has been a big part of this, as it attracted a young female audience. Out of this audience have emerged many female creators, who have fused the manga influence with other influences and created a new wave of comics online and in print. We still receive more submissions from male creators than female, but the gap is definitely narrowing.

As well as being involved in comics I've also been active in several SF&F communities over the years, including Terry Pratchett fandom, Jasper Fforde fandom and Doctor Who fandom. I would say there is a pretty even split among the sexes in some areas, such as Fforde and Pratchett conventions, whereas, Doctor Who fandom was very heavily male dominated before the new series. There were literally a handful of active female fans in the UK. Why? I have no idea!

Despite the lack of female representation in the BFA nominations I would still argue that there are many female creators out there in SF&F, particularly in the crossover genres such as paranormal romance or supernatural crime.

PT: Tell us a bit about The Girly Comic Book 1. Sell it to us. What can potential purchasers expect for their money?

SL: "One of the undisputed stars of the small press." - Savantmag.

"An absolute gem of a publication" - Comics Creators Guild.

Cheaper than buying the individual issues, wrapped up in a luxurious hardback edition printed by the same company who does such a sterling job for many of the publishers in the FantasyCon dealers room.

Comics superstar, creator of the Felix Castor novels and all round good egg, Mike Carey described the book thus, in his introduction: "You're about to encounter native American spirit-walkers, squabbling role-play gamers, image-obsessed superheroines, battling zodiac signs, serial killers, zombies, talking cats and dragons and cockroaches, domestic violence with a sci-fi twist, and the darkest fairy tale ending outside of the Coen Brothers - and truly, that doesn't even scratch the surface of it."

The Girly Comic Book Volume 1 contains 278 pages of comicky goodness from a healthy mix of creators, including industry professionals such as John Stokes, Mike Collins and Simon Fraser, veteran indy creators like Lee Kennedy, Terry Wiley and Jeremy Dennis, and introducing talented new discoveries in the British small press scene and beyond. If you want a glimpse of the creators who'll dominate the British comics scene in years to come, chances are they've been in our pages.

Mike Carey again, for a final exhortation: "Buy the book. Buy another copy for your mum. Make them rich, and hopefully they'll keep on doing what they do for a long, long time." Can't say fairer than that, can we?

PT: What do you have planned for the future with The Girly Comic?

SL: We'll be bringing out Issue 20 in time for the Caption small press convention in Oxford in August. Caption is the longest running British comic convention, and which I also happen to co-organise (www.caption.org), and Issue 21 for the British International Comics Show in Birmingham in October. Due to the current financial situation we'll be looking again at our online publishing endeavours for 2010, and longer term plans include publishing The Girly Comic Book Volume 2 in hardback, and further collections as and when warranted.