The news broke several days ago now that Insomnia Publications had released all of its creators from their contracts. Everyone received a short, polite email from publisher Crawford Coutts, and thus ended many weeks of speculation, worry, and countless threats of violence. The rumour mill continues to rumble, with accusations being levelled at a number of individuals for their contribution to the publisher’s downfall, and a number of people coming out of the woodwork to commentate on what had happened. As always, people were far wiser after the event.

Some have called “shenanigans” on some of Insomnia’s sales figures. Some have claimed that an email from Burke and Hare creator and ex-Vigil Editor Martin Conaghan, accidentally leaked by Rich Johnston at Bleeding Cool, was the catalyst that started the whole, painful process. Nearly every publisher, be they small, indie, or none of the above, seems to have been offered a chance to purchase Insomnia. (I don’t know if I’m glad or not that Monkeys with Machineguns was beneath Insomnia’s notice when it came to this. Some people say they are owed money.) Other people have spotted Insomnia products on sale either online or in shops and are wondering what will happen to the profits, if any, from this.

And, of course, a great many creators are happy and relieved to have their projects back in their own hands, even if that means they must begin the search for a publisher once more. To all of those creators, of which I myself am one, I wish the best of luck.

Personally, I am sad to see Insomnia fail. It was a brave, and noble, experiment. It gave a home to projects that may not have been, and now may not be, published anywhere else. It brought creators together and created a buzz that was real, even if it was fleeting. I hope that in time, as wounds heal and excitement dies down, people think more kindly about Crawford Coutts. Perhaps he was just someone who found himself suddenly out of his depth, who’s creation became bigger than him and his ability to control it, and who ultimately could not feed the monster that he had created. Perhaps he had the very best of intentions, right until the end.

Think about it, wouldn’t you hide from a bunch of angry comic creators?

I will admit, of course, that my reasons for hoping this are not completely altruistic. There are too few British publishers as it stands today, Insomnia’s corpse yet another to fill the already our overflowing industry’s mass-graves-behind-the-chemical-sheds. We need more people who have some sort of curious passion for printing, logistics, marketing, spending hours on the phone to retailers, spending more hours behind a stand at an expo, and then spending even more hours when they get home reading the multitudinous submissions thrust into their hands at the expo when what they really wanted was your money … They are a rare, and beautifully masochistic breed. They put up our with our blown deadlines, our changes of heart. They are the ones who nurse us through our first broken hearts when a bad review arrives. They are the ones who put their money and time and skill into the pursuit of our dreams.

If there is someone out there, right now, thinking of picking up where Insomnia left off, thinking that perhaps they can make it work? I hope they don’t read all of the stuff that is out there right now and decide … “Screw that, it’s too much grief”. Because I know I would.

And yes, of course I know, they are no more full of altruism than me. But we need them. We need them more than they need us.

So, spare a thought for your publisher. As masochistic as they all surely are, they might just appreciate it.

Last year the Bristol Comic Expo played host to a round table discussion between the twin publishing mights of Monkeys with Machineguns and Orang Utan comics, the crew from Geek Syndicate, and some hardcore comic fans, all masterfully hosted and chaired by the erudite genius Scott Grandison. The result became Comic Book Outsiders Episode 46.

This year, the round table took a more formal … form, and found itself on the official schedule for the Small Press Expo in the Mercure Hotel.

Click here to listen to the Comic Book Outsiders Panel

With another year behind all of us, Peter Rogers, Ian Sharman, and myself all took to the floor to talk about our experiences as both publishers and creators, how we got started in the industry, and where we think we are going next. The differing approaches taken by our respective publishing houses/studios hopefully made for an interesting and thought provoking panel.

If not, you will get to hear me

1. Stretch a one beat joke about a table cloth way beyond its sell by date
2. Somehow pull off a callback to a previous joke at the end of the panel
3. Accuse Ian Sharman of “Saying no, but meaning yes”
4. Accuse Peter Rogers of looking like Lynne Faulds Wood
5. Accuse Peter Rogers of being Jessica Fletcher from Murder She Wrote

The topic of digital comics also features heavily, and I do my best to deliver an impassioned plea on behalf of those who like to share comics. I’ll have to listen back to see if I got my point across or not.

For anyone wondering what the mysterious “merchandise” that I’ve been alluding to on Twitter is, it’s badges. 100 lovely, 25mm badges, lovingly made by my new best friends at Badge Planet.

If you want to get hold of one, you need to track me down with your copy of The Dark for signing or perhaps try asking one of “The Darkettes”.

Yes, I have Darkettes.

I don’t think you can get too excited about the Bristol Comic Con, can you?

Micah Baldwin, CEO and co-founder of Graphic.ly, has been talking to CBR about his efforts to reach out to the rest of the digital comics business community (notably Comixology and Panelfly who are name checked) and start discussions on an open standard for digital comics that would allow a comic bought on one platform to be read on any other.

Vendor lock-in is one of my big objections to digital comics, and one of the things that I think the print medium still has over its virtual cousin. For me, one of the great joys of reading comic books is sharing comic books. It’s a simple idea – you like a book, you recommend it to a friend, and you loan them your copy.Maybe they really like it, maybe they love it. Maybe you say “Hey, no problem. Why don’t you keep it?”.

There was a time when this was possible. There was a time when buying something meant that you owned it, rather than owning a license to it. If I buy a comic and I don’t like it, I can give it to a friend, sell it on eBay, or drop it off at the charity shop. With a digital comic book, what is bought is bought and there is no going back. There are, quite literally no swapsies, and definitely no sharing.

This is because, in the digital world, “Sharing” is bad. “Sharing”, in fact, has become practically synonymous with stealing. “File Sharers” are pirates, and pirates fund organised crime and drug trafficking. I don’t know how my mix tapes I made by recording songs from the radio funded organsied crime exactly, but I am assured they did and I can apologise in retrospect. I was young, please forgive me.

Now, please, can we have a system that still lets me share my comics with my friends? Because Digital comics may be convenient, they may be cheap, but when we live in such a digitised world that simply exchanging items with another human being feels almost alien, almost taboo in some way, is that a price worth paying? Do you want to buy comics, or do you want to hold a perpetual rental license to some? I know what I want.

That is why I love the simplicity and purity of Micah’s idea; that a comic once bought should be transferrable between platforms. It seems so obvious, doesn’t it? As obvious, at least to me, as being able to pick up a print comic and walk to another room. And yet, I fear it is an idea doomed to failure.

When a number of IT industry players tried to agree an open standard for word processing documents, Microsoft went their own way. As the vendors of the most widely used word processing software, Microsoft knew that the best way to defend their monopoly was to ensure that documents written in their software, stayed in their software. Whilst their “new” file formats were open, they were different. Different enough to ensure that people played safe, and stuck with what they knew.

Spin the time-dial forward a few years and we have the advent of the iPod. Slick, polished, oh so cool and emphatically desireable, I doubt many consumers understood, or cared, about the DRM laden prioprietary file format that lurked under the iPod’s polished veneer. Like a pretty new girlfriend with some deep seated issues, you weren’t going to find out until you had the packaging off and you were far … too … committed.

To the present day and comics, more broadly eBooks, are the new battleground. With multiple hardware and software platforms jostling for position, it is a difficult and daunting task to select the right platform for your purchases. It is an important choice – Quite aside from the investment in the hardware, all of your purchases are going to permanently and inextricably tied to that device forever more.When you read, how you read, all tied to that device. And in case I haven’t made the point firmly enough yet, I’d like to remind you of one certainty, “Lynch’s Law of Stuff”, at this point.

Stuff breaks.

If Micah and the team at Graphic.ly can catch the ear of this burgeoning industry though, we have a fighting chance. We have an opportunity to keep our community, to still share, without destroying the economic viability of the digital comics market and without funding organsied crime any more than any of us are already.

Step One is a format that all of the readers can utilise. A format that is well documented and does not use any proprietary software or standards that require licenses. This will open the doors to more developers, and take things forward. If you doubt that, just take a look at any other technology that has opened itself up to innovators and developers, then come back to this article. You’ll be ready for Step Two.

Step Two is to create a system that allows us to move the comics between devices. Purely as a thought experiment, I imagined a sort of “central registry” for comics, a shared and open online system where your purchases are registered along with a secure and traceable but ultimately anonymous account. You register each of your devices to this central repository and each one that is registered can then download and read your purchased comics. For those concerned that people would register too many devices to a single account, limits could be placed on the total number of devices or the number of devices of a given type (e.g. you can have one mobile, one tablet, one laptop, one desktop). The comics reside on the devices temporarily, getting around the storage limitations of smaller devices and ensuring that the central repository is the “master copy” of your comics collection (remeber, Stuff Breaks)

If you want to share a comic, you “loan it” to your friend, using their account details. It stops working on your devices, starts working on theirs. As everything is tied to the central repository, they simply download their copy from there. When they are done with it, they send it back to you. It stops working for them, it starts working for you. If you want to sell a comic to someone, you “transfer” the comic on a permanent basis. If the central registry had some simple eCommerce facilities built in, you could even send and receive money through it. A small percentage, perhaps, would be taken by the registry to cover its running costs.

This isn’t science fiction, it doesn’t even mildly push the boundaries of what is technically possible with the very devices that you are using to read this article. A simple, self sustaining comics eco system. A comic shop for the 21st century, a level publishing playing field, and the freedom to move between platforms without fear of losing (or having to re-buy) your favourite comics.

It sounds simple … doesn’t it? I hope Micah’s call doesn’t fall on deaf ears.

I ran into Tim Cundle somwhere on the internet a long time. Back then, he was just in the early stages of getting his punk rock, counter culture magazine “Mass Movement” off the ground. He was on issue 4, maybe 5.

Sometime later and Tim is still going strong. So strong, in fact, that he’s given over a page of the latest issue of Mass Movement magazine to me to complete their regular column/feature “It Ruined My Life”.

I won’t spoil the article, but obvious I talk about comics. And magic. And a certain Grant Morrison.

Enjoy.

Rick Lundeen, my partner in crimes against fiction and the artistic genius behind “The Dark”, will be signing copies of The Dark at Graham Crackers in Downers Grove, Illinois on June 2nd

This is an alternative date to the April 7th date, owing to shipping issues with the books.

This is a rare opportunity for fans of the book to meet up with the man who created the graphic novel’s unique look and who gave life to its disturbing creations.

Best of luck to Rick for the signing!

For more details, check out http://www.grahamcrackers.com/events.htm

To celebrate the launch of “The Dark”, Markosia are producing a limited run of just 100 copies of the “Bristol Expo Special Edition”!

The official promotional text runs as follows:

To celebrate the launch of their new graphic novel, “The Dark”, Markosia are producing a special edition of the book exclusively for Bristol Expo visitors.

With a variant cover from series artist Rick Lundeen, there will be only one hundred of these individually signed and numbered editions available.

A great opportunity to read the graphic novel that critics are calling “highly original“, “a great, fast read“, “confident” and “some of Chris Lynch’s best work to date” as well as owning a piece of comics history. The Dark’s author, Chris Lynch, will be at the Markosia stand throughout Comic Expo!

The Bristol Comic Expo is an immensely important event for me as a creator. It is were I had my first self publishing experiences, were I first met most of the many good friends I now have in the comics community, were I first met Harry Markos and discovered Markosia, and were I first made the decision that this, this crazy comic book making thing … this was what I wanted to do. Forever.

It feels great to be bring the special edition of The Dark to the show were, for me, it all started. All that remains is for me to get on an sign and individually number every single one of them*.

* Yes, I know. I said in my interview with Comic Book Outsiders that I would never individually number anything by hand ever again. I think Harry Markos was listening, and this is his revenge.

Fantastic news broke on Bleeding Cool yesterday with an announcement from Diamond that they are changing their policy on the much publicised, and much maligned, “minimum order threshhold”.

Implemented last year, the order threshold previous basically meant that Diamond had the right to cancel orders for any book that did not reach their minimum order values. Retailers who had ordered the book would not get it, nor would their customers, even if they had pre-ordered, and effectively the book would be dead.

This rule has been a bane for the small press. I commented on this just recently whilst being interviewed for the SidekickCast and Comic Book Outsiders, bemoaning not only my own heartache as a creator as I waited to see if my book was going to make the grade, but also commenting on how thin Previews seemed to have become since this rule had taken effect. I’m not claiming that I ever painstakingly perused the independent press pages, but there absence was apparent.

But, that was yesterday. Under the new rules, if a book is solicited then Diamond will ship whatever orders are placed. No minimums. No cancellations.

The cynic in me wants to comment on how Diamond have made this game changing announcment on the same day that we get the mcuhlauded “iPad”, which many people are proclaiming as the “saviour of the comic industry” by finally providing a portable, comic book sized delivery mechanism for comics. I have resisted the urge to comment on the iPad, but I will simply say this … we already have a portable, comic book sized medium for comics. It’s called comics. Case closed.

Thankfully, the cynic is clearly too busy sniping at the iPad to poke holes in what Diamond are doing, and so it is left to the far more optimistic part of my brain to finish this blog post.

What Diamond are doing here is throwing the doors of the bazaar open again and letting independent publishers, and creators, back in. Create a book, solicit a book, and whatever orders you can drum up will be placed, and your book will ship. You may not make a profit on your print run, but it’s not Diamond’s job to make sure you do. You may not get great reviews, but it was your job to make a great book. You may not get retailers interested in your book at all. And, yes, if selling your book is not profitable for Diamond (and they are a business, not a public institution), they might not carry another book from you that readily again, but at least you don’t have to leave the party now with your trousers around your ankles and your head still wet with water from the toilet flush. If you only sell ten, those ten will ship.

That may not sound like much, but as a creator who has spent a month gnawing his nails down to stumps waiting to find out if Diamond were going to place an order with my publisher or not, with not blowing a hole in the side of our plans that it was going to some astonishing effort to repair, it’s the best news I’ve had this month.

Better than the iPad, anyway.

Racuous, crazy, and great fun … at least until I turned up  … it’s Sidekickcast Episode 33.

Gentlemen … let’s play darts!

I had a fantastic time recording this with Bones and Dan, and I really think that comes through. These guys are always great value. Dan’s done a cracking job of editing some sense into what was several hours of comic book related madness.

If you want to hear a very different take on The Dark to other’s I’ve recorded, and also hear my head almost explode trying to crack this episode’s Secrets and Lies, don’t miss this episode of this always outstanding podcast.

The Sidekicks are also running a competition to win a mug featuring fantastic artwork by Rob Jackson and a cack-handed signature by me

OK, you’ll need to excuse the pun. Ace is a superlative I don’t think I’ve used since junior school. I put it away in the big-box-of-words-I-no-longer-use along with “mega”, “brill” (except when referring to the fish), and “wicked” (except when describing witches and rather nifty anthology comics from FutureQuake Press.

Something that is genuinely, actually, and properly ace though is the new Ace Comics website, not least because the guys at Ace have been kind enough to place The Dark and Freeman front and centre on their brand new homepage for your pre-ordering pleasure.

The guys at Ace are proper comics retailers – passionate about the medium, supportive of homegrown talent, and damn good people across the board. We need more guys like this, out there on the front line. So, visit the site.

That is all …