Pictured are top to bottom scenes by Thomas Heitler, Ver, Eve
Greenwood and Alex Assan, Jem Milton, Spire Eaton and Letty Wilson.
system, the technology behind cryptocurrencies and Non-fungible Tokens—a decision met with dismay by many of its users).
Birks had, in some ways, a backwards entry into comics. His day job was in IT but he was also a filmmaker, writing and directing indie sci-fi film “Symbiote” with his wife Marielle Birks, and developing a few TV shows. He had a number of scripts that he first envisioned for film but then he had the idea to adapt them to comics. “So I started going to cons, to meet artists and get advice on how to set up a publisher. That’s the thing with comics, at least on the indie side: it is so warm, welcoming and collegial. Everyone wants to see everybody else do well. In Scotland in particular, it is a really close-knit communit.” Blue Fox initially was solely Birks bringing artists and leterers in to adapt his own work, such as the gender-flipped Robin Hood, Robyn (with Ege Avci and Lyndon White), and a series of H P Lovecraſt adaptations, including Shadow Over Innsmouth (R H Stewart, White). The Lovecraſt titles are Blue Fox’s most popular—with the US market particularly—though Birks says, “Of course Lovecraſt is problematic, but we don’t do the problematic bits”. But Blue Fox has been bringing out a raſt of other creators’ works, too, including Phil Chapman’s upcoming post-apocalyptic System Error and Luca Palumbo and Christos Kyriacou’s manga- esque Jimmy’s Vendetta. Part of the reason for this is that Birks chucked the day job a couple of years ago: “It meant I could devote time to others’ work as well. It had got to the point where we were doing well, but it was now or never, or it wasn’t going to grow. And what do you know, it really started growing when I could be 100% focused.” Blue Fox has rolled out a number of direct subscription packages this year, partially to address users’ concerns around
TheBookseller.com
Kickstarter’s blockchain move (Quindrie has done this as well). Birks is pleased with the take-up, though he misses the comic-con revenue. Digital sales have taken some of the slack, though that has become dicier of late. Comixology had previously been the go-to digital comics platform for indies. It was bought by Amazon in 2013 and the e-tailer is in the process of shuting it to move its users to the Kindle platform, and creators to Kindle Direct Publishing. Amazon tried to do this in 2021, but a fan uproar led it to postpone the plans. Yet Comixology is slated to have disappeared (17th February) by the time this issue hits shelves. Birks says: “Amazon is basically stopping Comixology and moving everything across to KDP. What that means is that it makes discoverabilit more difficult and really we would need to take ads out to make KDP work. But the sales really aren’t there to do that. It would probably work if you are Marvel, DC or Image, but not an indie like us.”
Let's get physical For Glasgow-based BHP Comics, lauched in 2011, the pandemic period has not been its brightest. Co-founder Sha Nazir says: “Physical sales have plummeted this past year, that’s the nicest way I can say it. But I’m not hugely disappointed, because aſter Covid hit we sort of planned for this and pulled a lot of the publishing back.”
But for an indie that had a significant export business, what has really hurt has been Brexit. Mainland Europe sales previously accounted for 60%–70% of sales, that has dropped to 10%–15%. Nazir says: “For shipping to the EU now, it costs us double what it did before, plus the customer may have to pay tax on that. Sometimes they are paying more for the shipping and tax than the book, which is mental.” Despite that, Nazir is upbeat as we move deeper into 2022, changing gears to combat these difficulties. The list will move to
direct digital sales and produce a range of floppy comics (single issue comics, not book-length graphic novels), plus there is one of BHP’s biggest projects to date, the Bold Universe of four linked series. The later is currently part of a Kickstarter campaign, with the first books available in April. The Bold Universe came out of a Creative Scotland-backed scheme which saw BHP mentor a group of nine young creators from diverse backgrounds. And Nazir is welcoming the return of live events: “Comic- cons, events and festivals, for a small publisher like us, really activate sales. Digital events I could quite happily flush down the toilet. They are great in that a lot of people can access them, but in terms of geting that warmth and excitement of being in the same room as an author or artist, and then buying their book... that is just never going to be replicated digitally.”
The next generation With his other hat on, Nazir is doing something about this, as BHP produces Glasgow Comic Con—which is returning to a live event in June—and for the past five years he has also led Acme Comic Con, which runs the Scotland, Dundee and Rai (anime and manga) comic-cons. The spring and autumn Scotland comic-cons will be “IRL”, with the first scheduled to run from 3rd–5th March at Glasgow’s SEC. The initial return will be a scaled-down affair compared to pre-pandemic, as Nazir explains: “We’re being conservative, hiring the smaller halls, which can accommodate about 6,000 people a day. But to be honest, I would probably prefer it if 4,000 showed up. “That would be a good-sized number as [the venue] wouldn’t be too closely packed, so people in the queues and behind the tables all felt comfortable. But I am really looking forward to it. I think everyone in Scotland’s comic scene wants that chance to finally meet up again.”
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