So the first inaugural ‘Australian Comics Arts Festival‘ is done… and I forgot to take pictures. It was a different experience to the usual convention with day one comprising of workshops and talks and day two the typical Comics selling marketplace… except this one was just comics.. and of that just comics by Australians.

Day 1:

I went to a talk on ‘Flogging comics’ presented by Mal Briggs of Impact Comics,  Wolfgang Bylsma of Gestalt Comics and comics author Bruce Mutard  . It was a mostly  depressing/realistic overview of all the issues in production of comics from the small chances of the creator making any kind of living, to the publisher and the small chance of making any kind of business and finally the retailer and struggling chances of selling stock. Was punctuated the with a theatrical moment of the lights going out … possibly symbolic of all hope (latter found to be Paul Mason turning the lights out due for his presentation in the next room). On the good side to the discussion was Mal’s overview that from a retailer’s point of view the comics business has grown by about 50% in the last 5 years – probably due to new readers being drawn in by new and different comics.

Probably the most useful tip to keep in mind if you’re selling your comic is to aim toward non comic people more than comic people.

Next thing I attended was the overview of the European Comics market and creations with Thomas Campi  which was very interesting. He talked about his experiences as a Comic creator and how that market works. Very different from the American model where a comic is made every month by a bunch of creators. More like a model of a novelist working with a publisher to create a book.. just happens that the book is a comic/graphic novel. Crazy big market but hard to get into I guess as almost everything is in french. I also got a comic prize for being the first person to sign up.

Next was an presentation of TheBentoNet by Queenie Chan which was a preview of a online system connecting small publishers with Bookstores via help from a print on demand system. Looks good- back in the olden days Emma and I ran a little distribution website for small press comic stuff in Australia and postage was always the killer. Print on demand systems was also not available locally and what did exist was overseas, expensive and quality not so good. The quality is now much improved and there is local printing so postage is going to be a lot better. Probably the only drawback is that the books need to be above $16 base price (if I remember correctly) so would only be good for larger comic works. For people with lots of smaller/different things maybe putting out a collected edition would work? Looks like a great opportunity and another avenue for creators.

Lastly I went to Comics Mastermind presentation by Julie Ditrich giving an overview of an Australian based organisation for Professional development of comic creators. Looks like a trustworthy lot that care about comics and giving good advice. Check it out if you are interested. Personally I don’t think I have created enough of anything to consider such a thing.

AND THEN.. their was an after party and launch of Sixsmiths Vol 2 by Jason Franks. Pizza and tasty cider was consumed.

Day 2:

This day was the market day. I was unfortunately late in the day but had a nice time chatting to comic people. Reports was a crowd was not large but that was to be expected with a new event. People were friendly, venue was comfortable.

All in all it was a great event. Looking forward to next year… which has already been announced for the 18-19 February 2017.

-Gavin the comic thing going Thomson.