Pipedream Comics presents contents
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The best of Indie, small Press & digital comics
AMAZING INDIE ARTISTS & MUST-READ WRITERS FEATURE IN...
The
Indie Cool List
Including
Tillie Walden Madius Comics Christian Wildgoose Dirty Rotten Comics Rachael Smith PLUS!
GIANT DAYS JOHN ALLIS ’ ON We disc over Eisner-n Boom! Box’s o indie se minated nsation!
PLUS!
WIDDERSHIN PANEL SYNDICATE APES ‘N’ CAPES VANGUARD BRETHREN BORN 100% BIODEGRADABLE BERTIE BEAR BPM SAVE OUR SOULS THE PRIDE 1
Issue #2
Summer 2016
SPLASH! showcasing new work from the best indie artists
The Pride
Joe Glass’ LGBTQ superhero adventure has been collected into a hardcover collection. Here are the team in all their glory by artist Jamal Campbell Purchase The Pride from thepride.bigcartel.com
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christian wildgoose
Perfect Porcelain After receiving rave reviews in our debut issue, we talk to artist Christian Wildgoose about the delicate yet dynamic world of Porcelain: Bone China
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John allison
Fresh off a slew of Eisner nominations for his glorious series, Giant Day’s creator John Allison, filled us in on the latest comings and goings of the wonderful Esther, Daisy and Susan, as well as giving us an exclusive look at his epic new webcomic Mordawwa. How have you found writing a monthly book compared to a webcomic? Did you have to make any changes to how you write when it was extended to a monthly series? John Allison: Because I’m writing scripts for someone else to draw from, my process with Giant Days is completely different. When I write my webcomics, I just scrawl into a pad or type straight into what will become the speech bubbles on a page. If I’m working on paper, I’ll often have almost completely roughed a comic as I write it, and if I’m typing it out, I might have a three-word description in a panel just to clarify what’s going on. But I only write a week at a time so I can really confuse myself – I remember who’s saying the bubbles when I come to draw them. My scripts for Giant Days are properly typed-out scripts with panel descriptions, character notes, etc. It’s a completely different discipline, one that is quite new to me. My whole process had to be rethought when I started writing Giant Days; everything since then has been an attempt to refine that process.
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Rachael Smith
You don’t bring me flowers From rabbits and house parties to firestarters and Time Lords we discover the wonderful world of Rachael Smith rtificial Flowers is the follow-up to Rachael Smith’s critically acclaimed book The Rabbit. And fans will be happy to hear she has brought back Siobhan from the brilliant House Party to take on the London art scene (instead of drunken house guests)! For those of you who are new to Rachael’s world, Artificial Flowers is the perfect starting point. We caught up with the lady herself to find out more about her work, from giant rabbits to drunken artists via phone-box-dwelling Time Lords!
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tillie walden
INSIDE OUT After being nominated for an Eisner for I Love This Part, we catch up with writer/artist Tillie Walden to discuss her new book A City Inside
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illie Walden’s unconventional love story, I Love This Part, was one of our favourite books of last year. So, we were rather excited to find out she would be releasing a new book this spring called A City Inside, courtesy of Avery Hill. We catch up with this exciting young comic creator to find out more about her new story. Can you tell us a bit about what your new book A City Inside is about? Tillie Walden: A City Inside is a difficult book to describe. Even coming up with the blurb was hard. But I’ll give it my best try – since I did draw and write it, I should be able to do this! It’s the story of one woman and the story of the places she goes through her life. It’s not a book that takes place in reality, though it does hold similarities to our world. It’s a book about discovering passion, finding a place to live that reflects who you are, and navigating relationships as you go through your life. My editor compared it to my previous book I Love This Part by saying, ‘If I Love This Part was a song, then A City Inside is a poem.’ That’s really the best description we’ve got. Your books feel very personal, almost autobiographical – what inspires you to tell your stories in the way you do? TW: All my books have autobiographical elements to them. Most of my stories emerge from events or memories in my own life, but as I make it into a comic it usually takes on a life of its own, with my own personal narrative going to the backdrop. I like that my books feel personal, that’s something that I really work towards. I also like that with every book I feel like I’m seeing a reflection of who I was when I made it, and I’m seeing what I was thinking about at that time. It’s nice, my stories feel like little time capsules to me.
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dirty rotten comics
Talk
dirty TO ME Mixing sharp satire with surreal nonsense, Dirty Rotten Comics is the coolest small-press anthology out there. We catch up with editor Gary Clapp to find out why you should get dirty… Tell us about the inspiration for indie comics anthology Dirty Rotten Comics (and where did the name come from?) Gary Clapp: The British comics scene has really flourished over the past few years, and there is so much great content out there that isn’t being given the exposure it deserves. Dirty Rotten Comics came about as a response to this. We wanted to help get British comics out to a wider audience, and an anthology-format book felt like the best way to do it. As creators ourselves, we were put off by the various niche titles that already existed, so wanted to make a book that was accessible and diverse in content and tone. We’ve always tried to be as inclusive as we can, so will often include first-timers or previously unpublished creators alongside bigger names in the scene. As for the name – I honestly have no idea! How do you select which stories go into each issue? Do artists pitch to you or do you approach them for work? GC: Once our submissions window has closed, we usually spend an evening or two down the pub, hacking together a structure and page order. As we’ve grown over the past few years, this has become exponentially harder as we receive a great deal more submissions than we are able to include. It’s a good position to be in, though, as we can ensure the final book maintains a really high quality. We will occasionally take story pitches, but, more often than not, we receive submissions in their final form. We have approached a number of artists in
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madius comics
it’s a madius madius world Mike Sambrook & Robin Jones from Madius Comics talk Papercuts and Inkstains and Kickstarter Griff Gristle
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wo of the more shy and retiring comic creators on the UK independent scene right now are Robin Jones and Mike Sambrook from Madius Comics – home to Papercuts and Inkstains and the Profits of Doom. Not ones to shout about their new books all over social media or constantly mention their recent Kickstarter Griff Gristle, we thought we should give these timid young chaps the opportunity to tell the world about their fine array of comics! Tell us a bit about the formation of Madius Comics, who was involved and why you chose to start making comics together?
Robin Jones: We chose to make comics together because no other bugger would have us… Mike Sambrook: Ha! It was something like that. It was back in 2014… ish and the four of us (Mike, Rob, Nick Gonzo and Brad Holman) all found each other through Twitter. For various reasons we wanted to create comics and decided that, Wu-Tang style, we would be stronger together than apart. We wanted to use our mutual strengths to try and rival much larger publishers and we wanted to stay in control and steer our own ship – that was a large part of it. Oh yeah, and the fact no bugger would have us… That too.
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Papercuts & Inkstains is your centrepiece anthology, where did the name come from and how did you come to collect together the various contributors? RJ: I think of it as more of a lazy Susan than a centrepiece, spinning around various tasty bites for you to enjoy at arm’s length. The name actually comes from an old column I used to write called Papercuts & Inkstains. It was about a late-twentysomething getting into the world of comic books, where to start and involving friends and readers along the way. From there, as we started to piece together a bundle of short stories, it seemed like a logical progression to take that established name and put it to the jumble
reviews
the pride #1-6 Can a group of LGBT heroes still be super read? ired of being misrepresented or held back because of their sexuality, Fab Man (Tomorrow’s Fabulous Man, Today) assembles The Pride, a group of misfit LGBT superheroes who need to come together, not only to prove the world is wrong in their narrow-minded attitudes, but also to combat the Reverend – a Biblebashing bigot bent on world domination! Inevitably, with a superhero-team book, this means clashing egos with tons of angst, and writer Joe Glass does a great job of giving the formation of The Pride a slow build across these first 6 issues. While the temptation would be to rush into a big battle, he prefers to develop the characters, which makes for a more engaging and entertaining read. (And something that feels fresh, despite being one of the oldest tricks in the book!) With characters such as Fab Man, The Bear, Muscle Mary and The Reverend, Glass appears to use fairly broad strokes to tell his story, picking various LGBT clichés and stereotypes to fill up his roster. It may seem at odds with the book’s progressive message to rely on such stereotypes, but with this being a superhero tale, largerthan-life characters are what the genre is all about. And, thanks to the diversity of the characters involved and some smart writing from Glass, they do not feel misrepresented. By combining these clichés and tropes into one team, Glass creates a versatile group of characters with which he can tell his stories, giving them their own issues that help give the stories subtlety and nuance in between the bombast. For example, one character is revealed to be HIV positive. This is handled in a brilliant and informative way, which allows the team members to be both wary and also accepting without it feeling patronising. The same is true when relationships begin to form between team-mates, and you get to see the advantage of allowing the team time to develop without them having to spout their dialogue in the middle
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Publisher: Queer Comix Writer: Joe Glass Artist: Gavin Mitchell, Mark Ellerby, Cory Smith, Joshua Faith, Dan Harris, Jack Laurence, Hector Barros, Jacopo Camagni, Kendall Goode, Maxime Garbarini, Joe Glass, Jack Davies, Chris Wildgoose (Art) Mike Stock (Letters) Kris Carter, Kirsty Swan (Colors) Price: £1.49 from comiXology
“The Pride mixes progressive and intelligent story-telling with some classic superhero antics”
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of a pitched battle. Glass also explores the characters’ various origins using short stories at the back of each issue, which again helps develop the individuals without losing the main thread of the story. By using different artists it also feels like a worthwhile bonus rather than DC Comics tendency to tack a story onto the end of an issue to bulk it out! Alongside Glass’ strong storytelling, The Pride looks fantastic, in particular the covers of #1 and #6 from Kris Anka, which look as good as any Big Two offering. The insides of the first two issues feature main story artwork from Gavin Mitchell which, as we saw in How To Be A Superhero, means a classic Marvel-style reminiscent of John Romita Jr, which really helps give the early issues a strong start and feels like they are on a par with a book from a mainstream publisher. After that though, The Pride suffers a bit from the ‘curse of the indie book artist’ as it flits from one to the next. Despite seeing some really great talents, such as Druid Investigates’ Dan Harris and Porcelain’s Chris Wildgoose filling in the pages, it gives the final issues a more scattergun approach, which takes away a bit from the slickness and consistency that it would have had with fewer artists. Thanks to high-quality writing and strong visuals, The Pride manages to balance progressive and intelligent storytelling with classic superhero antics to create a book that is informative without being preachy and intelligent without being too introspective. AT
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