A peek behind the curtain
Who we are
Here’s where we drop the pretence that this is a project run by a formal non-profit research body, because ‘we’ is largely ‘I’.
Who we I are
I am a comics creator who has made comics professionally for over two decades, unprofessionally for even longer. It’s my dream job, and I love it even when I hate it. But despite this – or perhaps because of it – while working on my last graphic novel I burnt out horribly trying to make ends meet.
I was aware that I was one of the luckier ones: I had a (comparatively) big advance from the publisher, I had (on the 4th attempt) Arts Council funding, and I’d reached a credible-enough career stage where I could cover the shortfall with freelance work, which I was doing furiously alongside my big comic book.
A gnat’s fart
I couldn’t shake the worry that if I wasn’t able to make this work with all of my comparative good fortunes, how many others are out there who want to make comics, who should be making comics, but simply can’t afford to? Is making comics an unworkable career, or was it just me? Anecdotal research told me that it wasn’t just me, but I had no way to prove this.
Somewhere along the road I’d learned a hard truth: your experiences count for nothing. My experiences were a gnat’s fart in a jet intake. The individual experiences of every single person you know (who isn’t famous) amount to an eyelash in the Pacific.
UNLESS.
Unless, of course, those experiences can be combined, and somehow quantified. When you start to draw lines between isolated cases, and point out trends, and put actual numbers on things, people start to listen. Change can only be made from a bedrock of laborious accounting.
I was invited to be UK Comics Laureate in 2019-21 (I said yes), and while I had the ceremonial cloak I launched the UK Comics Creator Survey 2020 as a means of combining the experiences of everyone making comics in the UK, to make sure that they count for something. I wanted it to be recorded who this community was, and what their needs were, and what barriers were being faced, and then I wanted that information to be used as a crowbar, a ladder, a lockpick, a sledgehammer, crampons, a block and tackle pulley system; available to anyone and everyone who wants what I want: to see this country’s comics community uplifted.
Community spirit
From the very beginning the project has been generously assisted by many enthusiastic partner organisations and gifted individuals, both inside and outside of our quote-unquote industry, who help advise, influence, fund and promote various aspects of the project. (A full list of these good people can be found in the acknowledgement section of each report.)
Even then, this project would be nothing without the goodwill of the comics creators themselves, who give their time and anonymised data to the survey, and voices to the lively discussions the findings give rise to. It’s a damn fine community, and one worth championing.
Anyway…
Thank you for your interest in the first piece of nationwide research into comics creators.
Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to close the curtain again so I can keep pretending to be some kind of faceless but professional institution.