Ahh. Watch the comic morons not understand humour.
Anyway, I was looking through some old British Indie comics the other day and came across a US comic sized title The Solthenis. It was from 1987 and I know that somewhere in Room Oblivion I have the actual pre-publishing version. Mention it today and no one seems to know The Rogues' Gallery or the title which was billed, as you can see, as "a graphic novel in 12 parts".
Inside the back of the comic you will find a list of people who proof read and offered advice (apparently I offered the most advice in a 3 pages letter!). I think we can dispose of those other names -who are they? I think my name did everything for the comic....hang on...it vanished. Look at those other names -I'm not taking all the blame!!!
Anyway, there was correspondence and then...nothing. The title vanished. Until, that is, I got the 1988 (no date inside) Titan backed Trident comics hand out The Trident Sampler. There was The Solthenis but I cannot recall the book actually getting published and so many people got burnt but no one bothered complaining loudly as they adopted the "We better be quiet or it might affect us getting comics work" approach. How did that work out for you all?
Anyway, move on a decade or so and I met Vincent Danks who had also worked on the pencils and inks for Chapter 2: Stombarr of Barbarus. He had no idea who I was and conversation stopped. I never got to find out what happened to Richard Piers Rayner who wrote and drew chapter 1: Where A Changeling Dwells . However, Danks had co-created, with Roger Gibson, Harker for their Aeriel Press.
Aeriel Press had been formed in 1997 by Danks and its first publication was the paranormal spy series Sapphire,which I will admit to never having seen. There then followed the anthology title Raven which ,again, I have never seen and the crime drama Harker -which I have some issues of.
Diamond Comic Distributors' were and are never helpful to Independent publishers (if mainstream comics crash watch them drop their pants and bend over for Indies) decided to place a minimal sales limit on titles which impacted on many publishers and definitely did on the Harker's launch. As Danks and Gibson pointed out, this forced Ariel to self-distribute as well as self-publish.
The buzzards are always hovering about (I may be unkind to buzzards there) and after Harker completed some twelve issues and two collections, Titan Books stepped in to reprint and distribute the collections. Bless.
As far as I am aware, Danks had been talking about retiring from comics, that is where it all ended. If anyone knows better please let me know!
History behind all the comics can often be sad, tragic or....slightly pleasant.
Anyway, I was looking through some old British Indie comics the other day and came across a US comic sized title The Solthenis. It was from 1987 and I know that somewhere in Room Oblivion I have the actual pre-publishing version. Mention it today and no one seems to know The Rogues' Gallery or the title which was billed, as you can see, as "a graphic novel in 12 parts".
Inside the back of the comic you will find a list of people who proof read and offered advice (apparently I offered the most advice in a 3 pages letter!). I think we can dispose of those other names -who are they? I think my name did everything for the comic....hang on...it vanished. Look at those other names -I'm not taking all the blame!!!
Anyway, move on a decade or so and I met Vincent Danks who had also worked on the pencils and inks for Chapter 2: Stombarr of Barbarus. He had no idea who I was and conversation stopped. I never got to find out what happened to Richard Piers Rayner who wrote and drew chapter 1: Where A Changeling Dwells . However, Danks had co-created, with Roger Gibson, Harker for their Aeriel Press.
Aeriel Press had been formed in 1997 by Danks and its first publication was the paranormal spy series Sapphire,which I will admit to never having seen. There then followed the anthology title Raven which ,again, I have never seen and the crime drama Harker -which I have some issues of.
Diamond Comic Distributors' were and are never helpful to Independent publishers (if mainstream comics crash watch them drop their pants and bend over for Indies) decided to place a minimal sales limit on titles which impacted on many publishers and definitely did on the Harker's launch. As Danks and Gibson pointed out, this forced Ariel to self-distribute as well as self-publish.
The buzzards are always hovering about (I may be unkind to buzzards there) and after Harker completed some twelve issues and two collections, Titan Books stepped in to reprint and distribute the collections. Bless.
As far as I am aware, Danks had been talking about retiring from comics, that is where it all ended. If anyone knows better please let me know!
History behind all the comics can often be sad, tragic or....slightly pleasant.
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