Comics UK

some good points there, kev.....if only something could be done to preserve UK comic archives, and make them easily accessible [even for a small subscription] for those who want to see this stuff.

kevf wrote:...the British Library is supposed to have every published comic in its archives somewhere. Is there really an aircraft hangar somewhere with every issue of Cheeky, Playhour and Robin, Radio Fun, and Mighty World Of Marvel? If there is, we the British people should, technically, be allowed to have a look at them.

Anyone can, free of charge, any day of the week, at Colindale Newspaper Library, in North London (it's even on the tube). It's a great resource, the comics are bound into yearly volumes, and it's not an aircraft hanger, it's a beautiful 1920s building, the staff are friendly, and our taxes already pay towards it's upkeep. We have mentioned it several times here on ComicsUK, odd you never noticed.

Not for much longer...
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2010/ja ... al-chapter

what a cheek they had, demanding free copies of every comic ever published by anyone!

Buy yer own, you tight gits!!!! We pay our taxes for this sort of thing!

I've been to the Colindale Library! I was researching Music charts in `Melody Maker` `Music Now` `Record Mirror` and `Pop Weekly`

It's slightly worrying that the Colindale site is being closed - if you've read Nicholson Baker's book 'Double Fold' you'll know that digitization has often been a first step to getting rid of paper copies of old journals, magazines, etc. This can be good for collectors, but bad for the public. The BL doesn't sound like it's going to do this, mind, but it's a slippery slope. Digitized versions provide an excuse to get rid of the originals, and have often missed out all the ads and announcements and 'editorial' in a comic or magazine - so if the originals are then sold off or pulped these get lost forever- imagine the Beano without the fan club page or 2000AD without Tharg's nerve center...!

On the other hand, when they're digitized there's the possibility that they might be available online for a small fee, like the archives of the Daily Mirror and Express newspapers:

http://www.ukpressonline.co.uk/ukpresso ... 4579C1213E

I've mentioned this before, but by subscribing to that site one can read the complete Garth, Flutters, Fosdyke Saga, Perishers etc. (Assuming one has a spare lifetime of course. )

kevf wrote:a great deal of material will never be released officially (can anyone envisage a big DC Thomson back catalogue appearing online anywhere soon?)

Thanks for your comments, Kev. I really appreciate them. The majority of this art will be buried or lost forever, except to a diminishing number of ageing fans with deep pockets.

In my business studies degree, locking up resources figured highly in the "failed business" case studies. Another suicidal strategy was to alienate your best customers. (Numerous studies show that people who download more also buy more. Example. Example. Example. Example.)

Insiders may scoff at the "free advertising" model, and wring their hands at declining sales, but free advertising works. Why not embrace it instead of leaving it to pirates who don't have your interests at heart?

Successful IP companies, from Syco to Google, typically give away a sizeable percentage of their work for free. Microsoft for example, no friend of pirates, gives away Internet Explorer, its programming tools and much else, and today announced it would be giving away its robotics software. This isn't like just giving access to a handful of old comics that made no money anyway, it represents a huge and ongoing cost in new material. But in the IP industry it's accepted that giving away a big chunk of your work is the normal way to get people hooked to pay for the rest.

It's a pity that older IP industries (e.g. comics) have to be dragged kicking and screaming to a viable business model.

tolworthy wrote: Insiders may scoff at the "free advertising" model, and wring their hands at declining sales, but free advertising works. Why not embrace it instead of leaving it to pirates who don't have your interests at heart?
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Loads of free comic strips are already available online for free but I don't think the creators / publishers are seeing much in the way of it generating sales of the "hard copy".

A subscription service, like the UK Press Online one, would be a better option.

I am still working on getting a publisher to back my work as books in bookshops, with the serialisation of the strips happening online for free.

It's really no different from serialised stories being in pulp magazines, newspapers or cheap comics. The idea was, from Dickens to the DFC, that the serialisation gave you a taste of the story, but the book was where the long term market was. The DFC books that are now hitting the shelves should prove that, I hope.

Online serialisation, though it's hard to raise revenue on, can hardly lose the vast amounts the weekly DFC did. While the books just have to stick it out on those shelves and be good enough quality to sell over time.

Neither Colindale or the other main Library in Euston have any copies of `Top Pops` music paper which ran from May 1967 to March 1970. It changed title (and re-numbered itself from No 1) to `Music Now` in March 1970. The Euston Library holds `Music Now` from No1 to the double Xmas/New Year 1970/71 edition; but it doesn't have the final few which ended dated 27th Feb 1971! .... I knows-coz' I has `em!

Lew Stringer wrote:Loads of free comic strips are already available online for free but I don't think the creators / publishers are seeing much in the way of it generating sales of the "hard copy".

A subscription service, like the UK Press Online one, would be a better option.

According to those doing it, the number one rule is:

The comic itself is free -- but it is surrounded by for-profit products, advertising and bonus content. Subscription/micropayment-based comics have been wildly less successful

I don't see any statistics to prove that...

More info on the case, plus, I'm glad to see, responses that mostly support the law:

http://robot6.comicbookresources.com/20 ... s-website/

ISPYSHHHGUY wrote:what a cheek they had, demanding free copies of every comic ever published by anyone!

It is still the law, Rab, based on the Legal Deposit Libraries Act. In fact, it also relates to books. The publisher, or author if self-publishing, is obliged to send a copy of every book, newspaper, magazine, comic, pamphlet etc that they produce to six different libraries. These are the British Library, Oxford University Library (the Bodleian), Cambridge University Library, the National Library of Wales, the National Library of Scotland and the Library of Trinity College, Dublin. They have one year in which to comply.