Starting next year, every March 17th, the Day of Comics and Tebeo will be celebrated in Spain.
| word from publisher is the opinion column Pedro F Medina †@Studio_Kato), editor-in-chief, responsible for licensing and social networks fandogami and journalist disguised as an entertainer at comic and manga events |
I subscribe to a news media, which is a daily newspaper, but in digital form, with Politics, International, Economy. There isn’t much in the culture department, they seem to leave the job to the private media or no one at all. I have a habit of staring at it with my first coffee with milk in the morning, but I guess I’ll change my routine because every day what I’m reading is making me not want to start my day. Now inflation, risk premium, geopolitical instability… I wish they would put the comic book corner back…! No up-to-date vignettes, please look retro, I say they’re restoring or it’s Calvin & Hobbes. I don’t know what kind of world we will leave to the next generation if they can’t read a weekly portion of the graphic reflection.
And I’m even more angry because they didn’t reiterate that March 17 is now official. Comic Book and Comic Book Day with Manga & Knuckles in our Spain. Also that day, there were plenty of Ferreras to respond.
I think our “industry” is akin to that scene in The Meaning of Life for the Pythons, an ocean of papers where stock markets fly like pirates and thousands of thieves prowl. From titanic aircraft carriers (filled with scales) to small tour boats, there are ships and ships that don’t stop rowing to stay afloat., catching books that others have discarded because their nets are too large. And dozens, hundreds of different microcaptains. We don’t use nautical language with “loose ties”, “empty deck” and “head down”, but we have our own jargon full of “license announcement”, “floor advance” and “omnibus format”, small kingdoms each dominate, drift according to circumstances and always, always looking for a treasure island.
This entire fleet of broadcasting ships sails and escapes without much coordination, chasing incoming pioneers breaking through the ice on unknown shores. Until then, new trends, market niches, graphic styles, genres remained locked in Davy Jones’ chest. As I said, with a tedious schedule: from one year to the next everyone reverts to the female demographic and the next season leaves uncertainly, suddenly everyone returns to BL, the humor stares shyly for a period, disappears into obscurity Local Writer’s comics for kids, now for adults, now for kids after the new serious graphic novel, GT Senshi comes, GT Senshi leaves. Nobody has the Burger Krabby Patty formula that made us rich, so we go with the gossip mill, “it works,” flavored with the sound of intuition and experience (only you’ll love it, imbecile, I’ve heard). happens to me often) and we drop a line to see if readers bite. So we want to be admirals of the navy… but most of us stay in overalls with a fishing rod, mimicking each other and throwing shit at each other at the slightest opportunity.
Because, although we are not fierce competitors, inwardly we think and believe that the success of one is the failure of others. There’s not much on its own in book sales, because there’s an audience for everything (and tastes, colours) as well as the deals offered to us every day: being able to attend the X or Y Comics Fair at the grown-ups. City Book Fair, interviews with this or that media, distribution here or there. It’s a competitive world, that’s right, there are companies, no staff, son. My presence in a contest may prevent another broadcaster from working on a simple question of capacity. Or that the paper I use to print a comic has a different fold. And no veteran wants their fishing grounds spiraling out of control after years of dedication to finding a productive reef. Water metaphors are running out.
But I always believed in the power of the collective. Ever since I started drawing fanzines, I’ve met other people (Zulai and Irene, from whom we started Studio Kat) who fueled this desire and enthusiasm through a joint project. From there, we completely ended up at Epicentro, a group that puts together dozens of fanzines for better prices for print, booths at comic or manga fairs, and good advice on how to move forward. When Epicentro fell apart in the mid-2000s, the survivors (Studio Kat, Russian Roulette, Studio Wargh…) came together in what we call the New Epicentro or La Rusa del Gato, depending on who you ask. And from there the spark of what you know today (you better know) came as Fandogami. Always the guide, always as a team.
Therefore, I applaud initiatives that bring together small publishers that have always functioned as walled villages, with no contact with the outside world other than lowering the window to fulfill orders. When I read that Cascaborra and Cósmica shared the stands at some of their recent events, I thought: this is the way. Without going any further, we are currently working with Moztros to move materials over the internet and trade shows. Very interesting proposals are being made, Sectoral, the various professional associations in the industry have grown in record time, but as well as forging common points at a snail’s pace (and often flagged by people who control the issue). broadcasters bigger and staff more positioned) I like instant action, start before your rings fall off, stick to a target one by one and show, report, here we go to one, Fuenteovejuna, sir! Consolidate minds to print and distribute together, share warehouses, cut expenses, make barriers a common problem, not something you can already deal with. We are not less to hold hands: we are stronger to face the future and publish the comics we want without blaming anyone.
Create alliances! Show the colors! It’s great to work with when you actually do it, move boxes, and get your butt moving. Waiting for long-term strategic plans to take pictures while waiting for the others to close, as if there weren’t enough fish in the sea, is removing the planks and throwing people into the sea.
