Hopes and Fears (Part 3) Printing a book and the Convention Scene

I would love to publish fiction some day, especially comics. I see a lot of people who probably wanted to go into film making go into other forms of media, making a comic, graphic novel, Picture book is just one way for getting an idea towards a broad audience; one of many. I see this most in terms of independent publishing. There is a whole indie scene that devotes themselves towards web comics and indie publishing, making a web comic is considered a cheap way of gaining recognition since it avoid making a print run and thus having that being sold. It can be seen as a stepping stone towards self-publishing.

 I  went to the Huddersfield Manga con so to get in contact with some indie comic artist. The environment was very much dedicated towards a generation of kids into the Japanese moe culture. There were some artists there who were fans of such a culture and relatively new to setting up a stall but experienced with the convention scene. It’s a niche market in all honesty, because there are so many great Japanese and American artists it makes me wonder if the moe aesthetic  is having a negative effect on the comic world. To me the aesthetic was good for teenagers because you could evoke sensitive and dark narratives whilst drawing things in a very cute manner, big bug eyed characters are made to appeal to your sympathy. The problem is when that visual language becomes an entire genre. My main complaint and fear that I’m on about is that when I go to a manga convention I expect comics but instead I found it to be saturated with artists and illustrators who do not even make comics but instead create prints that were in a “manga” style. Is this really saying something important as good art does or is this really just cutesy commodity fetishism?  I think in spite of such a case there are still some amazingly talented people found in these places who get the opportunity to meet fans face to face.

 

 

So I digress; the truth is there were some comic artists at the convention. Lou Ho, better known as Naniiebim gave me some insight into printing her comic books, the Mephistos series. Since she uses a lot of services from the internet she told me that the international sizes of a5 and a4 are the cheapest, so anything straying from those international measurements would take more effort to set up.  There are also two types of printing that are known as digital and lithographic. With a print run below 500 books Lou recommends just digital printing. There are plenty of articles on the net that describe the differences (such as this one in this link: https://www.print4london.com/digital-vs-litho-print-production) some good printers involve the guys at Printbar, which Naniiebim (Lou) really recommends along with Inky Little Fingers and Caric Press. A fellow classmate has gone to Lithaprint for her children’s book, which is a bit closer to home for me but I’m going to have to talk to her later in order to review that printers. I found out from Lou that she herself would have never been able to make comics if it were not for the internet, she completely believes that her independence in this industry is down to the freedom of communication that the internet grants us.