Comic… or tragic?

Graphic novels for children – or comics, as I’ll call them here to save on the word count – have been having a bit of a moment lately. The sector is currently experiencing massive growth, and finally starting to catch up to the experience of North America and Europe. As a comics creator it has been incredibly exciting to see happen, but it’s also felt slightly nebulous. Something to be nurtured and protected. “You’ll know we’re really getting somewhere,” I’ve been joking to friends for a couple of years now, “when David Walliams decides to jump on board.”

So it was with a mixture of amusement and certain sense of inevitability that I read the other day that yes, apparently David Walliams has indeed just written his first graphic novel for children. 

Celebrities Writing Children’s Books is, of course, a long-established phenomenon at this point, and I should be clear that, at risk of having my membership of the Grumpy Professional Authors Union revoked, I don’t actually believe that it’s inherently a bad thing. Anything that gets kids excited about reading is to be celebrated, and at its best it can be a way of connecting children with voices and perspectives that they might miss out on seeing otherwise. I think it’s a shame that we live in a world where, in order to get a break in publishing, people from under-represented backgrounds have to first go to all the trouble of winning a TV cooking show, developing a successful pop career or becoming an international footballer, but hey. I dare say there are structural issues at play, and something’s better than nothing. I would simply suggest that when we’re using terms like "fresh voices" and "under-represented backgrounds", the first name my mind goes to is… not necessarily David Walliams. But, as I say, Celebrities Writing Children’s Books is in no way a new thing. What feels new is that they’ve started to notice comics.

Celebrities Writing Children’s Books is in no way a new thing. What feels new is that they’ve started to notice comics

It’s been a long journey getting to this point. I’ll be honest, for much of the fifteen years or so I’ve been making a living writing and drawing comics for children, at times it’s felt like a bit of a lonely road. Occasionally I’d hear from comics-loving friends, sleeper agents working in other parts of children’s publishing and doing their bit to trying to push the "maybe try making some graphic novels" agenda, that for a long time the ruling wisdom was that they are simply too hard, too expensive, too difficult. And yes, look, they are indeed all of those things. By their very nature comics are a very labour-intensive, time-consuming thing to create – and so by extension, if you’re going to pay your creators any kind of reasonable rate, an expensive thing to commission and publish. It’s a big undertaking. It takes commitment and investment and the willingness to take risks for something you believe in. But you know what that investment and risk-taking can give you, when combined with just the right combination of incredible talent and hard work, relentless creativity, and a sheer overwhelming love for the medium of comics? It can give you a Jamie Smart.  

It’s been a great joy of the last couple of years to see Jamie’s Bunny vs Monkey – a long-established favourite for readers of The Phoenix – be republished in a new format, and to see everything finally start to click; for work and creator to connect with the audience they always deserved, to start to become fixtures on the bestseller lists. And I’d hope that as an industry, we could seize this breakthrough moment to celebrate and push some of the many other brilliant creators working in the field – Jess Bradley, Laura Ellen Anderson, Phil Corbett, James Turner and Yasmin Sheikh, RAMZEE, Adam and Lisa Murphy, Patrice Aggs, Mark Bradley and too many more to name – or indeed to focus on finding the new creators, the fresh voices and emerging talents that can take comics forward to the next breakthrough. Rather than seeing all the attention, all the column inches and bookshop space and supermarket shelves, be hoovered up by the Celebrity-Author Apex Predator who’s scented blood in the water, who’s suddenly spotted that our long-developing little ecosystem is suddenly looking juicy enough to swoop in and consume.

But hey, look. Let’s be positive. Adam Stower, Walliams’ collaborator, is amazing, so you know this thing’s going to look fantastic. I hope it is a tremendous success, and that this is one of those "rising tide lifts all ships" situations. Having spent years saying that more publishers should take a chance and make some comics for children, it would seem churlish of me to complain now that they’ve finally started to do so.

And after all, we won’t really know we’ve made it… until Jamie Oliver jumps on board too.