…london horror comic…

The proofs arrive for London Horror Comic #3



I spent the weekend inspecting the proofs for London Horror Comic #3 and sent them back to the printers on Tuesday.

Just because this will be the final issue, it doesn’t mean I get to be sentimental about the beautiful colours; I need to keep a keen eye to make sure the book is perfect.

On the inside of the London Horror Comic I credit myself as writer, but I’m also the book’s editor and the two roles are distinct. To self-publish a book you have to fulfil your responsibilities in both roles, which you can sometimes forget to do.

Publishing your own comic book gives you the chance to load up on job titles the same way most people load up on bacon at a hotel breakfast buffet. You can inflate your importance overnight by calling yourself writer/editor or writer/whatever.

The demands of the two jobs are different. As a writer, you look for new and novel ways of telling a compelling story – a kid with a blank canvas and a dozen crayons. As an editor, you have to be able to take a step back from your own work and examine it methodically and coldly.

Do all the stories in the book work? Are they fun? What kind of journey is the reader led on page by page? Is the dialogue clear or could it be made clearer? These are all questions you have to ask yourself as you go through the proofs.

When the proofs arrive on your doorstep, you have to put aside the childlike excitement and get on the surgeon’s gloves – as if you were conducting an autopsy. No one is likely to read your book as closely as you will, so it is important that you give your book the attention it needs as an editor, just as much as you did as a writer when you put the stories together.

Remember that you’re not a “jack-of-all-trades” in name alone and you have a job, possibly many jobs, that you have to perform as professionally as each other to get your book into people’s hands.

And after you’ve read and re-read the proofs, made your comments and sent them off to the printers, remember to pause for breath and remember that you make comics to have fun.