I am sweaty, filthy, and probably smell something awful, but I have been very productive, and have much to share.
There's something truly satisfying, when compiling something in the non-fiction sphere, to have a rough idea of how much work is ahead. At the start of any project there are a great many unknowns, though as progress is made, and certain things highlighted for future investigation, these unknowns give way to questions, and areas which demand exploration. That's the flowery way of stating that I'm fairly certain that this is a "long haul" project rather than anything which will provide immediate results, and while it's difficult to gauge (with any certainty) any possible page count, I'm on my way to testing out lengths of detail I can provide to any one item.
Although I'm calling this a guide to comics, my use of this word encompasses a great deal more than merely what is expected - there's going to be a great number of children's books included, as well as story albums, annuals, specials (Elvis and ABBA, a-ha, and even Madonna are present), part-works (some which might elicit recognition, others... probably not), and some things which would - in any other guide - be relegated to footnotes, if even permitted that acknowledgement. Choosing what is pertinent, and what falls outside my requirements, is a matter of personal taste, although where there is valid reason to include something I'm going to do my best to keep it in.
One of my (many, and eclectic) problems with prior examples of guides has been their willingness to completely disregard certain titles, as if they don't count. You can look through many guides for reference to Andy Capp, or Giles, or even Mac, and see a great deal of coverage given over to these albums, yet other collections aren't even mentioned. I'm attempting to catch all of these, though they are many, and not all of them are easy to immediately identify. This catch-all approach means that I'm including Thelwell, as much John Ryan material as I can think of, and all of Raymond Briggs' work. Also, because they are so painfully avoided almost everywhere, the kinds of collections Bill Stott and Roland Fiddy churned out...
These last books are especially puzzling to see omitted whenever other editorial cartoon collections are gathered, as they are almost identical in form factor and content, yet seem to be considered as lesser works. It took an extraordinary amount of patience to attempt to put a list together of titles - across multiple editions, and in two distinct forms - to have a half decent representation, although I'm likely still missing the names of other books in those series. There are small corners of British comics history which seem to be completely overlooked. It isn't really any one person's fault that these things happen, as creators often don't get recognition without someone to champion their work, and I haven't seen anyone making a case for their importance.
Back in the early-to-mid nineties, in all manner of unusual locale, those collections of comic art could be found sitting alongside massive tomes on gardening, and photography books which looked at the architecture of antiquity, and a truly bizarre selection of novelty titles which, to this day, I haven't seen the like of. My first introduction to titles such as The Fanatic's Guide to Cats (by Roland Fiddy) was likely in a gardening centre, or a department store, or anywhere rather than in a comic shop, at a time when books seem to be sold wherever there was space to set up a table and pile it with cheap editions. I'm still not sure why this was even a thing, and my wild guess (regarding the sale of budget books in this manner) would be "something, something... Net Book Agreement?"
While I wouldn't put money on this answer to their appearance is odd locales being connected, by around 1997 or 1998 these displays had largely started to disappear, the same titles turning up, in newer editions, in the likes of ASDA, and Athena, back when that was a thing. Athena, incidentally, also tended to sell US comics from smaller publishers (I know for a fact they carried First, and Comico as well, in limited numbers), but whether that was ever an official part of the company's revenue stream remains open for debate. You can make your own suggestions on how these displays of yore came to be, though the real answer is likely to be, simply, "profit."
Compiling this volume is proving a very educational experience, reminding me of how badly I handled round-the-clock writing for the site, with so many things having been purchased which never made it into The Database. It's disconcerting just how much material (books, comics, annuals, collections, and numerous spin-off products) was bought, then never actually indexed. I've probably owned three or four copies of Mike Higgs' giant collections over the years, but none of them were ever posted of online. I've almost identified everything from The Giant Holiday Fantasy Comic Album, and I've made some headway with The Giant Holiday All-Girl Comic Album, but it'll probably take a while before those are fully indexed.
My parents bought me the Big Adventure Book for either Christmas or my birthday, the year it came out, and I actually went and got myself another copy at the end of 2011, so it's something I really should have had added to my listings, but it somehow managed to slip through the cracks. Plenty of notable titles aren't represented, in any form, so it isn't a massive shock that there would be a title I had such familiarity with which didn't make the cut - it has proved a remarkably easy title to find originating material for, with only a couple of strips stumping me. While my present work isn't going to have room to delve deeply into all this information, it's worth doing a proper index of contents while I have the book in my hands, saving me work in the future.
There are slight differences to how this book (or… whatever it might be) is going to run, compared with what I've done in the past, the main change to my approach being specificity. Where I would have spent an extreme amount of words detailing where each and every image came from, I am now merely indicating that there are reprints present, or if a title changes format during it's run, or if a free gift is present. I've been playing around with adding in artists below entries, indicating which issues contain their work, but I happened upon a better notion for this (in an appendix, to be precise, an idea stolen freely from part-works) leaving more room free for elaboration.
This examination of all the things has held unexpected moments for me - when looking at some World titles from the mid-nineties, when page-count had shrunk to a paltry 64 pages, they actually had the audacity to state that their annuals possessed "BIG 64-page value!" on the cover. I couldn't help but think to myself "Suure, bitch, go look at what Dave Elliot and Garry Leach did, with the second issue of A1 back in 1989, and rethink that claim." I would love to interview someone from World at that time, and try to pry out what reason they had for making this a statement they thought might encourage some affection for their title, rather than derision. I surprised myself a little with how much this little detail irked me...
My time spent with Purnell books has also revealed that I don't particularly care about paper quality, so long as what is presented on that paper is entertaining. I would previously have stated, if asked, that there is a certain minimum quality, below which a title becomes undesirable, but that simply isn't the case with their delightfully earnest publications. They are, unquestionably, terrible to read, their cardboard-like pages little better than what might be found on cereal boxes (perhaps worse, thinking about this more), but this is largely negated by solid art, capable narratives, and an overall understanding of properties which puts Pedigree Books to shame.
I'm willing to take the hit on that dig. No apologies.
The first small chunk presented here has been spread across multiple files so I can work on various things without constantly scrolling up and down, and has come out at a fairly reasonable length so far. The list for B and C are likely going to be roughly comparable in size, given their early stages, though from there on it shouldn't be too bad until I hit the letter M, then S, which is the single largest section. There seems to be more titles beginning with S than A and B combined, though this might be a slight exaggeration based on my frustration with that chunk of text - it certainly feels more sluggish to work on than other letters, with my computer complaining when I had to open that file’s initial version.
My first draft, here, which originally sat across six text files, is a slightly rushed conversion to pdf (text files aren’t supported? Seriously?), though shouldn’t be too ugly. Yes, I’m still using Courier New. I like it.
Obvious things which are missing will, undoubtedly, get filled in when I find where the right boxes are stored, and other omitted titles are going to be dealt with when I have the time to spend dealing with them. For a first draft, this is all astonishingly pain free so far. I’m slightly ahead, working on multiple pages at the same time, though my concentration is on filling in as much of the early alphabet as possible so I have at least a rough notion of the overall length.
There has been much consternation at the flickering of my screen when large files are being edited, which is another reason for splitting everything into bite-size chunks while working on this. I'm not sure exactly what is happening under the hood, but this is an old machine, and it isn't going to get any easier to deal with files of a complex nature… My output, since Christmas, has been dramatically lower than in previous years, although my arm isn't hurting as much as it has been, and moving around seems to take my mind off any aches which continue to linger. There are a couple of additional things I'm going to be writing in the next few weeks, once I gather together all of my references, so things are looking up on that front.
That post about plots which has been brewing for... a month now? Slightly longer? That's going to take a little more time to be done. It’ll be worth the wait.