Tops and Bottoms – 18th of June 2025. – Never Iron Anything

Hey Folks. Another week passes in comics. Ups and Downs. Highs and Lows. Tops and Bottoms.

Been travelling around the UK a lot this week and my mind walks about on its own merry ramble. I’ve become a little obsessed with the notion of ‘Influences’ recently. Wondering if in a marvellous circular logic we have all become a little obsessed with that notion in comics. I’m no innocent in this peoples’ trial. I love trying to spot an artist’s background on the ACP. We’ve even created a little spot for it called ‘Influence Bingo’. Not only does it make a fun guessing game but also loosens up the vocal cords of the interviewee. (Most) Comics artists are a solitary band and get stuck in ruts of repetition when asked generalities in the show. To allow them to escape banality I shoot some artist influence guesses at them. Gets them talking and thinking. It sometimes works.

Following that cognitive alleyway I branched off to consider if there is too much emphasis on this in art. As a reader I am constantly looking for two diverse areas, Readability and Originality. The first, with a small measure of skill, can be learned by following narrative structures and setting out pages with an eye to the reader’s sensibility. The second, depending on your own wayward opinion, can’t really be taught. It is armed a little more by the inner imagination and seeking deep within yourself something not evoked previously. The outside world should not apply as it evokes a reflection an a plagaristic programming. So, logically, how can the works of another produce the inspiration that includes something original.

However, if we are influenced heavily by someone. In my case I’d cite my recent admiration and obsession with Martin Amis. Can we free ourselves of those influence handcuffs and really dig in for our own personal/personality good stuff?

Does the scale of unoriginality rise the more we apply the examples of our stylistic heroes. Does it distance what is on the page from the heart/soul/character of the artist/writer? Different cases rise from different baselines, but it’s an interesting question – well I think so anyway.

It’s got to be more complicated than that surely? With media in every hole and on every surface has ‘influence’ become a trend of copying? (Remember when all songs on adverts were a soft female voiced version of an originally noisier and faster 80s/90s pop classic?) Maybe it’s those handcuffs that teach us something? A skill we can take and weaponise elsewhere and differently in our own comics? We work it in where it’s needed and can teach us or direct us where we need to go?

Questions.

Loads of questions. And more thrashing about not ready to be typed down yet. I’m hoping to explore this with an artist soon on the podcast. I’ll let you know when it happens. Or in other words – ‘Bullets cannot be recalled’ (MA).

Back to abnormal programming.

On the ACP this week we smuggled in three whole guests. My creative cousins Greg, Fake and Marc of the ‘Santos Sisters’ popped in fresh from their world tour and Eisner nomination for a chat. We’ve been fans of this nutty series from the start and got some insight into how you leap from a schoolboy invention to a Fantagraphics release and an awards nom. Well worth a listen. We also talk through some current Kickstarters, upcoming events, reviewed and recommended comics and much more. Have a listen and let us know your thoughts. You can also join our thriving Slack Community. Drop me a message and I’ll send you the link.

Small Press Book of the Week.

By Thursday night I’d barely slept and my brain was on fire. I snatched up a couple of comics and a luke-warm coffee and sat in the garden. The light still available in an early June evening. And read these. I didn’t need explosions, I didn’t even need punching. Just a man travelling the US buying back issues and encountering the comic shop characters along the way. It helped and worked.

Fat Comic of the Week.

I managed to get an early copy of this before the release party at Gosh on the 19th of this month. (Go along if you can – 7pm onwards). Like Grixly it had a massively positive effect on me. There is a poetic beauty to the way that Gareth Brookes has translated a book from the 1650s by Isaac Walton. A book about fishing and wildlife finds a beautiful peace through its use of Lino-cut and ink on bamboo paper, adjacent to the words of the time. Out from Self Made Hero – get your own copy.

Tops.