Way back in the mists of time, when I first took ownership of Broken Frontier in 2017, we used to start the week off with a short blog piece called ‘A View from the Frontier’ which would give our audience some insights into BF’s wider mission and what was going on with the team behind-the-scenes. After a year or so that feature quietly faded into the background because, to be quite honest, I simply didn’t have the time anymore with so many other facets of our mission taking priority. It struck me recently, though, that with articles like ‘Behind the Scenes at Broken Frontier – Two Weeks in the Life of a Comics Culture Site Editor-in-Chief’ and our recent piece on ‘The Worrying Disappearance of Comics Commentary and Journalism Sites from a Broken Frontier/UK Small Press Perspective’ doing incredibly good numbers perhaps there is an appetite for this kind of thing after all. And, at the very least, it helps bridge the gap between audience and team a little more obviously. And that’s kind of important for a comics community hub, right?
So here’s our first ‘Andytorial’ which I will endeavour to run at the beginning of each month from hereon. Eye-wateringly twee in name but hopefully informative in content. Little snippets from the halls and corridors of Broken Frontier Towers that normally might not even warrant a blog piece on their own but in the context of a larger round-up may serve to give you some insights into developments our end. So let’s launch in with the news of BF breaking a new comics frontier…
The Broken Frontier Anthology on Display at the V&A
Friend of the site and Gosh! Comics event photographer supreme Mauricio Molizane alerted me recently to the fact that our very first BF book, the Broken Frontier Anthology (published in 2016), was on display at the new V&A East Storehouse museum. This remarkable building gives visitors an insight into the enormous collections held by the V&A. A very small selection of them are on display and there’s also the chance to also view items of your choice on offer too. Out of the 35,000 publications held in their comics collection only 15 are out o display in an exhibit, and the Broken Frontier Anthology is currently one of them! Quite the recognition for both the site and our mission. So I popped over there in June to get an obligatory selfie. A quick mention too that all three Broken Frontier Small Press Yearbooks are also held in the V&A’s National Art Library. We have had our impactful moments in UK comics after all…
The Gosh! Comics and Broken Frontier Drink and Draw Returned In-Person
After well over five years our Gosh! Comics and Broken Frontier Drink and Draw returned in-person on Friday June 27th in our new home of The Royal George in Soho, London. Of course we have been running the event on social media since the pandemic began and will continue to do so in conjunction with our “real world” events. But this was a very special evening which also marked a decade since our very first #GoshBFDD. A packed pub, great drawings, and lots of comics community camaraderie. Thanks to our guest artists Mark Stafford, Lucy Sullivan and Dominique Duong, and my co-host Will Humberstone from Gosh. The enthusiasm and love in the room was palpable and, having been there from the very start when I threw together the format of the event with a serendipitous haphazardness, I found the evening to be a very emotional yet hugely inspiring one. The next Drink and Draw Online is this Thursday July 3rd and the next in-person one will be Friday, August 1st.
Coming this Month: LDComics Fair
After our full month of queer comics coverage at Broken Frontier for Pride Month our next mini-event will be July’s focus on the LDComics Online Comics Fair for digital comics, running across the month. Expect reviews and features and some fantastic work (we know… we’ve had an advance look at what’s in store!). These kind of events are so important, and the more of them the better frankly. They provide much needed extra platforms for our astonishingly talented community of indie creators in the UK at a point where they need all the opportunities they can get. And, as someone who was trapped indoors for 18 months of his life in the early part of the pandemic, I can vouch for how vital it is to have accessible comics fairs like this that can reach those who couldn’t get to an in-person festival. As all such events are, obviously, it’s also a fab way to make some fave creators’ work available internationally. Give this all the support you can. It deserves it.
Coming this Month: AI “Art” and Comics
Thank you to everyone who has contributed so far to our upcoming series on AI “art” and comics. This will start running in July and we will post one article per week in the series until the well runs dry. Details on how to submit and the talking points involved are here. We would love to get more responses to give a broader picture of how this insidious technology is affecting the community though. So far we have had a lot of contributions from comics commentators but virtually none from actual comic artists. This is a great opportunity for us to post a social record of our thoughts and concerns for posterity so please do get in touch if you fit that category and want to speak up!
Coming this Month: Small Press Day
It’s the 10th Small Press Day this month, an event I co-organise with Amneet Johal from the Alternative Press and this year with BF’s Lydia Turner too. Founded by cartoonist David ‘Ziggy’ Greene Small Press Day looks to foster relationships between comics shops and local small press artists. bringing the surrounding community together with their local stores. Enthusiasm seems to be very high this year and we’re so excited to see some amazing events that really capture the spirit and the ethos of the day coming into the SPD inbox. If you are organising an event don’t forget to let us know by submitting it to the Small Press Day team here.
Join the Broken Frontier Team
We are always looking for new team members from as diverse a range of backgrounds as possible. One glaringly obvious thing to note about the make-up of the site right now is that we could especially do with more women and non-binary creators. It’s actually very rare for us to be in that position so please do check out the Join Broken Frontier page if you’d ever considered contributing to BF.
Catch you again next month when we’ll be looking ahead to the start of UK fair/festival season. Oh, and if you want to support the site financially do check out our Ko-fi page is here.
Until the next time…
– Andy
