If you really sat down and tried, you could turn a lot of pages in the space of 30 days. While we’ve spent over a decade providing you with about 120 of those pages every month, it turns out there are many more magazines in the world than VICE. This series, “Ink Spots”, is a helpful guide on which of those zines, pamphlets and publications you should be reading when you’re not staring at ours.
A couple of weeks ago, Comic Book Slumber Party’sFairytales for Bad Bitches came through in the post. We read it and quickly decided it’s pretty much set the bar for independent publishing for the rest of this year.
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The Bad Bitches concept is simple: take some classic fairytales and tell them through the eyes of the CBSP mascot, Greasy – a character that stands as the antithesis to the stereotypical princess in children’s stories, drinking and smoking her way through tales like Cinderella and Greasylocks.
Comics writer Hannah K Chapman runs CBSP with a little help from artist Donya Todd (of Death & The Girls) and the Nobrow-published Jack Teagle. The collective also run Slumber Party boot camps where established comic book creators hold talks and meet newcomers to share ideas, make comics and generally try to inspire a new generation of comic book makers involved in the burgeoning small press scene.
The bad news is that Bad Bitches has entirely sold out. The good news is that CBSP have just announced they will release Hotel World, a solo comic from Bad Bitches contributor Becca Tobin, at Toronto Comic Arts Festival in May (the images below are some exclusive pages). We sat down with Chapman and Tobin to find out all about the book and what else is happening at CBSP.
VICE: Hi Becca. Can you tell me what the new book is going to be about?
Becca Tobin: It’s going to be a collection of comics revolving around the people at a hotel where nobody leaves; such as the person who paints the shitty corporate art there. It’s a combination of funny gag comics and some weirder, more psychedelic stuff – a collection of five or six different short stories and one-page comics all revolving within that world.
Is it the first solo Slumber Party project?
Hannah Chapman: Yeah. So she better not fuck it up!
No pressure then. What was the thought process behind doing the solo book?
The anthologies are fun, but everyone’s work feels short. Sometimes you meet someone whose work you admire so much that you want to see it in a longer form. The driving force behind CBSP is to get more women in comics. It doesn’t have to be anthologies. With a solo book you can do something really strong. I hope it is the first of many.
Greasey is a great character. Why do you think there’s a lack of female characters in mainstream comics?
I love Greasey and I hate her at the same time. She is very difficult to work with. She was a quick sketch that Donya Todd did. I told her she needs to be a smoking, leather-wearing, fierce dog thing. It’s hard to see yourself in another girl, but every girl can see herself in a yellow dog!
Becca: Traditionally, women find it hard to get into comics because it’s a boys club. It is getting better, but it has a way to go.
Hannah: Some of the stuff feels like they are trying so hard: “Hey! She’s a girl! Look at her look at boys!”
Becca: A lot of the old guys writing comics have got used to the way it works and don’t want to change. But it will with the new people coming through and making comics.
Hannah: The argument is that there is no market for it, but it’s absolute nonsense. It is the fear of something new. The reason they always do reboots is because they are characters that sell. There are so many creative teams that, if you asked them to make a new superhero, would jump at the chance of making a woman.
Do you feel like it’s a repeating formula then?
Becca: It’s to do with the industry side of it. That’s why you see more women doing small press and indie stuff; you can make and publish whatever you want.
Hannah: If it doesn’t sell you don’t have 50,000 copies left.
Becca: Exactly.
Hannah: We just have 50 copies and have a bonfire!
So do you think independent publishing is giving comics a new voice?
Becca: It is giving a voice to people who wouldn’t necessarily have been able to speak. That includes women, minority creators and a lot of communities that didn’t have a place to gain a voice. Everyone is on an equal footing. You don’t need to be pitching to a big company to get interest. You can just make it yourself.
Do you think that’s changing comics overall?
Becca: People are creating their own stuff, printing it and taking it to shows. It means that you get a big diversity in creators and that all kinds of work holds value; it doesn’t have to stick to one perception of what makes a good comic. The breadth out there at the moment is huge. To see so many people making so much different stuff is exciting.
Are you planning any more workshops?
Hannah: We’re doing a girls takeover evening during British Comics Month at Gosh! comics, and in 2016 we’re doing the first Comic Book Slumber Party Academy of Sequential Art in Bristol. It will be a month of weekly lessons, each with a guest speaker. The idea is that everybody comes with an idea and leaves with a printed and bound book. All of the speakers will be women working in the small press industry. Obviously it’s open to men and women, and it will be free.
I read that you’re doing an alternative sex education book this year?
Hannah: I just got this image of Greasey eating the condom banana in my head. You’d put the condom on the banana and she’d just start chowing down on it.
Becca: Oh my god.
Hannah: I thought we could get people making comics about what they wish they had been taught and tell it from Greasey’s point of view. I’m going to get some of the people from Bad Bitches back, but it will mostly be giving opportunities to new people. It will be packed with lots of boobs and willies and squelchy things.
You’re not going to pitch it to be included on the national curriculum then?
Hannah: Can you imagine if it did? There’ll be so much swearing in it, and the dog smokes. It’ll probably end up on the banned books list.
