Mike Garley – creator and editor-in-chief of VS Comics
Mike Garley
Sam Read – What was the genesis of VS Comics? How did this project first spark to life?
Mike Garley – VS Comics came about fairly organically. I’d started to develop Eponymous (collaboration with Martin Simmonds and Mike Stock) and was looking for the best way to publish it. I’d already written and edited a bunch of comics by this point so although there’s a bunch of great publishers around, there were none that I felt could really add anything to the process for me, especially as I’d have to part with a certain amount of creative freedom and a cut of profits, so it just didn’t make any sense to appropriate the concept to fit them.
I’d previously worked on (acclaimed zombie anthology series) Dead Roots, which was a real eye opener. We had contributors lining up to get involved from all over the place from Red Dwarf to Doctor Who, which highlighted the amount of amazing creators who were looking for more ways to get their work out there.
After a screenwriting festival, which James (Moran, VS co-editor) and me were both speaking at, we got talking about how we thought things could, and more importantly should, work for creators who wanted to make comics. Several hundred emails, a digital editor appointment and a two-month naming process later and we were ready to go. Not with Vs Comics or Versus Comics, but VS Comics.
SR – Anthologies have a reputation as being difficult to manage. However, with three issues in three months you seem to be deftly navigating the usual pitfalls that befall them, such as delays. Is the fact VS is exclusively digital part of this?
MG – It helps as far as we don’t have to wait on publishing, but it’s really down to our set up. The length of our stories are ten or six-pages and are meant to allow creative teams the time they need to work on them on a monthly basis. We understand that people have full time jobs and other commitments so we want to operate in a way that allows people to fit their work for VS around these commitments.
Patrick Walsh, Martin Simmonds and Nadine Ashworth, the artists on our two on-going ten-pagers, do a fantastic job in producing consistently awesome work and we want them to keep doing that, so we plan in the future to do a few one-off stories giving both creative teams some time to catch a breather and recharge their creative batteries. What’s the point in doing creative owned projects if we can’t have that flexibility? The comics need to come first and sometimes that means taking some time and not rushing things.
Me, James and Mike Stock, our digital editor and the guy who letters pretty much every comic in VS, are all really proud that so far we’ve realised once a month. Hopefully we’ll be saying the same thing a few years down the line.
SR – So far VS has blended on-going tales with several guest comics. With the experience of three issues now under your belt how are you finding this format? Is it a template you’ll be continuing with once your three on goings reach their conclusions?
MG – The format seems to be working well as it allows people to pick up any issue and not to be caught up in annoying continuity. It also allows us to have lots of different styled comics in one product. Anyone who has picked up VS Comics will know how diverse we are, with the only thing that we try to keep consistent being the quality. When (and if) Day and Night and Eponymous come to an end we’ll probably just start a new story up. That said we’re constantly looking for feedback and are happy to evolve to suit what people want.
SR – Though the print rights remain with the creative teams from day one, has any thought been given to a physical release of VS, possibly even a promotional item at conventions?
MG – Possibly… Print is expensive but if we had a big enough readership then it could be a possibility. I’d love to produce a massive collected anthology, but both of these options will be down to if it’s financially viable and if the other VS creators want to do it or not.
SR – With Comixology recently launching their ‘Submit’ category for independent releases is this an avenue for delivery that could interest VS?
MG – Yes, we’re looking to pursue this avenue very soon. We’ll keep the PDF version of the comic as I think it suits a lot of people, and it allows us to maintain a £2 price point. We are speculatively discussing a £3 price point for Comixology, which isn’t us being greedy, it’s just us combating the fact that we would actually lose roughly £1.65 per issue we sell!
SR – With several exciting contributors announced for upcoming issues it looks as if you have plenty of options in terms of talent wanting to get involved. Does this mean we’ll be seeing VS Comics for the foreseeable future?
MG – I think we have over a years’ worth of stories in development and are intending to do a call for submissions very soon. So yes, we’ll be around for the foreseeable future.
SR – In follow up to the previous question; what were your expectations/hopes for VS Comics prior to launch, and three months in do you feel you are meeting them, in terms of both critical and reader reception?
MG – That’s a hard question to answer; we have no real like-for-like competitors so had no way to predict how we could expect to do. Our biggest challenge (as with any comic) has been with pub
licity. We’ve had nothing but great feedback from everyone who’s read it and this should hopefully help us spread the word.
We’re just happy to see that more and more people are picking it up each month, beyond that all we can really do is focus on producing the best comic that we can produce.
I’d like to extend my thanks to Mike for answering my questions, and to take the opportunity to encourage those who’ve yet to pick up VS Comics to do so.
You can find a review of the first issue here and learn more about VS Comics at their website or visit their digital shop.
