PANEL BEATING: TRULP FICTION.
Striking fanboys over the head with very big sticks - every month.

[A brief warning; this month's column, at first glance, may seem to completely contradict my usual stance of Comics As A Serious Artform. Life's funny like that.]

Quality, not quantity. That's what people always say, isn't it?

There's some overriding idea that if a creator does less work, the quality of what remains will be higher. Presumably this assumption follows the logic that if you do less, you can spend more time on each project, and therefore it'll be better.

Logic can go jump out the window for all I care.

Some time ago, the frighteningly bald Ben Peek put forward the proposition that "Online comics are the new pulps." I have to agree with that -- they allow comics to be produced very cheaply indeed, and theoretically also very quickly. There's a wealth of online comics out there, of varying quality. (I'm involved in a few myself, which makes up for the good ones.)

But I go further than this - and just see how far I can go, my friends - by saying this: ALL comics are the "new pulps."

Popular fiction of all kinds has had a "pulp" era -- the 40s crime novels, and the glut of 60s/70s fantasy fiction; 1950s exploitation B-movies; 70s television drama; 60s comic books. And we'll come back to that one later.

"Michael Moorcock used to knock out his COUNT BRASS and ELRIC books in four days"

Those fantasy books are a good case in point. Christ, there was some drek around then. There were also a few gems, and sure enough they were generally by writers who devoted more time to their individual works (LORD OF THE RINGS - regardless of what I think of it personally - is a good example). But there were even more rough diamonds. Quantity, remember?

Michael Moorcock used to knock out his COUNT BRASS and ELRIC books in four days. First draft, no revisions - bang! Straight in the mail. That'll be a few hundred quid, please. Next!

And, taken for what they were - entertaining high fantasy/action romps - they were bloody great. Even now, they hold up against some of the godawful fantasy crap that finds its way onto bookshelves (Stephen Donaldson, front and centre).

Fair enough, not every writer is possessed of Moorcock's genius (or his then-alleged stash of amphetamines). But he's just one example. Over in the science fiction camp, John Brunner and Harry Harrison were both prolific writers who more often than not hit the target during this "pulp" era.

What am I driving at here? That deadline pressure and inadequate compensation produces quality? No, not at all. Prolificity - a word I've just made up - is what I'm talking about. And because I've just made it up, I can make it mean anything I want.

Quantity, from any one particular writer, does not necessarily mean more quality though. There are exceptions - Alan Moore contends that his recent scheme of producing more work is actually making him a better writer - but generally, no it doesn't. But it does mean more experimentation, both in form and content.

It was the sheer amount of people involved in the relevant industries during their "pulp" periods, and consequently the amount of work being produced, which fueled a very creative, very experimental environment. Hell, maybe it was just the drugs. Who cares? Those periods - ironically often referred to as the "Golden Ages" of their respective media - produced some fantastic work, because there was just more work to choose from. How can that ever be a bad thing?

"If there's a lot of stuff out there, creators will try something new and innovative, if only to stand out"

If you have more works produced, costs are generally driven down. Especially as smaller publishers will cut corners on production costs to produce work which is still profitable (The very phrase "pulp" refers to the quality of paper which the multitudinous early crime novels were printed on). Lower cost means more people will try them out. People, of all ages, want to be entertained, dammit. And if there's so much stuff out there, a lot of creators will try something new and innovative, if only to stand out from the crowd.

(In the case of comics, anything not "mainstream" can probably be considered "innovative". Maybe not to us, but certainly to the general public.)

There's another angle to this: the "role" of a trash medium. Which the majority of comics is - a trash medium.

But that's a good thing. Trash media - like the pulps - allow creators to attempt outlandish experiments, to cross societal boundaries which other, more "respected" media cannot. Can you honestly imagine INVISIBLES being successfully pitched as a TV show?

All trash/pulps - yes, they're coming together now - are done for a love of the medium. Pulp novels, B-movies, garage bands, comic books. None of these are artistic endeavours which will make the creators millionaires (with the obligatory nod to one or two exceptions - and isn't it a frightening thought to put Todd McFarlane and Kurt Cobain in the same paradigm?). They are indulged in because the creators love the medium. There are a hundred easier ways to make a fortune.

But "trulp" media (that was subtle, eh?) plays a similar role to the court fool. Only the fool can speak the truth, and thereby achieve true profundity. Only the fool can insult the regent without fear of execution.

"We can say and do things, even in our mainstream titles, that few other media can"

So comics already are a "prash" medium in that sense. We can say and do things, even in what we regard as our mainstream titles, that few other media can. We can do this partly because of our low-cost distribution methods (all we really need to produce comics is a Xerox machine). But it's also possible for us because we are relatively easy to do (issues of quality aside there for a moment), and we are visual, making it far easier for us to grab someone's attention than prose can.

We are cheap.

Why can't we make the next step? Should we make the next step? Obviously, I think so. I believe (and an increasing amount of others are also suggesting) that if we have more comics to choose from, if we produce, say, five times as many comics as we do at the moment - hell, ten times as many - then that experimental, creative environment will foster and grow. And people will be more inclined to try them out. Regardless of bloody paper stock.

Sure, there will always be a place for the comics equivalent of William Gibson (three years per book and counting). But I want twenty Michael Moorcocks alongside him on the shelves, because one out of those twenty will be a book that matters. And that's a higher proportion than we have at the moment.

Antony Johnston is Reviews Editor of PopImage. He hacked this out in a couple of hours.

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