Comics: British Project‑class

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To-do list for Wikipedia:WikiProject Comics/British comics work group: edit · history · watch · refresh · Updated 2008-08-13 Here are some tasks awaiting attention: Cleanup : More >> Expand : Ron Smith (artist) Infobox : More >> Stubs : More >> Other : Image or photo requests

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I dropped in a note on recent developments in British comics [1] following a few news reports on the growth of homegrown graphic novels and manga and was wondering if anyone had anything else to add? (Emperor 14:18, 23 October 2007 (UTC))[reply]

I've done an update but it might need a bit of tightening - I'll go back through it later and have a look at it with fresh eyes. What concerns me is that the references I added account for nearly all the inline citations which seems like it needs to be addressed - although most of the information does probably come from the books (and it is easier to source recent things) there are specific statements that probably need sourcing. I'll run through it at some and flag the bits that concern me. (Emperor 21:01, 12 November 2007 (UTC))[reply]

So what areas do people think need addressing? I think the main one is polishing up things like Eagle (comic) and looking into starting entries on some of the British girl's comics which were huge at the time but seem to have faded away. I've not yet watched Comics Britannia but one of the three episodes was on this area and could be a handy resource.

Anything else like earlier comics? We have some entries on the classic (and no reprinted) Golden Age characters like The Spider and the Steel Claw but there are many others. (Emperor 14:18, 23 October 2007 (UTC))[reply]

Hi. I am happy to crack on with aspects of British girls comics but am slightly wary of falling foul of questions of notability and of conflict of interest. I think there's clearly some interest in Jinty, Tammy, and Misty as the triumvirate of Fleetway girls comics with an edgier sensibility, and Bella is an important title though I know less about that. Should I perhaps initially look to doing an article specifically on girls comics rather than concentrating on the individual titles I know best? Also, on the conflict of interest front - those three Fleetway titles are the ones I've written about most, so is there a problem with that?

I also have a question on references. Various of the Wikipedia style / help pages I've read say that blogs are not good sources, for instance. However, something like Steve Holland's Bear Alley blog (http://bearalley.blogspot.com/) is surely allowable? And if so, what about less scholarly webpages such as Briony Coote's writing on 26pigs.com (http://www.26pigs.com/tammy/index.html)? Guidance would be helpful. Jenniscott (talk) 09:49, 15 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Blogs aren't viewed as reliable sources mainly due to their lack of reliability in the sciences and biographies. For our purposes they are slightly more reliable, since we use them to source opinion and facts we attribute to that blogger. Steve Holland is perfectly acceptable, he's an expert talking within his area of expertise. I'd argue you could say the same of Briony Coote, and I would be prepared to defend that on those grounds. It's a tricky question of judgement, and of arguing your case. If you cite and format properly, then really you can move the argument onto the nature of the information. Notability is, and probably always will be an issue. I tend to take the view that if you can present an article in the most encyclopedic way possible, conforming with footnote style and so on, and write three or four paragraphs minimum, all showing sources, you can usually avoid deletion in a deletion debate. But it is tricky and an area where the community is divided. Right now there's a move to create lists rather than single articles, but you're best bet is to just be bold, and see what happens. Myself and Emperor are pretty well versed in the ins and outs of how the rules play out, so give one of us a shout if you do hit major problems. Hope that helps. Hiding T 10:36, 15 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Yes indeed. One important thing to bear in mind is that the "rules" vary in how strictly they should be applied. Policy has little wiggle room but most are guidelines and there are exceptions to this but it is a good idea to discuss them before hand. So on your points:

• Blogs and forums can be used but it is wise to discuss them on a case-by-case basis. Newsarama uses forum software as a publishing medium (rather than use a more bespoke system) and is OK for using as references (it has a lot of interviews which can help satisfy WP:V). Equally I raised the issue of using creators blogs to reference their own thoughts on their creations with regard to inspiration, etc. and as long as we keep an eye on WP:BLP and avoid controversy then the consensus is they are OK (for example, I use D'Israeli's blog comments on Stickleback (comics) as he often prints annotations and a lot of background). Sooooooo while there are lots of comic blogs out there and we can't use most of them, but if there are experts who use blogs to publish in-depth pieces on topics then, as long as we have examined it beforehand, I can't see any reason we can't make use of them just because of the software that is used for publishing.
• On the conflict of interest: WP:EL is pretty strict on the fact that you can't link to your own material or sites you run and there is no wiggle room that I am aware of. However, there are easy ways to keep things moving forward and ensure we aren't losing useful resources - WP:COI has advise on this and the simplest way is to drop a note into the article's talk page with the relevant links, other editors can then look them over and see if they are worth adding and then they can add it in. Feel free to drop a note in here so it won't be overlooked and there isn't a big delay.
• I'd say expand Jinty, Misty and Tammy (quick note Jinty and Misty might need moving as the general disambiguation is "(comics)" but I know a number of British comics use "(comic)" so it might not be a big deal). General material on British girls comics can go in History of the British comic for now. I think an article on British girls comics could be very interesting but what we really need in the short term are is for the existing articles to be expanded and rounded out and the ones that don't exist (like Tammy and Bella) need starting. So I'd suggest focusing on those and we'll see how it goes. I have those on my watchlist so will keep an eye on things and while I don't know an awful lot about the topic I'll try and chip in on formatting and the like.

So that is my advice, it should be easy enough to make sure all the good resources get used to produce solid, well rounded and useful articles. Although not an expert I'm always happy to help where I can. (Emperor (talk) 12:09, 15 May 2008 (UTC))[reply]

Thanks to both of you, Hiding and Emperor. Much appreciated all round. I think I just might move Jinty and Misty right now to disambiguation (comics) as they're still pretty underdeveloped. It's not going to move all that fast but more on the slowly-but-surely pace... Jenniscott (talk) 10:14, 16 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

D'oh - also, where I said Bella above I meant Bunty, which already exists. Bella Barlow or Bella at the Bar would probably be a section within Tammy or John Armstrong (comics) I should think. Jenniscott (talk) 12:37, 16 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The main problem I've found with the slightly older generation of comic creators is that sourcing is a pain. I did OK with John Stokes (artist) but only because he keeps working away in the industry. That is where, I hope your expertise can come on ;) (Emperor (talk) 13:06, 16 May 2008 (UTC))[reply]

Yes I'm afraid most British comics are disambiguated to "(comic)" but that doesn't mean they should be but some (like 2000 AD (comic)) have a tonne of incoming links and moving them would create a lot of work fixing the links. That said Hiding has a bot that could be tasked to the job so it might not be such a bit problem after all. The exception seems to be Eagle (comic) as there are a lot of others in the field: Eagle (comics). There are an awful lot of articles out there that need some work (like David Lloyd (comic artist), John Ridgway (comic artist) and Tom Tully (comic writer)) - I may make it a mission to hunt them down and fix them. (Emperor (talk) 13:06, 16 May 2008 (UTC))[reply]

I need some input on a change I've made to some of the infobox templates. Specifically:

• ((Collectedarcbox))
• ((Infobox future comics))
• ((Supercbbox))

With these three I've added a logical operator to flip between US and non-US context. To the best of my knowledge, this only affects the colorist/colourist field. Is there anything else in the templates that would/should be affected?

Similarly, should the operator be added to ((Graphicnovelbox)) or any of the other generic 'boxes?

Thanks, - J Greb (talk) 16:18, 12 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Cheers. I would say yes graphic novel box.

What it does underline is a larger issue that I kicked around with Steve Block a few times. British comics are usually comics anthologies so you have stories running in titles and I am unsure the current structure really reflects this, e.g. we have Category: 2000 AD titles and while something like Judge Dredd is the equivalent to long running comic book titles, the title is actually 2000 AD and it is a story within it. Which might suggest ((Supercbbox)) isn't really infobox for comic stories or it needs something else like a field for the parent publication (as technically the published would be IPC/Rebellion and you'd need a... "published in" field to cope with anthologies. Given that there are a lot of them out there it might be worth adding something that allows it to work better with an anthology. The name does look increasingly clunky though and the potential for confusion is there as it is often used when it isn't about superheroes and isn't about comic books (that said a change to "comicsbox" is probbaly not worth doing at this stage). (Emperor (talk) 13:15, 16 May 2008 (UTC))[reply]

Fair points... and you may be interested in what's going on here. - J Greb (talk) 21:59, 16 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for that - I could have sworn I'd commented on that. I'll drop some thoughts in there. (Emperor (talk) 22:15, 16 May 2008 (UTC))[reply]

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Right now I'm going through Category:Comics images lacking original published source and sorting the images by work group. The British related images are at Category:Comics images lacking original published source/UK.

If it's ok, I'm going to ad this clean up to the "to do" list.

- J Greb (talk) 15:36, 14 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

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Because of the way it's written, volunteer editors writing about what they're interested in, Wikipedia's coverage of comics has an unavoidable bias towards the recent and the American. In an effort to get a bit more historical coverage of British comics, I've put together an Unofficial biographical dictionary of British comics in my user page, which takes the lead from proper biographical dictionaries by only including those no longer living.

I've included everyone I can find who has a known date of death, plus anyone with a known date of birth more than 100 years ago, and anyone without dates who worked in comics before 1930. There are a lot of redlinks, naturally, and I'm gradually compiling sources and writing articles for those who seem most important, most interesting and best sourced. Anyone like to give me a hand? --Nicknack009 (talk) 09:28, 29 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I realize this might be a little out there, but seeing as how comings are one of the most frequently adapted media... There's an RfC regarding a single-line chapter-to-episode section over in Oathkeeper, though it's mostly an RS issue. Any participation would be welcome. Darkfrog24 (talk) 01:41, 16 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

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I'm not sure how much of a going concern this project is but I would like to ask for the thoughts of any editors still interested in the topic at Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Tri-Man, where the discussion seems like it could greatly affect a variety of British comics pages. Thanks. BoomboxTestarossa (talk) 08:50, 1 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Because I have some plans to do some work on the AP/IPC/Fleetway side of things and I'd be interested in some thoughts but there doesn't seem to be much point in typing up an essay here if no-one checks it =) BoomboxTestarossa (talk) 21:08, 10 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

This groups still on my watchlist, so I'll check it. But I wouldnt consider this group active. Eopsid (talk) 21:52, 10 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the reply! =) That's a shame; obviously I'll continue editing as before, but it would have been nice to bounce some ideas off people; I'm especially interested in working on some way of finding a solution to providing medium-wide information about some of the oddities of the British industry (the predominance of anthologies, what annuals are, information on mergers, that sort of thing) rather than repeating information on so many individual pages. My fault for getting here late, I guess! BoomboxTestarossa (talk) 22:21, 10 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I'm also interested in improving the pages on British comics, count me in for ideas bouncing? Piskiekid (talk) 13:51, 11 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I'm also in for idea bouncing. I have a good few books on British comics that can be used as sources. Eopsid (talk) 16:38, 11 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@Eopsid@Piskiekid appreciate it! I have a few good sources myself, the problem sadly is time. Generally though I'm looking to try and get some uniformity into pages from the "anything goes" era of Wikipedia without hopefully losing any information. A lot of the pages for individual strips and characters are not that well sourced and in some cases sadly are likely to stay that way (e.g. Fuss Pot). I feel lists of stories for publications large enough to warrant them (e.g. List of Valiant stories) is a better chance of getting cumulative notability, and if in the future any individual strips that don't yet have their own entry reach critical mass it's easy enough to do that then; anything picked for the Treasury of British Comics, for example, seems to generate the necessary coverage. I've been picking around the edges of stuff like Miracleman, some Marvel UK and some other bits off and on, but like I say I'm trying to hone in on the Fleetway weeklies at the moment, as I have a few books on the subject to hand (not to mention life-endangeringly huge piles of yellowy disintegrating back issues!) and it gives a fair base to push off from for character and creator pages. BoomboxTestarossa (talk) 21:01, 11 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

As some of you may have been unfortunate enough to notice, I've been mucking with all sorts on the AP etc. comics articles and one thing I've noticed is they tend to reference small bits of shared company history, policies and other foibles but naturally only show a small bit of the companies' history, piecemeal. Likewise the same for the articles on the publishers, which also don't focus on the comics too much for perfectly sensible reasons. I have a real hankering to write an overall history of the comics, juvenile, whatever side, which has what I feel is a pretty clear lineage despite the changes of ownership, and feel it could be a useful 'master' article to cover the corporate changes, the events shared across multiple titles at different times (the move from story papers to comic strips, WW2 paper rationing, the various bedshittings whenever DC Thomson or Eagle scared the crap out of them, hatch match and dispatch, the general collapse of the industry in the 80s and 90s, Rebellion; maybe even glossary-style stuff on mergers and annuals which make sense to us but are batshit concepts for readers from other parts of the world) and so forth. Sourcing and notability shouldn't be too hard, there's actually a fair bit out there these days.

The only question I have is whether it would actually be encyclopaedic. That and what to call the damn thing. BoomboxTestarossa (talk) 18:00, 6 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Again, I've been working heavily on articles for various AP/Fleetway/IPC (Fleetway Eaglematic Harmsworthverse? No?) strips and one thought that pops up is how to handle the growing number of revivals in "in-universe" sections. Revivals of certain characters in pre-Rebellion 2000AD, Albion and Rebellion specials often contradict each other (indeed, The Vigilant seems to go out of its' way to annul Albion, which is fair enough as it was shit; ironically a lot of The Vigilant itself seems to have been unofficially binned off since the change in licencing gave Rebellion use of the characters people actually like), and there's no equivalent of a Marvel/DC editorial edict declaring this and that 'canon' or not 'canon'. There's perhaps a certain argument to be made for material by Rebellion (as owner of the characters, and seemingly on a much longer-term basis than - say - Wildstorm) being 'canon' due to being the latest adventures from the official publishers, but it doesn't feel like that's our call to make without some sort of statement to follow. I've toyed with subheadings but the problem is you spend a sentence explaining the premise of whatever revival you're talking about and then often only have about the same amount of actual summary, and I really try to avoid subheads for only a line or two.

So far I've simply been avoiding recounting the events of revivals in the in-universe sections, which has on occasion meant separating well-meaning stuff from around Albion's publication, something that illustrates the potential pitfalls as Albion didn't really go anywhere despite all the noise at the time. However, Rebellion do seem to be sticking at bringing out new material, which generates not just content but sources lovely lovely sources too, and I feel we could do with coming up with some way of handling it in case something like Paul Grist's Smash series becomes a regular thing.

BoomboxTestarossa (talk) 11:39, 28 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]