The UK comics scene was dominated in the mid 1970s by very similar people that kick around now. There were the fanzine editors, a couple of big, ebullient comics dealers and, on the periphery, a group of wannabe artists – encouraged by Barry Smith’s successes in the USA and frustrated by the lack of opportunity either side of the Atlantic. There was a group of people, around the latter part of 1976, who emerged from the rest and went on to make names for themselves in varying degrees in UK comics over the next twenty years. The most prominent was Dez Skinn, who is still thought of as the Stan Lee of British comics in many circles; there was also Richard Burton, Alan McKenzie, Mike Conroy, Alan Austin, Paul Neary, Bob Wakelin, George Barnett, Martin Lock and a few others who are probably wondering why I’ve left them out. Some of these people were fanzine editors who went onto edit national magazines, others were illustrators and in Mike Conroy and Alan Austin’s cases both ventured into retail while keeping their fingers in various creative pies, whether by whom they knew or what they knew. Austin produced the first incarnation of the UK Comics Book Price Guide in the 1970s, when it became apparent there was a market for speculation.

Others followed, but these were the first names to emerge from the very shallow pool of people who, with correct application, could or would become pivotal in the way comics have progressed. By the 1980s, names such as Moore and Davis, Gibbons, Gibson, Stokes, Ridgway and Bolland were followed by Morrison, Gaiman, Millar and Ellis, and the coming years will continue to produce new talents. People want to work in comics, whether as a creator or as an auxiliary contributor. But it was the 1970s that allowed this to happen. I’m not suggesting that a lot of these people wouldn’t have become successes if it hadn’t been for the 1970s, but it might have taken a lot longer and some may never have made it. It took one brave decision to change the face of British comics and that was Marvel’s decision to take Marvel UK away from the couple of production assistants who constituted the ‘editorial team’ overseeing Marvel UK’s reprint titles, and give it to Dez Skinn, who legitimised UK comics by being a dedicated fan who worked for a comics producing publisher – IPC. This is why he was christened the Stan Lee of British comics, because he changed the way we bought comics and turned a cheap entry point for new fans into a universe of its own – he turned substance into style. Arguably, he also killed the way British kids viewed comics and along with 2000 AD and a variety of cutting edge adventure comics, with creators such as Alan Grant, John Wagner and Pat Mills, they became more sophisticated and whetted the appetites of young comics readers to the even bigger world of American comics. In the days when we weren’t as entertained, this was like opening an Aladdin’s Cave – treasures beyond belief for the inquisitive and imaginative mind.

The influx of US product that had been growing in the years before Skinn took over Marvel UK had meant that the UK comics industry was being squeezed by the response. I wasn’t the only kid scouring Northampton in 1975 for either US Marvels or DCs – anything, even the romance comics would be enough, because it sang ‘universe’ at you and mankind loves the concept of understanding the universe, and hey, if you can’t understand this one, you might be able to understand another one. British comics needed something positive to happen to them, especially as the comics reading public were becoming more and more aware of these funky American comics which cost roughly the same but had entire stories in them, none of this serialised crap. Yeah, we’d all seen them and owned a few, but they were mainly ones with 6cents on them and mostly drawn by some guy called Kirby. British comics needed to counter this and it did by inventing its own Marvel UK universe that sat next to the real one – a great entry point and a bonus to all those lovers of the cent variety.

By the time this happened, I was long gone from comics. The thing is as a fanzine editor who was always mixing with the big boys, had I been available and in the right places, I could maybe have achieved something, especially as there appeared to be a lot of money being thrown around. But I was doing ‘A’ levels and I lived in Northampton, which in 1978/79 might as well have been in Scotland to this 16 year old. So while all these people I knew were advancing and becoming icons and making a good living, I was being me in various locations around the country. I’m pretty sure that had I been in London I could have got a job as teaboy or copy assistant and at least planted myself in there at a time when Britain was making more noise than the US – which explains why so many Brits end up saving the arses of the two big publishers.

I hope the above doesn’t sound mawkish or full of self-pity, it certainly wasn’t meant to be. I have no regrets nor do feel like I’ve missed an opportunity; for every Dez Skinn there’s a Nigel Ballock. For every Dave Gibbons there’s a Paul Killinger. For every Alan Moore there’s a Graeme Bassett. I’ve been luckier than most and at least I have an ego the size of a planet that helps temper the fact that in 20 years time I’ll be remembered as fondly as Mike Cruden. Even if I’m arrogant enough to think I don’t get the credit I deserve, I can be pretty proud of the little achievements I’ve had and the fact for a good 13 years I earned a living from it. I’ve won an award and for a short period of time, I created and edited probably the best, most rounded, comic book magazine of all time. [I’m probably going to be regarded as big-headed and deluded by many after that statement, but if someone famous releases something new and says they think it’s the best thing they’ve ever done, no one would batter an eye (and many would probably think they’re wrong), so I don’t see what’s wrong with me having that opinion, even if everyone who disagrees with me is wrong!] I’ve also achieved a lot of other things in my life that maybe would never have happened had I been in the right place at the right age.

What worries me, and when I say worries me, it’s actually more like a fleeting interest because it sits well with the rest of this column, is for the current crop of wannabe creators who are knocking on the door but haven’t been widely received yet. I think wanting to get into comics is a fucking ridiculous ambition; it has got to be as difficult to achieve as working for NASA or playing professional football, which, come to think of it, is probably a damned sight easier. In reality.

The only people who make money from comics are: the publisher, the creative teams, the editors, the administration departments, anyone else who works for the publisher; we won’t include printing because unless you happen to be a comics fan and work at one of the few printers then you really should buy a lottery ticket; next comes the distributor, then the retailer and the 2^nd hand/back issue dealer probably trails in last. Now, I’m sure that some of the really popular comics websites make some money from advertising, but they’re largely done for love and adulation. The only anomaly is the people who work for and get paid by Wizard and any other comics magazine that pays a staff. Getting a job at a place like this, when you’re a fan, is also as rare as rocking horse shit.

I know some people who have aspired to do just that; aware that they have no chance of becoming the next Alan Moore; they set their sights on the next best thing, the chance to earn a living from their hobby. During a period when all was rosy and cosy at Comics International, this rumour came out of nowhere saying that Dez Skinn had fired me and within a few hours of one particular person hearing it he phoned up CI, I answered the phone and he still wanted to speak to Dez plus, just to make it even more bizarre, he then proceeded to solicit for my job. I sat there looking at Dez with a weird frown on my face and he was just shrugging and assuring the person that he was not just saying what he was saying because I was in the room and there would be no point in calling him back when I’d gone home. The man was almost rabid about getting into some aspect of comics, even if it meant screwing me over to work in a dingy basement in North Finchley with the comicbook equivalent of the Kevin Spacey character from the film Swimming with Sharks.

I wonder what people who run websites want to ultimately achieve? I really should ask Glenn and Craig this question; why do they do it, why do it when there are so many others doing it, trying for those unique hits; so many alternatives; so little chance of getting any credit or even appreciation, no real chance of becoming a dot.com millionaire, less chance of being spotted by a comics company and offered a cool job in marketing or editorial. I remember a prominent comics guy telling me that when he was editor in chief at Marvel during the 1970s that they had interns (people who work for nothing for job experience) who weren’t the slightest bit interested in comics, yet, to put it in a more varied and interesting way, there were fans who would have walked 30 miles barefoot over broken glass just to put matchsticks in the shit of the commissioning editors of Marvel or DC. Don’t you think that’s a little extreme, even if comics are your favouritist thing in the whole wide world?

I’m here and do this because I like writing, I get a bit fed up with the only writing I do now relates to either work or how pissed off I am with something in the world. I actually deleted my blog because I just couldn’t see the point in it any more – it just seemed like an exercise in futility, which is what this column might ultimately be if I can’t get back to the point.

I spend a lot of time bemoaning certain things about my involvement with comics and yes, I do bang on about things like I’m trying to ram the idea that I was someone down peoples throats, but the reason I keep coming back to it is because I’ve always had something to say about it and it's always taught me something, whether it's about comics or myself. Indulge me a little more, would you?

I remember the first American comic I ever bought like it was yesterday; in fact my most vivid memories of when I was between 10 and 14 are all comics related and most specifically places I’ve found rare treasures. Swamp Thing #1 was bought from a spinner rack in Don Staniforth’s The Newsagents on Hood Road in Daventry about four months after it came out in the USA. I remember vividly that it was just getting dark and I was on my home from school. My first US Marvel comic was Fantastic Four #137, I bought it from a kind of newsstand booth in a place called Billing Aquadrome, situated here in sunny Northampton, the most prominent memory of that is the smell of candyfloss. There was this time in Rhyl, North Wales, when on a cold and windy July day, I trudged around this seaside town bored shitless when we happened upon this horrible little indoor market; again the pre-eminent memory was of this musty smell, like a mixture between incense and B.O. It was quite overpowering, but it disappeared when I found this box with a stack of 12 and 15 cent Marvels; Amazing Spider-Man, The X-Men, The Fantastic Four, Thor and loads of others, all in absolutely pristine mint condition. The guy was selling them for 10p each and my mum only let me have 10 instead of all 36 of them, because I’d been a little twot for most of the day. I knew then that these were worth a lot more money than 10p each and I was gutted we never went back.

I remember my first comic marts and vivid recollections of the first two comic conventions I attended – it always seemed to involve getting drunk and doing something stupid in Rock Star styled behaviour. At the Bloomsbury Centre hotel’s bash in 1978 it involved throwing a TV out of the hotel window, while a year later I got so obliterated at the NEC that even though I managed to catch the last train home, instead of getting out at Northampton, I ended up in Bletchley (3 stops further down the line) and got a £30 taxi home, and in 1979 that was a lot of dosh! My parents weren’t best pleased about that, I can tell you.

Returning to comics after about 8 years away shagging and living la dolce vita, there was so much more variety and I discovered independents, new creators and the magic was born again. I decided in 1989 that I was going to open my own comics shop and I did it. Regardless of the ensuing debt and poverty, it was an experience I’m glad happened. Meeting Dez Skinn again proved to be a good move and thanks to some people with long memories, I found myself back in almost the same position as I was when I was rubbing shoulders with the wannabes from the 1970s, except this time I ended up getting the big break. It doesn’t matter that for 50% of the time I worked at Comics International I would have gladly buried my boss alive in his own faeces, the other 50% of the time was fucking fantastic. I, for the most part, got some free comics, the chance to meet the people who were constantly shaping my life and there were the all expenses paid trips to UK conventions; I even went to San Diego, but was made to pay for that treat, when we were there and for about the last 14 years.

Pete Ashton once asked me why do I keep coming back; if I’m so bitter and twisted about how I’ve been wronged or misunderstood, why do I constantly bang on the door asking to be let back in? It’s probably because, ego aside, I quite like it. I’ve always been able to treat it a little bit like it is, a bit of a fantasy. The Phil Hall of the comics world is in part a creation of the salesman in me, part a creation of Dez Skinn’s, because he sensed the desire to be successful in me long before I was even aware of it and made sure I’d never be as popular as him. The last bit is my grandmother; she was a volatile psychopath who would have violently killed you in cold blood if you so much as said a negative thing about her children or her grandchildren. Mild mannered Phil Hall, social worker by day, actually turns into Psycho Phil Hall, arsehole of the Internet and attacker of the innocent by night. It served its purpose and for a few years I was affectionately known as Dez’s Pit bull. If there was a fight to be had it was done in my name and I can’t sit here and whinge about that because I was as culpable as Dez for allowing him to hide behind me when he wanted to have a rant or shout at someone.

It was also fun, because without realising it, I was becoming known amongst the comics community and of course when they met me in person I was actually a bit of a pussycat and they soon forgot that I’d either called them or acted like an arsehole or a wanker in a previous communication.

I doubt there’s a comparative interest that exploits the fans as much as comics have. Yet the thing that is incredible is it wouldn’t be so bad if the major comics companies were actually run by people who care about the entire industry, but since the early 1990s they’re just run by accountants and money men who have either never been shown the positives of fandom, or are so Scrooge-like that they want your money but they don’t want anything else. Even since the Internet explosion, comics publishers still employ press and publicity departments, which is surely the best job to have in comics because they don’t actually have to do anything because YOU do it for them.

There’s one more important thing. I’ve never really had a desire to write comics. I’ve had ideas, but I’ve actually hardly ever put them down on paper or if I have, they’ve never really developed into a thing resembling a script. I come up with, what I think are good plots, but that’s as far as I’ve really ever gone. I’ve really enjoyed writing about comics, but that’s it. Throwing brickbats is easier than receiving them. Therefore, like many others, I’m here and was here in a purely finite position; there is no sky’s the limit scenario for the guy or girl who does the work that many others, who get paid to do it, should be doing. There is no adulation and adoration, no guest star status at a comics convention; there is just you spending your time working free for an industry that doesn’t give a shit about you, but is bloody glad you’re there all the same.

…I warn you now, occasionally over the next couple of months, I’m going to talk about some other things – not comics related. I know this is a comics website, but you do have other interests and beliefs, don’t you?

Phil Hall