British Comic Book Industry Spotlight: Adam Vian Revisited

Way back in September the very first interview I conducted for the British Comic Book Industry Spotlight comprised of a series of emails between me and the talented artist Adam Vian, which you can view here. It was a brilliant interview and kick started the British Comic Book Industry Spotlight in exactly the right way. Recently, I was able to meet Adam face to face and I leapt at the opportunity for a more informal interview. Since our last interview Adam has continued to work in game design with SFB Games while also producing a larger Long Lost Lempi collection. Meeting Adam Vian I wanted to delve further into his life as a creator and what ultimately inspired him.

PL: Since we last talked, how has your year been going?

AV: Pretty good. I mean, I am juggling about fifty projects, trying to balance video design work with comic book work. I’ve got a couple of video game projects on the go. We’ve got funding for a mystery adventure game that I am writing at the moment and we recently released a big Halloween update for our game, Haunt The House. That’s honestly what I have been working on the most this year because Haunt The House is our most financially successful project. The last few months have been filled with designing updates and app store features. That is the number one way that I can try and make a salary so that has been a priority for us. Halloween was also a great time to get attention for our video game as the whole of the app store and steam are looking for great Halloween-related content. That’s what we have been focusing on and we’re done with that now. We’ve got a meeting with another publisher soon to further discus Detective Grimoire, a 2D puzzle platformer that we’ve been working on for some time. We went to Eurogamer earlier in the year and it went down very well even though it’s such early days. Hopefully we can make that for a console next year.

PL: How about you work in the world of comics?

AV: Comics-wise, I have been waiting to hear back about an anthology that I am in, but unfortunately it is being delayed. I think this happens to every single anthology in the whole world because there’s too many people involved and a small percentage of them will be late. That’s probably going to come out sometime in early 2016. In terms of new stuff this year, the Lempi book including all the material to date is pretty much it.

PL: Has the new book been received well?

People seem to really like the larger format as it feels a lot more substantial compared to anything I have produced before. I priced it at nine pounds, which I think is pretty fair. I tend to sell my comics quite cheaply because at most events like Thought Bubble and MCM you’ve got tonnes of people with a finite amount of money on them. There’s ten million other things they could buy so if you mark up your stuff too high you’ll make very few sales. To me it’s about getting the work out there and in front of people. It’s not the best way to make a profit, although some people do, I have never really worried about it and instead I have just said, this is my chance to get my comics in front of people. If I receive feedback that’s amazing, although it very rarely happens, especial if they happen to be press or a publisher, that’s a massive bonus. I try really hard to just get them out there and normally the printing costs and the sales balance themselves out.

PL: In the spotlight I am trying to examine the life of the creator, how easy or hard do you think it is to be a creator in the comic book industry particularly?

AV: I think in the comics industry, in small press particularly, it is very hard to make a living from that alone. I know a lot of really talented successful comic artists who are pretty well-known, way more well-known than me, and they still couldn’t say that they make a living from it. They still fall short of that, because even if you get a book published and distributed, which is something I haven’t had but I know people who have, it’s not life changing. There is no overnight success, unless you get incredibly lucky and your book ends up becoming well-known somehow. The end goal is still pretty humble. Getting published is one brick in a wall. I think it’s really hard to make a living from comics. Most people I know working in the medium are working out of passion and love for their art, no one goes into it looking for a fortune. There are ways to make money from art, such as my video game work which is a viable long term career path. Mainly because selling things digitally these days is cheaper and easier when compared to retail. The costs weigh you down and distribution is hard.

PL: How important would you say the MCM Comic book village and events like Thought Bubble are to you as a comic book creator?

AV: It’s amazing, just at the last convention people were coming up to me as friends. People from the community, artists, writers and creators of all types. It’s so good to be able to reach out to other creators and see how they are getting on, share news with them and discus ideas. Often creators are looking to share tips with each other and so a lot of these events can form into an educational scenario. It’s great just to walk around the comic village and see all the other people. So there’s all that side of it but the other side is the public. In terms of sales, it can be very hit and miss, printing is costly and hiring tables can be a high cost for an amateur. However, just getting your work out there to random people is the best feeling ever. Particularly at the London events, on Saturdays you just get floods of people all day long. All ages, all genders it’s fantastic to interact with such a wide audience. It’s a pretty unique opportunity and I think any creators in the industry should utilise it

PL: Would you describe the British comic book industry as growing?

AV: Yeah definitely, I think it’s pretty easy to see the growth of it just by looking back of the last couple of years. There’s been people coming out of the woodwork with bags of talent every year. The range of style and genre is constantly expanding. It’s a great period of growth as it’s truly creative. There’s a lot of mainstream press trying to look at the comic book industry at the moment and unfortunately the majority are disappointingly ignorant of the independent market. There is still a whole chunk of the population that think the entire medium is just the cape comics like DC and Marvel, but that’s just one tiny part of it. When you come to MCM or Thought Bubble, you see this amazing range of stuff. I just can’t wait to see what comes out.

PL: Finally, is there any of your recent work that you would like to tell our readers about?

AV: Well the main book I have out this year is Long Lost Lempi which is actually the culmination of a couple of years of work. It’s a kind of fairy tale adventure story about three friends who travel around meeting mermaids and genies and things. I really like traditional fairy tale fantasy but I also really like characters who just chat to each other with a down to earth level of humour, so in Lempi I’ve tried to mix them together. If you like the Moomins you’ll probably like it, it’s similar in a lot of ways but different in others. Also if anyone wants to buy my videos that would be fantastic and you can help pay my rent!

How can you get involved?

If you’re looking to pursue the industry it really is worth picking up Long Lost Lempi as it serves as a great example of the sort of esoteric work produced in the industry.

You can also follow Adam on Tumblr at: http://adamvian.tumblr.com/ and on Twitter at: @SFBDim.

If you want to locate your nearest convention try: http://www.mcmcomiccon.com and check out my article on London’s MCM Expo here.

Photography by William Shacklady