The rise of AI has led to some bilge-filled books in recent years times, and now it’s becoming the bane of British comic fans interested in exploring the history of our medium.
Not only are fans having to suffer Substack articles by either drug-imbibing authors or aspiring trolls, that degenerate into inexplicable nonsense after a couple of paragraphs; they’re also being offered books published without any apparent sub-editing or fact checks that are so bad, Amazon is refunding buyers for their purchase.
A case in point is the recently released, independently published The Great British Comic Riot from Axon Press, written by “Inky Fingers”, which has a factual error on almost every page, not only assigning comics of yesteryear to the wrong publisher, but making up the names of strips they featured, too.
Worse still, the “author” cites a mix of both fictitious and genuine sources, the latter including Pat Mills and downthetubes, in an attempt to bring some levity’s to its inaccurate outpourings of bilious inanity.
Discussing specific strips, characters are wrongly identified, by name and profession, too. Tiger’s professional wrestler, Johnny Cougar, for example, is described as a motorcyclist!
Hopefully, before long, Amazon will introduce more checks on the books being independently published utilising their self publishing tools, but until then, we strongly advise you to avoid so-called publishers who provide limited samples of their work, and appear to have little or no web or social media presence.
Caveat emptor, buyer beware! That is, don’t buy it!
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John is the founder of downthetubes, launched in 1998. He is a comics and magazine editor, writer, and Press Officer for the Lakes International Comic Art Festival. He also runs Crucible Comic Press.
Working in British comics publishing since the 1980s, his credits include editor of titles such as Doctor Who Magazine and Overkill for Marvel UK, Babylon 5 Magazine, Star Trek Magazine, and its successor, Star Trek Explorer, and more. He also edited the comics anthology STRIP Magazine and edited several audio comics for ROK Comics; and has edited several comic collections and graphic novels, including volumes of “Charley’s War” and “Dan Dare”, and Hancock: The Lad Himself, by Stephen Walsh and Keith Page.
He’s the writer of comics such as Pilgrim: Secrets and Lies for B7 Comics; “Crucible”, a creator-owned project with 2000AD artist Smuzz; and “Death Duty” and “Skow Dogs”, with Dave Hailwood.
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