CREATOR SPOTLIGHT vol.5 | THE PAPER JAM COMICS COLLECTIVE Welcome back! This week I’ve been chatting to a group of creative folks very close to my own heart. Back in 2007, I started running little after-hours meetings at the Travelling Man branch in Newcastle for comic fans to get together and hang out. I had no idea the amount of energy, enthusiasm, creativity and sheer raw talent that was about to blow up around me, nor the amazing opportunities that would come along with it. We put on launch events with live bands and free cake, curated exhibitions, hosted and appeared at talks, ran stalls at fairs and cons, facilitated comics workshops and probably most noteworthy, collaborated! In my case, with some of my favourite artists and people, many of whom I’m proud to still call friends even though I had to step away from Paper Jam five or so years ago and now live in Leeds! If you’re thinking of making comics and are based in the North East, this is the group for you. From day one, Paper Jam has been entirely non-profit, self-sustaining and for the community, by the community. I feel so lucky to have been at the helm for part of their journey and so excited that new folks are still picking up a pen and keeping the PJCC alive and well. With sixteen collaborative, open-door anthologies under their belt, and a seventeenth on the way, it is my pleasure to present this little interview with the group (paraphrased by Paper Jam day-one veteran Alex). Can you tell the folks at home a little bit about who you are? We’re the Paper Jam Comics Collective: long-running, open-to-all, Newcastle-based, small-press-comic-making group. We meet monthly, make themed comic anthologies together as a group and support each other in our own art and comic projects. What are you guys working on at the moment? We’ve recently released our latest anthology, Weird Romance …And That (tackling themes of weirdness and romance and how weird romance is), and are gearing up for our next one, which is probably going to be a bit spooky. We were also recently awarded a 'Maker of Merit' ribbon at science/tech/craft mega-event Maker Faire for our DIY ethos (and Paul's incredible random-comic-page-layout-drawing-lego-robot), which is, like, the first thing we've ever won, and was a lovely surprise. How would you summarise the mission statement of Paper Jam? Comics is an accessible intuitive medium and our ethos is that everyone has the capacity to make comics, regardless of artistic finesse. We’re all for people developing artistic finesse, and hopefully we can help and encourage each other to develop, but we’re really passionate about people just getting stuck in and making comics, and our anthologies feature all kinds of creators, from professional artists to folk who’ve never drawn a comic before. Then we just try and sell enough of the previous comics to pay to print the next one! What has influenced the various directions Paper Jam has gone with its output over the years? One of the nice things about the collective is that everyone has different influences – pick pretty much any form of sequential art and someone in the collective will be passionate about it! So when we select a theme for a new anthology, we get a broad range of responses, tackling the topic in all kinds of different ways. The group is the sum of our many parts and we're influenced by each other - so all members of Paper Jam, past and present, have had an influence on the collective (not least our founder, a certain Jack Fallows!) Aw shucks! Do you have a message for anyone out there thinking of dipping their toe into comics and/or self-publishing? Find like-minded people and make comics – that’s the simple idea that has kept Paper Jam going since 2007. The benefits are myriad: mutual support, finding collaborators, sharing advice, sharing tables at events, group projects (often more achievable: that twenty-odd page comic you’re working on yourself may be intimidating, but doing a couple of pages for the next anthology, YOU CAN DEFINITELY DO THAT), reaching new audiences, promoting the medium, having fun and making friends with awesome people. Where can people see more from the PJCC? Online, our blog http://paperjamcomics.blogspot.co.uk/ and our online shop http://paperjamcomics.bigcartel.com/ - or we’ve almost always got comics in the small press section of Travelling Man Newcastle. Also, we're on: Twitter: @PaperJamCC and have a facebook group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/79607431805/ Thank you to Alex and all Paper Jammers! More next week.