Out of curiosity, should there not be either some declarations of self-interest or some restrictions on people creating/editing articles that directly relate to them? I know it makes it a bit of a pain in the arse, but the alternative is for this place to descend into being free advertising for anyone willing to sign up and edit the relevant articles...

I don't think there's any need to worry about that, at least not at this stage. To begin with, as there's only a handful of editors, we just need to share what we know, and as most of the artists and comics we'll be writing about are in the small press, rather than well-known figures with lots of reliably citable sources written about them, probably our best chance of accurate, comprehensive information of for people to write/edit their own articles. Maybe if this wiki becomes huge and popular we'll need to start thinking about reliability and conflicts of interest, but for now I'd just worry about gathering information.

I see Kyle's point and while I agree this is a small wiki on small [but growing] subject, and its maybe not a major worry at this point, the whole point of wikis is to present information not editorial content/opinion. Also there are several irish cartoonists who don't work within the irish comics scene and while its great to add information on what they are involved with I feel people should be careful how much information is added for organizations, groups, comics, people who aren't Irish or part of the irish comics scene - don't want to be nit picking and of course there is going to be alot of overlap but it is an irish comics wiki and theres nothing stopping linking to other wikis that deal with say the uk small press scene.

I agree with Patrick and Cliodhna and Kyle!

At the moment, I think gathering information is the priority. Hopefully, the wiki will grow to represent all levels of activity in Irish comics, both its community and individuals. Everybody benefits from providing information about their comics.

Editing will come second. On the one hand, I'm not sure we need worry about it too much; after all the point of a wiki is that it harnesses our collective knowledge. (Well, not mine. I don't know anything.)

On the other hand, at this early stage, we need to make sure the wiki stays focussed on Irish comics. Access to editing priviledges is limited at the moment, but at some stage we will probably open it out. At that point, we'll need to have a sit down - and probably a pint - and work out how to deal with conflicts of interest.

Final point: in the interest of maintaining high quality information on the wiki, if contributors could refrain from aggressive self-promotion/back-biting, well that would be excellent.

Hi all,

(new to this),just a suggestion, can I say that this place should focus on Irish Comics only, as if we be aggressive enough with our talents as DC and Marvel were in the beginning you never know what could happen. Llets start by promoting our own home grown talented artists and writers first and others later. :)

Hi Dave, welcome to the wiki, hope your spelling is better then mine lol. The focus of the wiki is Irish comics only but there are Irish comic artists who don't work in Ireland. They are still Irish and still comic artists so they should be included in this wiki while keeping an eye on how much information is added that might not be directly relevant to Irish Comics - for example irish artists Declan Shalvey is making a comic for Classical comics which is a Bristish publisher, I would be ok with having a page for his version of Frankenstein but not a page for all the other Classical Comics nor a page for Classical comics itself, does the make sense?

I agree with that. For example, I've made pages for Preacher and Hitman, which Garth Ennis originated, but not for Hellblazer or the Punisher, which he worked on but didn't have a hand in creating.

exactly like having a page for "Bob Byrnes twisted tales" that appear in 2000AD but not a page for 2000AD itself [but linking to either the wikipedia entry to 2000AD or the 2000AD website, or both on the twisted tales page]

Hmm....I also considered a page on Irish Times and internationally syndicated political cartoonist Martyn Turner. The bulk of Martyn's work was on the Troubles from a Southern Irish based perspective, though he was raised in England. What do youse reckon ? A Turner page ?

I think while I was putting together TRS2, with Ulsterman Barr, and Irish Robbins, we formed one of the more significant hubs of British smallpress comics in that period. Alls intertwines, links should aplenty. As for information gathering and a pint, sounds good. Dave, can you confirm or deny that you're the David Houston associated with The Dark (and other publications from that era I don't recall the names of at present) And are Dave and D Star are the same person ?

I'd be inclined to include Martyn Turner (and I'd already put his name in the list, but hadn't got round to making an article for him). He lives in Ireland, his work is published in Ireland on Irish subjects, and according to Wikipedia he studied at Queen's, has a granny from Belfast and holds an Irish passport, so he's more than an honorary Irishman. I don't think we should hold being born in England against him.

Still on the subject of who's Irish, I notice we've had a couple of Irish-American artists added. How do people feel about that? Personally, I'm not overly keen - most discussion of English language comics is about American artists, and I'd prefer to keep this wiki differently focused. If we are to include Irish-Americans, we need to decide where to draw the line. George McManus and Percy Crosby were first generation American, and their parents were immigrants from Ireland - I certainly wouldn't want to get any further removed from Ireland than that. Anyone else have any thoughts?

Patrick, I would agree with you on drawing a line and I wouldn't go any further (than Yellow Kid). BUT that said I believe Gavin's info is valid.

Here's a question for you guys, and it's important I get opinions! I have been working with someone for a very long time and he's a consultant, artist etc., he's been a driving force (behind the scenes) for an Irish comic, but he's NOT Irish, can he be listed or not?

I've reading through this venture and one question popped into my head concerning 'Irish Publishers and Studios', would it be wise to have a sub folder in there; the main containing active Publishers & Studios and the sub containing the past ones?

I don't think you can do sub-folders, unfortunately. As for your consultant/artist chap, my feeling is we probably shouldn't have an article on him, but he should get a full write-up in the article about the comic he works on. Does that sound reasonable?

I agree with with Patrick - information and links to website/blog can be added to the page about the comic he works on. Right now I feel the wiki should be focused on Irish and northern irish born cartoonists or people who are full time residents in either the republic of Ireland or northern Ireland and are making significant contributions to the local comics scene.

Patrick regarding the inclusion of Irish-american artists I feel unless they are releasing material directly for the irish market they shouldn't be included. As you've said there is enough information out there for american mainstream and indie press. Its a massive gray area, that could become messy trying to draw a line as to who should and shouldn't be included so its prob best to not include any.

I'm not sure what you mean by "directly for the Irish market". That could be interpreted as meaning Irish small-press only, which I think is too restrictive. Is, for example, The Acid Bath Case, created by an Irish writer and a half-Irish, half-Danish artist but published by an American company via the essentially American direct market, "material [published] directly for the Irish market"? I would say not, but I think it would be unreasonable to exclude it. Same goes for Garth Ennis's work for 2000AD, DC and Marvel, all the way back to Jack Yeats' strips for UK comics. I think the remit should include any comics done by Irish people. The only quibble is who counts as Irish. David Sandlin was born in Belfast but moved to the States as a child. He's included, I think rightly. George McManus was born in America to Irish parents. That's only slightly further removed than Sandlin, and is - probably - a reasonable inclusion. But, to pull a couple of of examples out of the air at random, James O'Barr and Becky Cloonan likely have more distant Irish ancestry based on their names, but no actual personal connection to Ireland that I know of, so it wouldn't be reasonable to include them.

Ok that wasn't pharsed the best - What I meant by directly for the irish market was in regards to artists who were not born anywhere on the island of ireland, don't live anywhere on the island of Ireland, or who don't hold citizenship [David Sandlin would fall under citizenship as he doesn't have an american passport, he still has a british passport and he was 16 moving to the US hardly a child] but claim to be Irish [as far to many blood americans do] shouldn't be inlcuded unless their work has more of a connection to something Irish other then them saying they are Irish. It's prob more of a pet peeve with me as I'm stuck listening to people at american comic shows tell me they are Irish and then give me their comics about living with hipsters in Brooklyn. I personally feel if you want to include work by americans who are a generation or several removed then their work should show influence from their Irish heritage, I'm not taking about in being full of sterotypical irish shamrocks and bullshit but it should show some connection.

For example I went to an Irish rock festival last week just off time square. All the bands playing were made up of americans who were at least several generations away from being irish [and I'm pretty sure most couldn't find Ireland on a map and the one person there who'd actually been to Ireland was French Canadian] Some of the bands just said they were Irish and played rubbish sterotypical rock covers by U2 and the like but some of the bands got up and played some good rock music but included a guy on the tin whistle or one guy playing Bodhrán during a cover of Bonny M's Rasputin - to me thats being influenced by your heritage without just going for the obvious sterotype. I'm not sure if I'm making my point clearly at all but sure we can just work on a case by case bases and maybe when we get a chance for everyone to meet up for pint/cup of tea we can have a big hash out of the finer details.

Born within the confines of the Island sounds logical to me, but if they wanna claim citizen ship they can do it by meeting at the bar and downing a full pint of the BLACK, that will do it for me! ; )

What do people think of those that have contributed to the Irish comic scene even though they're immigrants or students etc to Ireland. I know one lad I went to college with who published his first comic here but isn't Irish! And I have worked with someone for many years on my comic and he's not Irish but has been a behind-the-scenes contributor. I think there are probably more and they deserve some sort of recognition. I think we shouldn't be afraid to write some sort of recognition for their contributions just because their nationality isn't irish. Maybe within the page of the studio or company etc they worked for. What do you think?

Yeah, I think that's fair.