Maltese comics anthology takes flight

"Careful planning, time management and all-nighters." If this sounds anything like your university days, you'd be halfway there.

But it's actually what local comic book creators Daniela Attard and Audrianne Degiorgio single out as prerequisites for launching an all-Maltese comic book anthology, which is what the young duo did, roping in a group of (all female) amateur creators to help them put together Pilot - a graphic novel featuring a number of vignette stories and artwork by different artists, launched last weekend at the Malta Comic Con, held at St James Cavalier, Valletta.

The 128-pager contains six short comic book stories - as well additional standalone illustrations - all based around the theme of 'steampunk', an increasingly popular fiction genre that fuses science fiction into a Victorian-era aesthetic.

An independent initiative, Pilot was partially funded by the Malta Arts Fund, and is currently on sale at €15, although any profit gained from sales will go towards an upcoming anthology, according to the artists.

"Most of these artists are actually students, all of which are eager and hard working, ready to dedicate their time and effort to produce some great comic art," Degiorgio said.

However, the whole process was made possible thanks to the fact that the artist were willing to band together to create the graphic novel - a logical step for such a pioneering project, particularly in the Maltese context, where both awareness and resources tend to be on the slim side.

"There is a very big problem that needs to be tackled by the creators themselves; it involves the habit of having a sole creator creating one-offs and/or long stories by themselves without co-working with other like-minded artists and/or writers. This creates a number of problems; a comic artist can hardly work alone at times as it might be time consuming to create a solo book. It will not encourage mutual collaborations of works with others and eventually the work itself might grow weak by time," Attard said - also mentioning how the motivation of self-motivated creators might easily run dry once it's faced with the realities of having to finance their own work.

 "Comic book artists in Malta have to work very hard if they are to produce work of a good international standard... it would be easier for Maltese comic artists to succeed if they manage to spread their work internationally, and this should be done in a strategic manner with a good business plan, like any other product that is launched in the market," Attard added.

The anthology itself is, however, proof enough that a certain amount of untapped raw potential is in fact out there.

"There is great potential on the island at the moment, and having decent comics around in the near future is definitely a realistic possibility, I think. We hope that Pilot is proof of this fact. We have picked the very best out of the options we had as we value the quality of the artwork as much as the story it carries," Degiorgio said.

Although steampunk may be the overriding genre for the anthology, Pilot encompasses a variety of styles... although the team were stricter when it came to the even more ubiquitous Japanese - or 'manga' - milieu.

"While searching for comic artists to participate in  the anthology, we made sure that the works every individual produces has a distinctive or an unusual style. We have just one comic which is heavily influenced by the manga style, despite it being so popular everywhere else. But the particular entry was seen to be so well executed that we accepted it immediately," Degiorgio said.

To order a copy of Pilot, send an email to [email protected].