Kickstarting Comics: ‘ComicScene’ Magazine Returns For 2024

by Richard Bruton

Another comics magazine or a magazine about comics to get behind now as ComicScene brings you its second all-new issue, fresh for 2024 and funding right now on Kickstarter.

This is something to get behind, as it’s one very important aspect of any medium to have journals and magazines devoted to it – not to mention the fact that it’s all a darned good read!

And now, we have one more returning print magazine – ComicScene, currently funding the first issue of a new series on Kickstarter right now.

Put together by publisher/ed-in-chief Tony Foster, ComicScene originally launched in 2018 and ran for 20 issues in print and digital, both in Britain and international markets. And then Covid killed things stone dead for them.

However, there’s definitely a market for a good comics magazine with plenty of talented folks writing about all aspects of the comics medium. They’ve already successfully crowdfunded the very first return issue, the 2023 Yearbook, which was sent out to eager readers at the end of 2023.

Now it’s time for the first of three Kickstarter campaigns for three ComicScene issues in 2024 in an A5 squarebound format with a minimum of 64 pages for each one with extra content if they go past the target. The funds they’re aiming to raise are to provide cash to print the magazine and pay the contributors (as it should be).

Once this issue reaches target, every £300 it goes above will be put towards paying for the creation of a new strip. In the 2023 Yearbook, it was Steve White’s ligne claire-styled Tara Toggs. Here in the Spring issue #1 (2024), the plan is to have Ruby Tuesday by KekW and Charlie Gillespie debut with comic pages. The more you pledge, the more you get!

Extras on the Kickstarter include the chance to order copies of the 2023 Yearbook with plenty of comics articles on a wide-range of topics, including interviews with Aly Fell and Anna Morozova, John Mcshane on Bogie Man, Dean Simons on Belgian publisher Jean Dupuis and the story of Spirou, the newly-announced UK Comics Laureate Bobby Joseph, a column from Pat Mills, and Kevin O’Neill retrospective by Luke Williams. It also had the aforementioned comic debut of White’s Tara Toggs.

There’s also the chance to get hold of The AKA Zine 2000 AD Tapes, a zine featuring interviews with Brian Bolland, Dave Gibbons, Kevin O’Neill, Robin Smith, Richard Burton, and Mick McMahon. This is part of this issue of ComicScene celebrating 40 years of AKA Books and Comics, the famous Glasgow comic shop.