Transcription of interview conducted in person on 28 November 2014. Parts of this interview were used in Farthing, A. & Priego, E., (2016). ŌGraphic MedicineÕ as a Mental Health Information Resource: Insights from Comics Producers. The Comics Grid. 6(0), p.3. DOI: http://doi.org/10.16995/cg.74


STEPHEN LOWTHER, CATALOGUING LIBRARIAN AND EPHEMERA CURATOR AT THE WELLCOME LIBRARY

DOES THE WELLCOME LIBRARYÕS COMICS COLLECTION HAVE ANY RELATIONSHIP WITH THE DECISION OF THE WELLCOME TRUST TO PROVIDE FUNDING FOR THE GRAPHIC MEDICINE WEBSITE?
Collecting graphic novels and comics came out of Lalita Kaplish [web editor of wellcomelibrary.org] attending the 2010 Graphic Medicine conference. I didnÕt actually know anything about it until afterwards when she came back with a list of desiderata and started ordering. Generally speaking, I spend my day cataloguing. I also curate the libraryÕs printed medical ephemera collection. Ephemera Źis single-sheet items. Ours go back to 1578 (fragments of the "Almanach Meintzisch" almanac). Comics are of an ephemeral nature but the collections are arranged on format. ThatÕs how we divide things. ŹBack to Lalita. I noticed graphic novels coming through for cataloguing and found she had been to the conference and had been in contact with Ian Williams and Paul Gravett. People decided this was a valid type of material to be collecting. IÕm all for appealing to a wide variety of the public and comic books can appeal to a type of people who maybe wouldnÕt come into the library ordinarily but who are interested in the subject and how itÕs portrayed in the graphic novel format. Hopefully we will have a lot of other related material on the same subject for them to discover as well. ŹItÕs like a sprat to catch mackerel.

We have comics going into the exhibitions of course, especially the Wellcome Collection exhibitions. ŹParticularly the Superhuman exhibition we produced two years ago to coincide with the Olympics. We know these things are coming up so we can buy things in specifically that will interest people coming to the building. The current exhibition is Sexology so we have lots of stuff on sexology, sexuality, gender identity, whatever Š weÕve been building that up for a year. But for the Superhuman one, superheroes were the obvious choice. The theme was the human body enhanced by various means : chemical, mechanical, etc. This could just be as simple as a pair of glasses. So I suggested a whole load of things, got things in. There was a little display of comic books. Someone bitten by a spider and gaining its powers was as relative to this as were Dr OctopusÕs mechanical arms or Bruce Banner exposed to gamma radiation becoming a rampaging green giant. There was a little display for these. Additionally we have a series of Wellcome Insights talks that people volunteer to do, just linking it to something the library has or something Wellcome does. I did a comics and medicine talk and we were inundated with people wanting to come. ItÕs largely a PowerPoint presentation, with lots of images taken off the MyComicShop website in Texas Š they are probably one of the best in the world. Excellent stock and a comic-by-comic breakdown. OK, itÕs American stuff mostly but with American media dominating the world itÕs what people know. If you want French, Italian, Spanish, you need to look a bit further. I did the talk and got a fantastic reception. Time Out came and interviewed me for a lead article in the art section that week. The people who attended were generally young professional twentysomethings, people who had not been to Wellcome previously. Now we have this policy that, if there is any upcoming exhibition and I can do a talk linking comics to it, I do it. For Sexology, the scope is absolutely fantastically wide. I have already put a talk together. ItÕs going to be about 45 minutes Š around 100 images. WeÕre doing it more than once. I think it will be in the library viewing room and weÕre considering doing it at the Gosh! comics shop in Soho as well.

When the library was shut for the renovation recently, we did the outreach thing and went out to other places to give our talks. IÕve known Josh Palmano [owner of Gosh!] for years and they were very happy to produce the talk there and had very good facilities for show and tell. A lot of people came and, again, Źit went down extremely well. People didnÕt know about Wellcome necessarily, but said: well I have to go and see the library now and see the exhibitions. ItÕs outreach, getting our message across. ItÕs appealing to people who maybe wouldnÕt be attracted by dusty old tomes, things like that which they may consider dry, boring stuff. ItÕs a fun angle on the subject. Ź

Ephemera, my own area, is single-sheet items, advertising, educational information, for the general public, for the medical profession, promoting various drugs, information about disease, self-care, what to do when youÕre ill. Over a period of time, these things tell stories. Medical stamps Š itÕs conveying a message in something the size of a tiny postage stamp. Superb graphics, superb designs, in something just two centimetres by two centimetres. ItÕs got to be health-related, can be tongue in cheek. You donÕt know what theyÕre going to use for exhibitions but we suggest as broad a selection as we can. In the Sexology exhibition, thereÕs something called Tijuana Bibles, which were little, generally eight-page things about five centimetres by 10. And in eight pages you go from the set up scenario of seeing The Marx Brothers meeting a nubile young woman, then by page eight all three of them are having sex with her. And Mae West Š you canÕt do a sexology exhibition and not have Mae West in there! She hated these things apparently though. We bought ours from America. It was all valid stuff for the sexology exhibition. The guy who produced them was doing modern facsimiles as well and very kindly sent us an extra dozen or so modern reprints of them. ŹTheyÕre way out of copyright now. Tijuana bibles were small Źcomics often aimed at G.I.s abroad.

British comics Źgo back to Ally Sloper cartoons. Before that there were single cartoons making social or political comments. We have some of these in the prints and paintings iconographic collection. They were often some sort of graphic image of politicians of the day making a comment. This progressed to illustrated boysÕ papers with images accompanying text and then IÕm sure youÕre well aware itÕs gone from there. These things also came out in strips in the newspapers and then in America, DC put together Action Comics and that was that Š a new industry was born. Over here, The Dandy and Beano started about the same time. The comics industry has massive popular appeal. ItÕs things for kids to be reading and promotes literacy. Advertising uses them as well. You can have a little eight-page comic you give out free to kiddies and theyÕd lap it up, and you could convey a message with it. I mentioned the Spider-Man and Power Pack against child abuse. These things are scarce. Teen Titans against drug abuse, weÕve got two of the three editions of those. Ninja High School about sexually transmitted diseases, Death Talks About Life, thatÕs the Vertigo giveaway about AIDS from the 1980s. These were all used as promotional things, getting a message across. And then things like the issue of The Incredible Hulk where his friend Jim Wilson died of AIDS, which is very sensitively done. The are various things on our desiderata list like the issue of Alpha Flight where Northstar came out Š these days most groups have a gay character or two in there. We have the graphic novel collection of Archie ComicsÕ Kevin Keller who Źis the first gay character to have his own monthly series. And in this day and age itÕs just people donÕt blink an eye about it. Marvel Comics published an issue of Astonishing X-Men in 2012 with Northstar getting married. Virtually no media furore about it at all, it just happened. And Batwoman is a lesbian these days. ItÕs taking sexual orientation and bringing it into the mainstream media. ItÕs significant, so weÕve got these things.

Comics have changed tremendously over the years They were originally seen as a medium produced largely by men for boys of 10-15, 16, 17 Š Donald Duck and the rest apart. But in the late 60s, with the whole college scene, comics were adopted by the hippies. You had people like Jim Steranko and Neal Adams producing extremely innovative work, pushing the boundaries. Pop art was borrowing from comics for its imagery and there was a crossover there. You had a more adult type of person reading them as well as the kids so they were able to write more adult storylines, pushing the boundaries. There were three issues of Spider-Man with a drug storyline in late 1971, followed by two Green Lantern issues dealing with drugs. WeÕve got, I think, one of the Spider-Man, both the Green Lanterns. These were significant things Š drug addiction, medical themes. ŹThis is the type of collecting we do. The Spider-Man were deliberately published without the Comics Code Authority to get the message across to kids, that drugs are damaging, drugs can damage your health and even Spider-ManÕs against it. That was the start of something in a way. Later on you had Frank MillerÕs Dark Night Returns and there was Watchmen and Swamp Thing in the 80s sparking off the whole graphic novel thing. Will Eisner, OK, doing his own little thing as well Š ŹA Contract With God being the first formal graphic novel in English. But the French have been doing this for years. 

ARE THERE MORE FACTUAL MEDICAL COMICS?
Yes. We call some of these pathographies: peopleÕs accounts of their own suffering. Cancer tends to be a common subject. ŹMental health as well. This is what happened to me, this is my story Š I like drawing, IÕm not good with words but I can tell this story in pictures. So, yes, itÕs like factual stuff there. There was something published this year I think: Darwin. Again itÕs like a comic book version of DarwinÕs theories. And the medium has broadened out tremendously. The last 15-20 years or so IÕve heard a lot of women getting into it. Superheroes are aimed largely at boys. The images of women in that tend to be women with large breasts as sex objects which is obviously a turn off for women. ŹIt understandably doesnÕt appeal to them. Women have got into the industry, doing more what they want to, telling stories in a different way. ŹAnd the whole graphic novel scene these days, thereÕs never been so much variety. All sorts of things can be done. ItÕs just an entertainment medium like film, television, fiction. The graphic novel can tell anything anyway you want to. It can be factual, you can get messages across so much more effectively in a powerful image. People will take that in, in a way that they maybe wonÕt with just dull text. 

DO YOU KNOW IF THE COMICS GET USED MUCH HERE?
The graphic novels are all out on the shelves. It was decided to put anything that is fiction in with the historical collection. Non-fiction would go in with the medical collection, itÕs just the way itÕs set up here. ŹSo the graphic novels will be interspersed with the books and weÕve no idea what use people make of them. They are there if people want to use them. Anyone writing a thesis on a learned subject may Źwant images for it maybe. People do an exhibition, people are doing television programmes. ŹItÕs a different sort of material, itÕs visual. There might be an image in one of these which just says exactly what they want to say in their dissertation. ThereÕs that. The comic books are kept in closed access. ItÕs newsprint, theyÕre old, vulnerable, theyÕre kept in acid-free plastic sleeves in controlled temperatures in the stacks in darkness (unless anyoneÕs in there working). They are brought up to the rare materials room and used under careful supervision when requested. 

ItÕs entirely up to people what use they make of it. Once itÕs available through the catalogue we have no way of really monitoring what use is made of it. For certain exhibitions, people come to me as the person in charge of the Ephemera collection and ask, what have you got on such and such a topic? You donÕt expect comic books in an exhibition on sexology or something like that. Sort of: ŹHey, look! I remember them! It just gives a different angle to it, broadens the whole appeal out and thatÕs really the main thrust behind it, diversity, broadening things out.

DO COMICS, PAMPHLETS AND GRAPHIC NOVELS HAVE A COMMON ITEM OF METADATA THAT CAN BE FOUND IN ONE SEARCH OR WOULD YOU HAVE COMICS AND GRAPHIC NOVELS AND UNIQUE DESCRIPTIONS?
We divide things into comic books and graphic novels. A graphic novel is in book form. Single-issue comics will be in flimsy paper form. And obviously thereÕs a certain amount of crossover there. But for graphic novel I think: hardback, paperback, square bound Š OK something like the old Marvel annuals and reprints from the early 1960s, thatÕs square bound with 72 pages in them. Technically we could classify that as a book, there is a grey area in there. ThereÕs also how you store these things. ŹBooks stand up on the shelves, theyÕre a bit more robust, whereas pamphlets need a little bit more care. Originals can also have major commercial value, although often there are reprints. We had an issue of The Hulk for the exhibition for Superhuman Š I wanted something showing the transformation. Now the first issue of his own title from 1968 would have been perfect, but there was a Marvel Superheroes reprint for about £2.50, which did the business.

IS COPYRIGHT EVER A PROBLEM FOR EXHIBITIONS?
Copyright in the States is everything published within the last 50 years. ItÕs 70 or 75 years here in Britain Š things differ. But certainly America things are different hence all this recent reprinting of early Steve Ditko stuff as itÕs out of copyright. ŹSo theyÕre doing these books trawling through the 1950s as it becomes available in public domain. Over here, we have to go by the letter of the law. You can have stuff copied for private research but if you want to actually use it commercially for publication, you have to get clearance on that. ŹThe onus is on the user. Wellcome Images is our photo library and they would deal with the copyright issues more. We make stuff available, we buy it in, we collect Š this is what we do. Ź

WHERE DO YOU LOOK FOR VINTAGE MATERIAL?
30th Century Comics over in Putney. It is the place to go to for vintage comics, and certainly British vintage comics. TheyÕve cornered the market on that. They know their subject inside out, American stuff going back to the 40s, 30s, mostly Silver Age stuff, but a good selection of that. Some superb stuff. There are obviously comic marts, but a shop gives you permanent access to it. We take stuff in various grades and there are affordable grades out there. I mean some of the prices these days are just crazy. 30th Century are good at getting hold of stuff and they will let me know when they get stuff in. ThereÕs a whole shopping list with them. ŹWe donÕt have either of the Strip AIDS compilations, which we want in a big way. Alan MooreÕs AARGH, Artists Against Rampant Government Homophobia, which was a reaction against Margaret Thatcher bringing in Section 28, banning the promotion of homosexuality Š Moore took a stand and got this thing together. Large format magazine, and various big names in there Š we would like one of those. This gives an idea of what we collect. 

You keep your eyes on what is being produced Š thereÕs a lot of innovative stuff being produced at Image these days. We have the first issue of Sex, first issue of Sex Criminals. We have the issue of Saga with the beefcake alien cover Š for Sexology. If weÕve got to have things like Tomb Raider with women used as sex objects, letÕs have something with men used as sex objects. Fiona Staples, getting her own back there Š but just an incredibly erotic cover, really nicely done. Various things like the underground comix reaction to things Š drug culture, Fritz the Cat, weÕve a compilation of that. For sex in comics, IÕll start with BeardsleyÕs Lysistrata, which isnÕt too well bound, but anyway weÕve got one, which is like the boysÕ papers of the time: text with these erotic illustrations that we start with. This image of three 18th Century gentleman, these massively exaggerated erections there. It sort of goes on like that, but we start there.

COULD YOU DESCRIBE THE PROCESS OF CATALOGUING AND ADDING METADATA?
The catalogue department will professionally catalogue items when they come in. WeÕve been cataloguing in full RDA since April I think. We do it on a cooperative website called OCLC and we catalogue to the highest level on that, full records, full bibliographic description. We use MeSH subject headings primarily, which is the National Library of MedicineÕs medical subject headings, Library of Congress headings if things go beyond the core medical area. We also use the Barnard classification, which is particularly good for history of medicine. You can bring period out geographic areas into the shelfmark there. 

And other collections Š well, there was the open access collections, two of them there, closed access stuff, various collections going way back to Egyptian papyrus. A lot of it has numerical arrangements, one, two, three, four, five Š just for ease of retrieval more than anything else, but we still classify. So whereas the pamphlets are all arranged by numbers and effectively in chronological order as we acquire them, the records all have a class mark in them. 

If itÕs historical it will get a Barnard class mark. ŹIf itÕs not historical, just something published today then I give it a National Library of Medicine one. But we react to the subject content of it there. So if it is about drug abuse, then we will classify it with the drug abuse material. ŹIf there was a graphic novel about it, that would go with the other material on drug abuse. People go to the shelves, browse, they will see a whole range of stuff there. You get stuff aimed at the general public, self-help manuals, things like that. Stuff written in laymanÕs terms thatÕs on a totally different level to something aimed at the medical professional. For many comics versions, itÕs largely someoneÕs experience. ŹBut again, it may just be telling you something in simple terms. With images it can show you a lot of these things like how to give injections if you need to have insulin or something like that. A picture is worth a thousand words Š and that is true for a lot of things. It conveys an awful lot in it that words just donÕt. Someone reads a book, they have an image in their own head of what it looks like, which wonÕt be what the author intended precisely. Whereas if somebody has written and drawn the thing, we see exactly what the author intended so in a way itÕs a purer statement of the creatorÕs intention there. Ź

I think weÕve got about 300 records for comics and graphic novels altogether, thatÕs from the past four years. ItÕs something I keep an eye on regularly. Something like Bad Medicine, that came out and it was a case of: Źthis has been published it is core medical stuff. There was Harvest [published by Image] about organ donation and the black market in organs and things like that. ŹWe buy the first issue for exhibition and then you wait for the collection to come out. So you get the graphic novel for open display but you have the first issue or, if one of them has got a really nice cover that says an awful lot about what it is, then you get that as well. But we donÕt buy everything on a particular subject because thereÕs just so much being published, youÕve got be selective.

DO YOU EVER COLLECT SMALL-PRESS PUBLICATIONS?
You go into Gosh! comics shop and there is a whole wall of display of small press there. ItÕs not as easy to keep up with - whereas MyComicShop has a got a weekly ŌwhatÕs newÕ page showing everything thatÕs come out in the States in the English language. Small press is difficult. If weÕre aware of it and itÕs relevant then yes. Julia Scheele, who used to work at Gosh!, illustrated the first issue of Peckham House for Invalids comic, weÕve got that. But we would not buy a whole series of things. We would buy the first issue or the first one weÕre able to as a representative sample of this was done. And then if it is collected as a graphic novel, then OK, if we feel itÕs relevant weÕd get that as well.

SO YOU HAVE A GRAPHIC NOVEL COLLECTION BECAUSE ITÕS MORE PRACTICAL TO MANAGE IT?
Yes. ItÕs largely conservation. We have a conservation department here. ŹWeÕre very hot on books. ŹWe have books going back to the dawn of printing, manuscripts before that, we go back to Egyptian papyrus, palm leaf books from the Middle East and a fantastic array of material prints. We have paintings down there. ŹIf itÕs about medicine then well we have it as long as itÕs not an object. ŹSir Henry Wellcome was a fantastic collector, collected anything and everything, had teams of people out collecting for him and had warehouse upon warehouse of this material heÕd never even seen. ŹThe library came out of his book collection, paintings and things like that. Sir HenryÕs will stated this should be used and made available to the public. His money, managed by the Wellcome Trust, which was set up after his death, was to be used to promote education, medicine, funding of medical research and things like that, which to these days it is. So we collect all many different things but look after them carefully. ŹIf itÕs valuable stuff, fragile stuff or pre-1850 material itÕs kept in controlled atmospheric conditions in the stacks. There are basement stacks running the entire length of our two buildings on two floors. ŹThere are various closed stacks around this building as well. ŹItÕs all about conserving these things in ideal temperatures and conditions. ŹWeÕre lucky to have the Wellcome Trust funding, which means we can perform to a certain level other libraries are just not able to and we appreciate the privilege of that. ŹThe fact that you have guaranteed budgets for the year, though nothingÕs fully guaranteed for next year, means we can collect effectively and extensively. ŹOnce itÕs gone itÕs gone and you have to wait for October for the new one to come through. We have a wide variety of material some of which is flimsy material and needs to be treated with greater care than something which is more robust. ŹSo yeah thatÕs pamphlets and comics. There is a whole industry about putting things into acid-free bags, into boxes and keeping it in cool temperatures away from sunlight and whatever. A lot of the earlier stuff is printed on cheap newsprint which wonÕt last unless itÕs looked after. We have some things from the 1930s going brittle. It could just fall apart in your hands. Ź

IS IT A PROBLEM ESTABLISHING OR RECORDING AUTHORITIES?
ItÕs not a problem. ŹRDA says you can use the entire work for getting a title. ŹYou hone in on prominent text, usually the title page. ŹA comic book? Right, you have a choice: ŹAvengers #3, the title of the book is ŌThe AvengersÕ itÕs issue number three in the series. However it might have ŌThe Hulk and Sub-Mariner vs. the AvengersÕ on the cover, then on the splash page itself something like: ŌLet there be battleÕ, Stan Lee being very Shakespearean at times. So where do you take the title from? Where do you get your publishing information from? It may say January on the cover, with the indicia inside giving all the publishing information, saying whoÕs published it: Atlas magazines, Vista Publications. It doesnÕt say Marvel on the early ones. ŹSo you go through that, where itÕs published, issue three, January 1964 etc. These days you can use the entire work to get that information. So the way you could construct the title entry would be, main title: Avengers, subfield N, number 3, subfield P, Let there be battle - the title taken from the splash panel. ŹThen you can say: Źwell look, cover title varies: ŌThe Hulk and Sub-Mariner vs. the AvengersÕ and then you can put another, alternative, title entry in the record if you really wanted to go into detail. Something like a small-press thing where there may be virtually no publishing information at all, you just home in on what most resembles a title, thinking, how would people usually refer to this? 

Marvel Comics were very good on naming creators. ŹThey used the names of the creators largely as a marketing tool. Giving the impression that weÕre all in a big club and the reader is part of it - with us Š Jolly Jack and Smiling Stan, weÕre your mates. It worked phenomenally well. ThatÕs all part of their success story. Treat the kids as friends, the kids feel they belong to a something special and keep buying Źthe comics. Marvel started the naming, then DC began to do it. Sometimes, people sign their work, maybe someone who drew it. WeÕve no idea who the writer was in a lot of cases. You take information from where you can. On certain things you would know that is a Steve Ditko illustration because heÕs got such an obvious style Š the same with Kirby, Neal Adams, until all the imitators came along. But by that time everyone was being named anyway. ŹAnd these days people are named down to fine detail. RDA says we can name everybody. Previously it was the rule of three, three creators - and we didnÕt name any more. Traditionally the writer would go first and then the illustrator, you have things called relator terms which you add to the authority-controlled name. So that would be Kirby, Jack, born...diedÉ, then you would have this subfield E relator code Š subfield E: illustrator or artist. Or Stan Lee subfield E relator code: author. Of course, we could do the same for letterers, colourists. And if there isnÕt one available you donÕt have to put one in. ŹBut we can put tracings in for all these people. In the title statement weÕd have a title, then the statement of responsibility going in to subfield C of the 245 field. Your statement of responsibility: Written by Stan Lee, pencilled by Jack Kirby, inked by Dick Ayers - they didnÕt names colourists back in the early days. You could have statements within the record for everyone Š thatÕs perfectly permissible. Probably a corporate heading for Marvel Comics, subfield E relator code: issuing body, if you wanted. You get a lot more information in with this new RDA standard and our aim is to bring out everything of medical interest Źas thatÕs why we bought it. 

ENDS