Transcription of interview conducted in person on 28 November 2014. Parts of this interview were used in Farthing, A. & Priego, E., (2016). ÔGraphic 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 CHLOE PURSEY, EDITORIAL DIRECTOR AT PANEL NINE, A COMPANY THAT DEVELOPED THE SEQUENTIAL DIGITAL COMICS APP. CAN YOU DESCRIBE WHAT DISTINGUISHES SEQUENTIALÕS APPROACH TO COMICS FROM OTHER DIGITAL PLATFORMS? The thing that we set out to do was to set up a platform for the more literary graphic novels, rather than superheroes, which seems to be the main thrust of most main platforms. Not that thereÕs anything wrong with superheroes, but there are already many platforms for that Ð ComiXology being the most obvious one. And we came from an area where, to draw a print analogy, we would rather find our books in the Ôgraphic novelsÕ section of Waterstones than go into a comics shop. I think comics shops can be off-putting to people who arenÕt used to comics or havenÕt grown up with them. People who may have only read one graphic novel in their life Ð maybe something like Persepolis Ð but donÕt know where to go to find more, so they might feel that comics may not be for them. Comics shops and other mainstream comics platforms can seem like a closed world and they donÕt know how to break into it if theyÕve only read one thing. We wanted to make a slightly more grown-up, sophisticated, curated area where people could find really good things to read that just happen to be in the comics medium. An area where theyÕd feel comfortable that if theyÕd read one thing, they would like the other things that are available there. I have nothing against comics shops, they do really great jobs Ð especially Gosh!, theyÕre doing a particularly good job. Personally, I donÕt really feel comfortable in traditional comics shops where you have to walk past racks and racks of X-Men to get to what you want Ð you just donÕt really know where to go. People use the word ÔcomicsÕ like itÕs a small genre, but when you start reading, you realise itÕs not a genre at all, itÕs a medium that contains multiple genres, one of which is superheroes. You can read anything in the comics format Ð but then, how do you find it? A lot of people around my age didnÕt grow up with comics, so then youÕre coming at it with no prior knowledge. I knew boys at school who were into X-Men and all the Marvel and DC stuff. But by the time I was a child, all those comics from the Sixties and Seventies that were aimed at girls were gone, so I never had anything like that at all. My background is childrenÕs book publishing and I fell into comics through a job rather than personal interest. I moved to Japan in 2011 and I started to work for a digital publisher there that just happened to start publishing comics and then produced Sequential. Before we started experimenting with the software that would become the comics platform, I hadnÕt read much. IÕd only read the odd thing Ð like Persepolis, someone gave me that as a present and I thought it was great. IÕd never read anything like it before, but I didnÕt know what to do after that. It never occurred to me that there might be all these other things out there. So it wasnÕt until it was a professional necessity that I started reading other things. I studied philosophy and theology at university and I never came across any comics related to my academic subjects, or even thought that there might be anything like that, but I know now that there are some. Recently, I came across the Introduction To Philosophy by NBM and I wish IÕd had that when I was studying, even at A Level, as theyÕre such brilliant learning tools. Ê There is market research to show the growth of digital comics, and the growth has been huge since the launch of the iPad. There were digital comics before, of course, but they were browser based and youÕd read them on a computer. But most of the growth has been put down to the iPad as itÕs a totally different reading experience to reading on a computer. Reading on an iPadÕs totally different to reading on a computer Ð itÕs very different physically. When you are at a computer, youÕre hunched over and your posture is terrible, youÕre thrust forward, itÕs a tense position to be in. When youÕve got an iPad, youÕre leaning back and youÕre a bit more relaxed and youÕre a bit more ready to be entertained, rather than feeling youÕre at work. Sequential was launched by Panel NineÕs president Russell Willis, who used to publish comics fanzines in the Eighties, which featured Alan Moore, Posy Simmonds and Eddie Campbell. Then he moved to Tokyo about 25 years ago and started a software-development company. I joined the company when they were doing a lot of ELT [English Language Teaching] material for the Japanese market Ð including Oxford University Press publications. WeÕd been playing around with all these different reading platforms, and Russell suddenly thought ÔIÕve always been interested in comics, and IÕve got developers working on software that would be perfect for that sort of thingÕ, so he married the two. So itÕs not necessarily a cold, hard business decision to do this, it was quite a labour of love for Russell, I think. HOW IMPORTANT IS IT FOR DIGITAL COMICS TO HAVE EXCLUSIVE CONTENT OR FUNCTIONALITY THATÕS ONLY AVAILABLE IN THAT FORMAT? I think thatÕs something people are still trying to work out. There are several routes you can go down with digital comics. You can do a straightforward print to digital conversion and the vast majority of digital comics use that. ItÕs obviously the simplest: youÕve got a publisher who already has print-ready Êfiles and you just want to make them available for somebody to read in a different format. A lot of people who read digitally, comics or otherwise, do it because itÕs convenient. They donÕt want to give up the shelf space with a printed copy. Or theyÕve got an iPad or tablet in their bag for their bus journey to work and they donÕt want to carry a book around as well. They just want to flit between reading something and browsing on the internet or social media or whatever. So a big part of it is just that convenience that a digital product allows Ð itÕs got no heft, itÕs purchasable at the touch of a button, you can get it wherever you are in the world from whatever platform you are using. Having said that, you canÕt completely ignore the possibilities that digital allows, and from there you could go to all sorts of places. IÕm sure you are aware of the amazing things that web comics are doing. Sequential tries to enhance graphic novels where possible and where we feel it really does enhance them. Personally, I think itÕs all about the comic itself and itÕs really stupid to lump all of it into one category. It depends on the story, it depends on the artwork, it depends on how the comic is being put together. So when people ask something like ÔDo you think motion comics are a good idea?Õ, the answer totally depends on the comic. Some things make amazing motion comics, some things make amazing web comics, some things are best page by page, in a traditional format. You shouldnÕt add bells and whistles to something just because youÕve got the ability. WhatÕs the point if you are just going to ruin it? Sometimes the story just shines through and thatÕs all you need. It can be irritating, especially motion bits and pieces Ð if youÕre just trying to read a good story you donÕt necessarily want things to be buzzing around knocking about in front of you. The approach that we take when we put out enhanced digital comics is that we run them like a directorÕs cut, like the DVD extras. So we would leave a story and comics pages pretty much exactly as they are, but you would put in interviews, sketches and audio commentaries, pop-up pages that can overlay the finished artwork with a sketch or the inks, or the various stages of the artwork so you can see those stages. But the reader has control over whether they want to access those features or not. So I think those kind of things do enhance in certain areas. I just think itÕs a mistake to assume that whatÕs good for one is good for another. ARE YOU INTERACTING WITH ANY ACADEMIC INSTITUTIONS, UNIVERSITIES OR LIBRARIES? ItÕs not something weÕve acted on, but we have thought it might be an interesting thing to pursue somewhere down the line. From the beginning, we did build code-functionality into Sequential. So Sequential is an IOS app, but weÕve got a backend that can generate all sorts of different codes that can have time limits on them Ð so weÕve got the functionality to put in a subscription-based, lending-library option. We could, technically, sell in-bulk purchases to institutions, so x amount of copies for this price, or one code that you can give out to x number of students, or individual codes for individual students Ð thereÕs a lot of flexibility for them and they can be time specific or not, so you can buy copies and distribute codes to your students or you can distribute codes that will only give access to certain books for a month, or something like that. We put that functionality in so that we would have freedom down the line if an opportunity presented itself, but itÕs not something thatÕs gone any further. It is a little bit harder than that, though Ð we work with so many different publishers and many different artists, so the content is not ours to do with as we wish. There would have to be some kind of agreement where everyone was happy for that specific content to be used in that way. ItÕs not something weÕve thought about in too much detail but itÕs something IÕd be interested in, certainly. HOW WILL THE TECHNOLOGY DEVELOP? I come from book publishing and I remember when I started work, there was no digital stuff, apart from weÕd do some CD-ROMs every now and again. That was only 10 years ago, so to have gone from a world where there was very little digital Ð there was some digital in very constrained forms, but you didnÕt have anything like the Kindle or people reading things online in any meaningful way Ð to now where almost everyone has got a digital format. ItÕs kind of amazing, but itÕs still really early days. People think all the stuff is so sophisticated and everyone knows exactly what they are doing, but itÕs not the case at all. I think everyone in publishing Ð in comics and everywhere else Ð is a bit nervous about digital. Even people who work in digital donÕt know where it is going: you donÕt know whatÕs going to happen to the hardware or the software platforms. You look at stuff five years ago and itÕs so hopelessly out of date and youÕre constantly thinking about how to make things backwards compatible, forwards compatible, how youÕre going to need to upgrade your software. And because itÕs such a new world and such a fast-changing world, thereÕs a lot of uncertainty. It makes it very exciting as well, but it means thereÕs no consensus about how digital publishing is going to work. HOW DO COMICS CREATORS REACT TO DIGITAL TECHNOLOGY? So for the comics creators, itÕs a real mixed bag. There are some people who wholeheartedly embrace digital and theyÕve got sections on their website where you can download their stuff, theyÕre on our platform, on ComiXology or wherever else Ð and got printed versions of their stuff as well. There are some very well known creators who are against digital Ð Dan Clowes, for example. But because comics is a very small world Ð itÕs a very niche market, no one makes very much money in comics, apart from those big hitters Ð I think people just want to get exposure. Most people donÕt really mind where it comes from, so theyÕre really happy if someone discovers their work in a digital platform, theyÕre really happy if someone discovers their work in print form Ð they might have a slight bias towards one or the other, but generally itÕs about getting more people to read your work. It tends to only be those very well-known comics creators who decide they donÕt want to have their work done on digital because they can afford to Ð they can afford to say ÔI can turn my nose up at digital, I hate it, everything should be done on paper.Õ DO YOU GO TO COMICS CONVENTIONS? ItÕs a massive part. ItÕs quite a small industry and there is quite a tight-knit comics community of creators, publishers and so on. And itÕs really lovely, because everyone is such good friends and everyone is so nice. You go to these events and see people who are really lovely and it is a really big part of the comics world. And being digital-only is a little bit tricky at those kind of events, but I go to them when I can. We donÕt have a presence there in the same way as a creator or a small-press publisher, who would normally have a table with all their stuff set up and theyÕd be talking to the punters and trying to get them to buy things and drawing things. We canÕt really replicate that, we have talked about Ð and we might try this next year Ð having a table and having a few iPads set up on Bouncepad displays so people can have a look and browse through things. Then we might just give them a card with a QR code or the app URL, and maybe a free download. We might do something like that but, up until now, weÕve tried to go down the route where weÕll offer some sponsorship to the event so that weÕve got a little bit of brand awareness there. For example, we were one of the sponsors at the Lakes International Comic Art Festival, so we have the back page of the programme and various other things. And we were sponsoring the British Comic Awards this year Ð trying to remind people that weÕre around, but we donÕt have as big a physical presence in those kind of events just because thereÕs no real physical product. HOW DID YOU GET INVOLVED WITH THE COMICS UNMASKED EXHIBITION AT THE BRITISH LIBRARY? I think itÕs being part of that small comics community. We worked really hard to make Comics Unmasked happen, but we were lucky in that we already knew Paul Gravett and heÕd said if they were going to have something digital they wanted to work with Sequential, as weÕre doing the best digital stuff out there. They wanted to have some kind of digital element, so we started talking to them right at the beginning when Paul and John Harris Dunning were starting to plan it. I went to meet with them and we talked about what it could be. I suggested having the full versions of selected comics from the exhibition for people to browse through. I love the British Library and I think all its exhibitions are fantastic, although one thing IÕd always find frustrating is that youÕve got one spread of the book behind a glass, the spread the curator has chosen, and thatÕs all you can see. That can be a bit frustrating sometimes because you go ÔWow, what a cool book! I wonder whatÕs on the next page?Õ but youÕve got no way of knowing. So we wanted a way for people to be able to experience the whole book, so you see a page from From Hell or whatever it is and you can sit down and you can read as much or as little as you want to. We selected 15 comics and graphic novels that were on display in the exhibition and worked with Rebellion who publish 2000 AD and all the other various publishers whose works we selected to put up full versions. And it worked really well Ð every time I went, there would be people clustered around the display iPads and people sitting down and really getting into it. IÕd walk round the exhibition and come back 10 minutes later and it would be the same person sitting down 30 pages further in, really getting into the story, which was really nice to see. Ê COMICS CONFERENCES, EVEN ACADEMIC ONES, STILL SEEM TO HAVE THE FEELING OF A COMICS CONVENTION. HOW DO YOU INTERACT WITH THAT? ItÕs actually difficult, from a personal perspective. You go to these events Ð it might be something like the Lakes festival, I havenÕt been to any of the really big ones Ð and sometimes itÕs quite hard to remember thatÕs actually your work environment because everyone is so friendly and thereÕs a bit of a down-the-pub atmosphere. So at the Lakes festival, I kept bumping into people I knew and having a bit of a chat Ð it was all really lovely and you think ÔOh, that was actually work!Õ One reason for that is Ð and IÕve never really thought about this before Ð comics isnÕt a lot of peopleÕs job so they do it in their free time for the love of it, which helps foster that kind of environment. Everyone is genuinely good friends and everyone really likes the social aspect of it because, for a lot of people, itÕs something they do for enjoyment, rather than their work. So you never get that formal kind of conference environment with comics really because for most people, even small press people, theyÕve got their day job and then theyÕve got their comics. So when they go to comics events, it is a really nice social thing to do. I think sometimes people might forget they are supposed to be making money out of it, maybe because itÕs so difficult. IF YOU DIDNÕT COME INTO THE COMICS WORLD AS A FAN, ARE YOU ONE NOW? Well I am a fan, I have lots of books that IÕve read that I thought were really great. I think, going back to what I said earlier, and there are a lot of people who will disagree with me on this, I personally think itÕs quite tricky to say ÔIÕm a comics fanÕ or ÔIÕm not a comics fanÕ, because some are really brilliant and some are awful. ItÕs just like books Ð you donÕt really say ÔOh I like booksÕ, because itÕs such a ridiculous generalisation that itÕs meaningless. YouÕd never list that as one of the things you youÕre into because you would be a little more specific. So I do really like some comics and if I stop working in the industry, I will certainly carry on reading some that I find interesting. But IÕd scrutinise the back cover, or read a review before I read things. I wouldnÕt want to read it just because itÕs a comic, I donÕt think that guarantees anything. But having said that, I very rarely read comics for pleasure at the moment Ð thatÕs only because I work with them all day, so at the end of the day I want to go home and pick up a big novel. I read a lot at work, so I feel like I fulfil my quota. And so much of my job is overseeing the production processes to convert something from print to digital, or source files to be compatible with our software, I find it really difficult to read a comic without running through the process in my mind. So IÕll find myself thinking ÔOh the panel layout there is really difficult in that page formatÕ. ItÕs quite hard to switch off because IÕm always mentally doing my job when reading. CAN YOU BRIEFLY OUTLINE YOUR PRODUCTION PROCESS? The majority of stuff that we put out on Sequential has been printed, or will be printed, on paper. So normally we would receive printers files, or equivalent, from the publisher or the artist. Then we re-lay all of our pages to make them look better on the iPad than they would otherwise. Quite often, if you look at a printed page, you might have quite wide margins at the top and bottom, you might have folios or page numbers very close to the bottom. We feel you shouldnÕt necessarily take those pages and just whack them on to the iPad, because if youÕve got lots of extra white space or blank pages because of the pagination of the printed book, why carry them over to the digital format when itÕs not going to look good on an iPad screen? So we would re-lay everything so each comics page is nicely positioned for the screen dimensions. If you just put a page on wholesale, you might end up with the actual comics frames being quite small and almost illegible, because the space is used up with all this extra stuff that you donÕt really need. I take out blank pages, unless theyÕre there for some particular narrative effect. Then, we convert to various file formats, so you can view them on Retina and non-Retina iPads, and you can also double-tap on a panel to zoom into a high-resolution image, which for a Retina iPad is four times the screen size. So youÕve got various things going: the large hi-res images when you double tap to zoom into, the pages you swipe through, a chapter list file where you list the content, there are thumbnails because weÕve got a visual contents and bookmarks system, thereÕs a main menu which is created separately, which is essentially the front cover, sometimes you do ÔaboutÕ screens and ÔcreditsÕ screens , there might be a back cover, extra information. And then thereÕs the storefront where we display the books and where theyÕll be bought from, so thereÕll be various images that go into that Ð preview pages, front cover, thumbnails of different sizes depending on where you see that book cover. WeÕve got a database that contains all that information that feeds through to the app from the backend, stuff that you have to do to sell via iTunes Connect, which is AppleÕs backend system for apps and in-app purchases. I missed out the vital thing where you actually build the books Ð our web developers created a special tool where you build it. I test everything very thoroughly, so IÕll have a special development version where I test the book before it is actually released. ThereÕs quite a lengthy production process. DO YOU CREATE YOUR OWN METADATA OR RELY ON PUBLISHERS? Some publishers are better at sending metadata than others. WeÕve got various types of information that we always like to have, from the publisher website or it might be available elsewhere. So weÕve always have the back cover blurb, the preview pages, the cover, author information. And we have a page for each creator with a little bio and their picture, and the same for each publisher so you can see their logo and bio. And we have a minimum of three reviews for each book Ð sometimes theyÕll be from the publisherÕs website, sometimes we source them from elsewhere. Most of the stuff is pretty similar to what youÕd find on the publisherÕs website or the creatorÕs website, maybe with a few bits added. HOW DO YOU CATEGORISE CONTENT? WOULD YOU CONSIDER A GRAPHIC MEDICINE SECTION? At the moment our categories are quite general, theyÕre more genres than anything as specific as that. But we wouldnÕt be against having a category like that, it would be interesting. We donÕt have one at the moment because there arenÕt enough relevant titles, we need to have a certain amount. The way it works is, I have quite a good knowledge about everything that weÕre releasing, so IÕll sometimes stop and think whether enough stuff has been added in the past few months to make a viable category. If it has, then weÕll add it in, but if there hasnÕt, IÕll make a note that weÕve got a certain amount and to look out for more in the future. DO YOU HAVE A TAXONOMY? I wouldnÕt say it was a formalised as that. WeÕve got all of the bits listed in the database and theyÕre grouped in various ways. COULD SEQUENTIAL BECOME A PUBLISHER? We do publish things. Sequential is owned by Panel Nine, and if you look under publishers on Sequential, youÕll see Panel Nine on there and thatÕs all the stuff weÕve published. ThereÕs not an awful lot of stuff, as we only publish something when we really want to and normally it will be one of the expanded versions that I mentioned earlier, which take a bit more time to put together. WeÕve taken quite a few creator-owned or out-of-print works and supplemented them with various extras. So, for example, the first one we did is Dapper John: In the Days of the Ace Rock 'n' Roll Club, which is old Eddie Campbell strips from before heÕd really had anything published. We did an interview with Eddie and he sent us loads of sketches, so itÕs got all those kind of things. We did one for Kickback by David Lloyd where he did a commentary. And the most recent one is Strange Embrace, David HineÕs horror comic, which has got hundreds of pages of extras because we put in all his original scripts, old cover images, artwork sketches, an interview and pop-up pages where you can see original panel sketches overlaid on the final page artwork. WeÕre putting out some small-press creator-owned stuff, too Ð stuff that had previously been published by a small-press publisher, or creator-owned stuff that would be the equivalent of being self-published, where weÕre not publishing it but working directly with the creator to put out their stuff. IS THE THING THAT DISTINGUISHES SEQUENTIAL THE FACT THAT ITÕS NOT JUST FOR COMMITTED COMICS ENTHUSIASTS? WeÕre definitely still a place for comics fans, but they might find something a bit different, or find that different thing more easily than they would on another platform. But also for people who wouldnÕt otherwise think they were interested in that type of thing. ÊAnd weÕre trying to make really good-quality, interesting, beautifully produced graphic novels available to more people. And more easily available Ð not everyone will find themselves in a shop like Gosh!, but anyone who has an iPad can download the app for free. And we put a lot of free content on there, so people can get used to the reading experience, see what the app is all about and then buy the odd graphic novel as well. ThereÕs no one else doing what weÕre doing in the UK. You have Comixology, who are so massive, and obviously they sell digital comics, but weÕre not really doing the same stuff and weÕd never try to compete with them. They do have a significant presence in the UK but theyÕre a US company. I donÕt think thereÕs anyone else doing that smaller, carefully curated content. I read on a website the other day that someone called us a Ôboutique comics appÕ which I really liked! ItÕs supposed to be a place where you can come and browse and youÕll always find something that will interest you. Every time I go into Gosh! Comics in London, I always pick up something that I think ÔWow, that looks amazing.Õ Rather than having to wade through all this other stuff, desperately looking for something, but I donÕt really know what. I think something that a lot of people donÕt realise is, Sequential is very small as weÕve only been going for just over a year. So weÕre only just beginning and still experimenting with the best ways to make digital comics available to our readers. WeÕre trying to work out what people like, what they donÕt like, how popular those extra features are, where theyÕre necessary, where theyÕre not. WeÕre still experimenting with the software, and weÕre going to bring out a new version next year which will have various extra features. ENDS