Time was, back in the Nineties, comics editors who had a writing slot to fill on a mandated company owned comic would institute something of a foot race. Theyd contact several writers at once and ask them to write detailed pitches for the book. Sometimes it paid, sometimes it didnt.

I remember taking part in these on three occasions, back when I was a newish writer.

I remember being asked to pitch for a mooted BLACK PANTHER 2099 book at Marvel. The book actually never happened at all. I imagine none of the pitches were up to snuff, and they just killed the idea. I dimly remember mine being a sort of terrifying Fear Of A Black Planet/Huey P Newton thing, with Black Panther Cells run from Marvels fictional African country Wakanda destabilising corporate-run America. I think I used some of the stuff in there for my later DOOM 2099 sequence. I wasnt happy at doing the foot race: I got paid, and my foot hadnt been in the door that long, and I supposed this was just the way things were done. But I had a feeling that maybe it wasnt the best way to do things.

I also took part in a run-off for a BLADE comics series. You didnt always find out whom you were in competition with, but this time Id discovered that I was running against my good friend Ian Edginton. It was awkward, but we had a teddibly English gentlemens-manners thing about the whole situation, and I was delighted for him when he got the book. Also slightly irritated, because I could have used the money, and as corporate jobs go it had some potential for fun and advancement. But Id obviously rather the gig go to a friend if it had to go to anyone but me. I remember that Ian ran into problems on the book straight away. And a few months later the editor phoned me and asked me if Id take over the book.

I was young, and arrogant, and a bit of a prick, and I said to him, No. You should have got it right the first time. Which was offensive on a number of levels, not least to poor Ian, who did not deserve the inference. But I didnt get anywhere without having a degree of security in my own talent. And I was pissed off.

The third foot-race I did was for HELLBLAZER. My guts got in the way of my head. I wanted to write that book. I wanted a place to do British social fiction and work out a fusion of the British crime and mystery traditions, and, hell, I liked the idea of working on a property whose lineage included Alan Moore and Jamie Delano and Garth Ennis. They are all greater than I am, by miles, and the little ego demon in my gut said you want this.

They gave the book to Eddie Campbell. Which led to a comedy moment of me finishing up in a Glasgow urinal and Eddie, drunk off his arse, lurching into the room, seeing me, and staggering back saying youre not going to hit me, are you? Eddie f**king Campbell. I still recall, quite vividly, the first time I read Eddies work, and my entire conception of comics to that point changing in sixty seconds. Like I was going to complain about Eddie Campbell getting a gig over me.

A few months later, the editor phoned me and asked me if Id take over the book.

And I said to him and I considered that editor a good friend No. You should have got it right the first time.

Because, well, see above. But also: what happened to the idea of thinking of a writer you like, and approaching that writer, and working things out with that writer? If you need to put a body on a corporate-owned book, do you really want to do that in such a way that breeds several kinds of resentment at once? Starting with the resentment born of having to knife-fight your peers for scraps in front of the landlords table?

So I said No, and I said No in a way that people would remember. And probably talk about, since this is comics. I dont recall getting invited to any more foot races. But Id relatively quickly worked to the point Id wanted to get to, where I could generate my own material and survive on it. Of course, being in comics, I talked to people too, and it seemed like this method was going away. I wasnt about to take credit for it, but I liked not having to shout at people anymore.

(It still happened in videogames. I listened to long spiels by at least two producers of major game franchises, asked them how many writers they were talking to, and then told them that when they wanted me to write for them, Id take their calls. Because I am older and hopefully less arrogant but, lets face it, still a bit of a prick.)

Things did change in the 2000 2010 space. (And when editors came to me with corporate gigs, they came because they wanted to talk to me.) But you know what? Im hearing a lot lately about writers being put into foot races on gigs. And not only do they not know who else is running for the job but many of them seem not to be told theyre in a foot race at all. Writers who assumed they were writing the gig are being told that they never had the gig at all, that other writers have been run parallel to them. Even though they were put through multiple drafts. They didnt know they were in competition.

Not only are they fostering a creative condition where even Eddie f**king Campbell cant triumph, but they are finding new and interesting ways to piss off more people than theyre hiring. Now, comics has no shortage of resentful people – but do you really want to create exponentially more? People who can identify the exact individuals who f**ked them over, and wait?

Commercial comics can be enough of a snakepit even in relatively benign times. But bringing back a process both demeaning and creatively inferior, and just f**king lying to people about it? I dont like what that says about the next cycle in the field. I guess the Nineties really are coming back.

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On July 9, I made my sole public post on Google+.  It reads:

Dear 1000 people who have added me to their circles apparently overnight: very kind of you to think of me, but the system is just not fine-grained enough yet to let me sort through you effectively. So I have to declare Google+ bankruptcy. Sorry.

Also none of you invoked me in the approved manner, which requires a bottle of whisky, ritual drumming, fire, two chickens, a bucket of eels and a nurse.

Neil Gaiman copied the post to his own account, and then deleted his account a couple of days later.  Totally understandable.  That little red notification button going off in Gmail every sixty seconds can get a bit maddening.  I just took a look at Google+.  Since I posted this, another 4000 people have added me to their circles.  Its an interesting service, but its nigh impossible to find the people I actually know or am interested in within the flood of faces.  And the relevancy system is, um, not very good.  In fact, I summed my experience of that up as:

SCIENCE: I am actually probably not that good at it.  But I have the lab coat regardless.  And they cannot have it back.

Robots of Brixton from Kibwe Tavares on Vimeo.

ABERRANT NECROPOLIS has been published.

A collection of the photography of Ellen Rogers. I wrote the foreword. You can learn more about it here. You can order it here.

Gardens and open settings feature often in Ellen’s images. Drifting figures seemingly captured preparatory to some sky ritual or midnight mass. Women overcome by the laudanum languor of a decadent life, drinking in the electromagnetic fields of sacred sites. Perhaps bit players in an Aleister Crowley performance. Seen smokily through time and space, reaching some alternate Biba moment, or a private film made in a world where Kenneth Grant could make a scene like Kenneth Anger, art direction by Austin Osman Spare…

Greg Rucka & Rick Burchetts webcomic LADY SABRE AND THE PIRATES OF THE INEFFABLE AETHER has launched, at ineffableaether.com.

I am not attending San Diego Comic-Con this year. People keepasking me that for some reason.

Met with the excellent Alex Garcia of Legendary Pictures to talk about GRAVEL. Also other interesting people. Also saw Ewan McGregor tied up a lot, doubtless fueling future gigabytes of fantasy fapfiction on the last two remaining LiveJournal accounts in existence.

Just proofed the first issue of SECRET AVENGERS, with art by Jamie McKelvie.

I am mostly off Twitter, not using Google+, in my Zone Of Seclusion and writing and planning and writing and writing and writing.

Further details will follow on her facebook page.

Work completed last week:

First draft of film treatment job codename INVISIBLE ZATOICHI: written and filed

SVK released in first print run of 3500: sold out

(people whose SVK unit didnt work? email shop@berglondon.com)

Locked artist for fifth episode of SECRET AVENGERS run: done

Returning to work and remaining mostly offline: going

HERE: when there is NEWS or CONTENT

TUMBLR: the gathering of THINGS

FACEBOOK: NOTES and "QUERIES and also TUMBLR

SVK is sold out.

Please get on the mailing list at getSVK.com for further announcements.

#SVKcomic

For posterity: the BERG crew watching the SVK sales counter.

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