User talk:Jenniscott

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Welcome to Wikipedia!

I noticed you were new, or at least that nobody has officially welcomed you yet, so let me be the first to say hello, give you some tips, and share a few useful links.

One thing we like to tell newcomers is to be bold. By this we mean don't be afraid to join the rest of us in improving the articles you see here. Most Wikipedians are friendly and patient, willing to give you the same respect you give them, no matter who they are or how long they've been here.

It's important to note, however, that being bold does not include being reckless. For that reason, some newcomers find that it's good to be cautious at first. If you're the type who likes to start out small and learn the ropes by fixing typos or just browsing, that's good, too. It certainly helps to avoid conflicts with other users if you learn the ins and outs before making major changes. If it's a big edit or a controversial issue, you may want to look at the article's talk page to see if the issue has been discussed in the past, or to post a message to see what other editors think about your proposed change before you make it. It's important to cite references and set personal points of view aside.

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I hope this information is useful to you, and I'm looking forward to seeing your contributions. If you have any questions, feel free to contact me for help. Kafziel 23:17, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

Contents

[edit] British comics

Thanks for the Pat Mills photo and it is good to see someone interested in improving the British girls comics as it is an area we are lacking expertise in (I do what I can with British comics, especially 2000AD-related articles) but that is an area I don't know much about. You might be interested in signing up with the Comics project and the British comics work group - if you need any help those are the best places to ask and they also provide various resources that can help with article naming/formatting. If you have any other questions feel free to drop me a note (also, as conflict of interest guidelines say you can't add links to your own site/work, if you think something is worth adding then throw me the link and I'll drop it in). Also you have a subscription to The DFC? I have been monitoring this for a bit and dropping my thoughts in here, I'd imagine there will be more news coverage in the next couple of weeks at which point I'll get the entry going (if someone else hasn't started it already), so ny input you have would be great. (Emperor (talk) 19:50, 12 May 2008 (UTC))

Hello! is this how I reply to you - just by editing the usertalk? thanks for the welcome, anyway - I'm sure I will weigh in on various areas. Jenniscott (talk) 09:02, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

Ah, I have found the colon command for indenting. Am all set now I think.Jenniscott (talk) 09:13, 13 May 2008 (UTC)
Its a good start. Most formatting questions are dealt with in the Manual of Style but that covers general topics and it is often worth looking at similar entries that are better established (as they've usually been worked on by a number of editors.
The important thing is to get the information in and basic formatting (like sections, wikilinks and external links) will account for 80% of the edits. References, footnotes, infoboxes, etc. are good things to add to help flesh out an article.
If you want me to look over anything then drop me a line and I'll see what I can do. (Emperor (talk) 13:35, 13 May 2008 (UTC))

[edit] Surely not the Jenniscott?

Having a stab, but are you the Caption Jenniscott? Either way, welcome to Wikipedia. You ever need any help, give me a shout at my talk page. Hiding T 13:54, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

Blimey, you make me feel famous! Yes, I am indeed the Caption Jenni Scott and the CAPTION convention one likewise. Thanks for the welcome!Jenniscott (talk) 14:27, 14 May 2008 (UTC)
Well, you are famous. Wish I still had some Captions, I'd ask you to sign them. Never did make it to a convention, sadly. Anyway, all the best. Hiding T 15:15, 14 May 2008 (UTC)
well, I've got some Captions left! So were you a subscriber to it, then? And if so, who are you? Jenniscott (talk) 09:04, 15 May 2008 (UTC)
Ah, I wasn't a subscriber, no, a friend was and I used to borrow his. I think he still has them. Unless I never gave them back. I guess this is where you try and sell them to me. :) Hiding T 10:20, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] John Armstrong

Good catch. The default (first level) disambiguation is "(comics)" so I have fixed that. If there were two people then you'd go for "(comics artist)" and "(comics writer)" (characters are easy as you'd just go for the company and we have a lot of those). I know there is quite a lot of variation on this but that is the way it should be - often some of the other naming is from before it was tightened up and change all the incoming links would be a pain. (Emperor (talk) 18:54, 15 May 2008 (UTC))

Thanks Emperor. I spotted it mostly because I'd already searched on John Armstrong and found the wrong one... and stopped there because of my uncertainty that you've now resolved. Armstrong definitely needs a page at some point. Jenniscott (talk) 09:55, 16 May 2008 (UTC)
Emperor, can you or someone please look at and hopefully add the following link Raptus2003 report to the newly-created John Armstrong (comics) page? It's about the festival in Norway that I attended in 2003, at which John Armstrong was an invited guest. Jenniscott (talk) 12:46, 22 May 2008 (UTC)
OK done. (Emperor (talk) 14:50, 22 May 2008 (UTC))
Thanks! Jenniscott (talk) 15:34, 22 May 2008 (UTC)
Best bet is to ask John Freeman for the specifics and if it is from the printed bio then just add that into the general references area - it might be obscure but it is legit (I added an obscure bio for John Higgins, John Higgins (comics)#References, and as long as it is out there it is easy enough to reference - if anyone raises an eyebrow I'm sure we could get a scan but it should be fine). (Emperor (talk) 15:07, 23 May 2008 (UTC))

[edit] Some useful links for later

Various articles written by Briony Coote

  • Good lord! I never knew Mario Capaldi drew sexy comics as well as stories in Misty and Jinty... Carrie's Den Jenniscott (talk) 20:36, 22 May 2008 (UTC)
  • True Brit: Celebrating the Comic Book Artists of Britain has this to say about Misty and the girls' horror titles: 'An interesting but sadly short-lived sub-genre that emerged fleetingly in this period of experimentation was that of girls' horror. Thomson's Spellbound and Fleetway's Misty were well-crafted and occasionally genuinely disturbing titles, which have inspired something of a cult following. Misty in particular deserved a longer run: its Carrie-inspired Moonchild, by Pat Mills and John Armstrong, and Black Widow, drawn by Honiero, were especially worthy of a wider readership.' ie, good stuff Jenniscott (talk) 18:00, 23 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Always worth trying Google Books: example and Google Scholar: example. I have some access to electronic versions of journals if anything crops up along those lines. It looks like that "Art, Narrative and Childhood" article is interesting - some of it is restricted which is annoying but could always be worth tracking down in paper form. (Emperor (talk) 18:39, 23 May 2008 (UTC))

[edit] Answers

To answer some of the questions you post on the talk page:

  • You on;y need to disambiguate if there is already something taking the main slot - so those redlinks you have are fine. For the disambiguated it is worth finding the disambiguation page (if one exists) and adding the persons name there. That way people looking for his entry can find it from whatever is in the man article.
  • Yes the Biography and comic proj headers should be added to the talk page - there is a cunning tool that then allows us to monitor all changes on articles about comic creators. As a basic template I tend to use something like Talk: Paul Neal and adjust accordingly (i.e. if it already has an infobox you can remove those parts). I find it is often handy to save a few handy bits like that to a basic text file and you can copy and paste in from there. On non-British comics artists you can find the various nationalities covered here: Category: Comics artists by nationality (which links through to the same category for comics artists). If there isn't one then let me know and I'll look into creating it.

Also I wouldn't worry about getting everything right on the first edit - that is the beauty of the system. I can always look over a new creation throw in anything that might have been missed. (Emperor (talk) 13:57, 19 May 2008 (UTC))

Thanks, Emperor. That makes it easier for me to plug ahead and create at least basic pages. I hadn't realized until just now that Girl (comics) not only doesn't yet exist, but it hasn't even been added in to the list of titles on the British comics history page! Also, your text file idea is a good one, I may well do something like that. Jenniscott (talk) 11:02, 20 May 2008 (UTC)
Yes that was one of the things that got me - you can find even the most obscure bit of X-Man information here but coverage of British and European comics was oddly patchy (with world comics being awfully thin in areas - although manga is solidly covered), depending on the interests of individual editors - Pete Ashton did a bang up job on British comics and British small press comics, for example. It was part of the thinking behind the work groups.
And yes stubs, when used right, can be a big help - specially when you find areas poorly covered. When not used right they can just be an excuse to throw in the minimum amount of information and move along never to return. In cases like this you could hammer out a number of stub articles to get the coverage and then come back and expand them at your leisure. We'd always rather have a stub article than no entry at all - at least then passing editors can drop information in as they pass through. I have a lot of redlinks on my watch list and so can spot new articles and update the new creations list - that way other member of the comic project can go though them and tweak anything. (Emperor (talk) 13:14, 20 May 2008 (UTC))
That list of new creations list doesn't get updated automatically, does it? I'll add Misty too... must be a job to keep it updated... Jenniscott (talk) 16:00, 20 May 2008 (UTC)
No it isn't automatic and while it shapes up well there can be a lag of months (I'm still finding things from January) but you find that a lot are generated by current major "events" in the Big Two or they get linked into more general lists of titles or characters (often someone will create new entries in batches) and they often pop up in Category: Comics so need tidying away. So there are tricks to catch them. Obviously most project members just add what they made directly into it. The bonus is that most entries have someone else cast an eye over them (as there is always something I miss ;) ). (Emperor (talk) 16:41, 20 May 2008 (UTC))

[edit] British girl's comics: The future

A general question: It strikes me that the really interesting thing about the rise of manga is that it is tapping into the market for girls comics (and giving a new lease of life for female creators). It seems odd that no one is doing anything with the old British properties - some may be out of date but there is surely a lot of potential in a whole range of them (although I suppose the fear would be that people would just go for dark/ironic/deconstructionist/post-modern interpretations). Have their been no stirrings in this area?

I did read something a while back in Rich Johnston's Lying in the Gutters that someone (a Spanish company?) were reprinting some but had got into tricky legal water as the copyright holders were fiercely protecting their properties.

I can't claim to know much about the details of the topic (why I thought I'd ask an expert) but it always struck me as odd. (Emperor (talk) 15:06, 22 May 2008 (UTC))

You're right that manga is tapping into a female market of readers and creators (though of course the small press has also got a better percentage of female interest than the mainstream). As for the rest, I just don't know. People have always just shrugged their shoulders and said there's no market for bringing back the old girls comics, but then they did recently publish those annuals Best of June, Best of Girl and various Jackie books Jackie annual, Best of Jackie. So who knows? Jenniscott (talk) 17:36, 22 May 2008 (UTC)
Interesting. Thanks for that. I suppose they could be testing the water with those reprints. I would have thought it was a no-brainer if they got the right mix of old and new talent who knows?
It is those that are mentioned in the LitG piece I mentioned - over reprinting Patty's World in Spain. See: [1] [2] (Emperor (talk) 18:47, 23 May 2008 (UTC))
Food for thought. (Emperor (talk) 14:30, 27 May 2008 (UTC))
Oooh, now that is all very interesting - thanks for the links. I only just got a good moment to follow the link about the Patty's World reprint (LiTG column) - that's interesting in many ways, not least because it also identifies one on my not-yet-identified artists in Jinty/Misty/Tammy et al! I would have thought that the current copyright holders are Egmont rather than TimeWarnerAOL but it is hard to know with these things what the real case is.
I also liked the link to the FPI blogpost - good to know that these girls-comics-related articles are so popular! Jenniscott (talk) 19:39, 3 June 2008 (UTC)
Glad it helps - just random things I stumbled across. It does strike me that the more in-depth Crikey articles could be handy sources. The authors might be amenable to emailing you the article if it is for a good cause. (Emperor (talk) 20:48, 3 June 2008 (UTC))
S'okay - I get Crikey anyway, and was the author of one of those articles! Jenniscott (talk) 20:52, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] The DFC

I've started this The DFC - more discussion on the talk page. (Emperor (talk) 20:25, 28 May 2008 (UTC))

[edit] Re:Image of Phil Gascoine

Right, sorry if I'm being a little awkward here, but the uploader claimed that the image was by John Freeman of www.downthetubes.net, rather than the uploader themselves. Could you perhaps explain this issue fully? J Milburn (talk) 22:40, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

The uploader's username is Johnfreeman96 and is in fact John Freeman (editor). So the uploader and the claimed creator are one and the same. Hope this is sufficiently clear. Jenniscott (talk) 22:45, 4 June 2008 (UTC)
I can confirm this. Rather than undeleting though it might be more helpful to offer any help he needs in navigating the rapids of image licensing. (Emperor (talk) 23:21, 4 June 2008 (UTC))
If J Milburn gives more details on what exactly John should have done differently then yes, that could be useful to John for the future - but while something is deleted it's quite hard to see what needs to be done differently, surely? Jenniscott (talk) 23:44, 4 June 2008 (UTC)
Ok, yes, I see. I'm amazed I didn't notice that the John was editing under the same name as the photographer. Apologies for the delay, I will undelete it now- the image can be found at Image:Phil gascoine11104.jpg. J Milburn (talk) 10:48, 5 June 2008 (UTC)
Thanks very much - appreciated! It's just been a bit tricky because John's had difficulties other times in having stuff deleted quickly and I wanted to help it through so as not to dishearten him from contributing. Cheers, anyway. Jenniscott (talk) 11:49, 5 June 2008 (UTC)
Thanks for that. It would be handy if a image licensing guru gave him a hand as he has a lot of photographs that would obviously benefit Wikipedia but, as Jenni says, he has run into problems with licensing. Hopefully we have turned a corner but worth checking if he needs any future help. Cheers. (Emperor (talk) 13:32, 5 June 2008 (UTC))

[edit] Infobox

No problem - it does underline something that has been niggling me for a while: There doesn't appear to be a consistent way of adding images to the comic infoboxes (I only get it right by fiddling with it trying the 3 or 4 different ways of doing this). I'll try and get this addressed as it is silly. (Emperor (talk) 13:32, 5 June 2008 (UTC))

Great! I haven't quite realised that there were various possible ways of doing it - I thought I'd just misremembered, but it does clear things up, because I'd actually taken another page as a template and it still wasn't quite right... Jenniscott (talk) 13:35, 5 June 2008 (UTC)
No it gets me nearly every time (Sod's Law meaning that whichever version you try first is never the right one!! I've raised the issue so it might be we can resolve it, the problem is newer infoboxes are more streamlined and efficient but there are also ones using the older system and any changes would effect thousands of articles. It may be possible to get a robot to do the hard work (it is like the future, just today!!) which might make it doable. We'll see. (Emperor (talk) 15:23, 5 June 2008 (UTC))