Borderline Comics Magazine
| Editor | Phil Hall |
|---|---|
| Categories | comic books news and criticism |
| Frequency | Monthly |
| Publisher | mediahall |
| First issue | August 2001 |
| Final issue | March 2003 |
| Country | Great Britain |
| Language | English |
| Website | http://borderline-pdf.blogspot.com |
Borderline was a comics magazine created by former Comics International news and features editor Phil Hall, which was published from 2001–2003. Borderline was the first PDF comics magazine available to read on a computer or as a print-out.
Borderline was a cross between The Comics Journal and the NME with a heavy mix of mainstream American/British and international comic books. Comic books and creators from countries such as Brazil, Poland, and the Philippines were featured alongside American and British comic book icons.
Borderline was launched as a free download in August 2001. The idea of creator Hall was to produce something that appealed to the growing number of comic book fans, but didn't want just a website. Hall said in a 2007 interview with The Comics Village that the decision to create Borderline came from the growing amount of grassroots comics fans who wanted more than just to read magazines about Marvel and DC comics. The magazine's remit was to highlight areas of the comics industry that were neglected by the other magazines about comics.
By issue #3, the magazine had gained an audience of over 150,000 readers, much of this due to features on Brazilian and South American comics. Hall attributes the publicity gained in South America from the magazine's good relationship with Mauricio de Sousa Produções, Brazil's leading comics publisher.
Due to Borderline's large readership and independent bias, the magazine had exclusive interviews with people who wouldn't normally give interviews, such as Chris Ware, Steve Gerber, and Charles Burns.
Despite the success, after twenty monthly issues and one special, the magazine folded in March 2003, shortly after it started to charge $1. According to the magazine's publisher, Martin Shipp, only an average of 100 people paid to buy issues 17 to 20 of the magazine, with the majority of those sales from either South America, Europe or comics creators who had been featured in the magazine's pages. Sales in countries where the magazine was intended to target, UK or USA, were nominal.
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