Troobs! Not Long Now!

The True Believers Comics Festival 2019 is now only a couple of short weeks away. I’ll be heading there and manning a table with Vince and Dan from the Awesome Comics Podcast and the Awesome Comics anthology.

I’ll also be hosting a panel that has now been given a snazzy new name and a snazzy new graphic.

Here’s the official blurb:

2019 PANEL ANNOUNCEMENT 

WEIRD SCIENCE: CELEBRATING SCI-FI COMICS.

‘Ever wanted to know what it’s like to work on Star Wars or maybe Doctor Who? Wondered what goes on behind the scenes at Marvel, DC, Dark Horse and more? Then now True Believer is your chance! Come along and ask artists Mike Collins and Nick Brokenshire about their experiences on these fantastic properties and maybe get some art tips along the way.

These two guys have loads of experience in the comics industry that they’ll be sharing with host Tony Esmond so pop along to the Panel Room at the event.’

I don’t subscribe to that many mailers but the True Believers weekly commentary is well worth your time and effort. It gets released bright and early on a Monday and if you sign up by heading to the tab at the bottom of this link you’ll be just in time for the convention news. http://oktruebelievers.com/tickets/

As a weekly piece on the run up to the event they’ve been asking a question to attendees. here’s mine (posted with permission from the Troobs guys). I had fun with it and tried to give it in part a spoof Beat Poetry style.

WHY COMICS?

It's time for another instalment of Why Comics?  Our one question interview that ponders the most important thing in life. 

Why comics?

That’s the question huh?

I’d be a richer man without them in my life that’s for sure (have you seen the prices these days?).

But would I be happier. Nah. I’d be part of that Society of the General Public of Venerable and Miserable Bastards. You see them on the bus, looking agog into their tablets and watching some reality based shite. They used to be the same people who read The Sun or The Telegraph or Razzle Reader’s Wives on their commute. Then the lads mags and lifestyle monthlies arrived, full of the cocaine lifestyles of the rich and dreadful. Then they slowly morphed into some dreadful thriller promoted on the limited shelves of WH Smith’s or Forty Shades of Banality? All the while I sat there and read comics and raised the odd eyebrow.

So why? What’s makes them so special to me?

I could rattle on about the feeling of community or being included by others like me? But let’s face it that would be bollocks. Comics are at their heart a solitary pastime. You as a kid or as an adult read them without anyone else butting their beaks into your business. that’s kind of the beauty really. That’s a big part of why.

What other factors are there? Probably far too many to name but here are a few.

A short(ish) list.

Stan, Jack, Steve, Sal and John, Carmine, Roy, 

The Avengers and Defenders, 

The X-Men, Spidey, The Hulk, Thor and Hercules,

 George Tuska, Romita Snr and Jnr, Neal and Barry (sometimes Windsor),

 Marv and Doug, Jim Starlin, 

Captain Marvel and Britain and America,

 Gene Colan and Joe Sinnott, Len Wein and Bernie Wrightson,

 Cary Bates and those pesky Kupperbergs,

 Curt Swan, Oh yes,

 Killraven and Shang,

 Cage and Danny and Logan,

 Swamp and Man Things, Never And Sometimes Giant-Size,

 Pat and Carlos and John,

 Claremont and Byrne and Austin, One with a shiny walnut head,

 George Perez and his Titans.

 2000 AD, Marvel UK and US, DC, Vertigo, Comico, Eclipse, First, Image, Boom, AC, Pacific. 

The New Mutants and the New Teen Titans. Green Arrows and Lanterns. 

A Flagg and an E-Man. A Nexus and a Badger. Elementals and DNAgents. A Mage and a Savage Dragon....

The list can, will and should go on. But I’ll leave it there for the moment.

A world of characters, creators and stories.

It’s been forty-five years and more and it’ll always be just like this.

That’s why.  

See you soon....