Just a quick one this week. I’ve just landed back to reality after a great day at Nottingham Comic Convention 2018. I’ll be posting more about this soon but here are just a few of the highlights of the day.
Warnings - I gush quite a bit in this one!
As I’m sure you’ve heard me say before this is one of my favourite events of the year. This year Kel and Kev Brett put together a flawlessly organised and executed day from start to finish. When you arrived there were staff who helped you unload stock and there was a little packed lunch and drink awaiting when you got to your table. That’s gotta take some beating right?
I didn’t get any time to circulate and see people but huge thanks to those who popped over for a chat!
I was situated on the Lower Level of the venue representing Flying Eye, Nobrow and Hilda. I was joined during the day by Luke Pearson straight off the back of the triumphant release of the Hilda Netflix series and he was busy all day signing and sketching in books. There were great moments almost every minute where he was chatting to fans and meeting some young Hilda’s!
Speaking of Luke we later got to sit down in front of an audience and talk about both the comics and the TV series in front of a packed room. This lead into a series of great questions from fans before another line formed for sketches. There is a rumour circulating that Luke wasn’t such a great scout! (I can neither confirm nor deny this comment - but it did make us chuckle). This talk was recorded so watch out for it appearing on an upcoming episode of the Awesome Comics Podcast.
I also got to moderate the Women in Comics talk with two of my favourite people Sally Jane Thompson and Emily Owen. It dug deep into the subject and stressed the need to be respectful of people and also not to view everything simplistically as black and white. Big shout out to a pair of great and engaging panelists.
To the right of me was my road tripping buddy Hamish Steele. He had kept me awake to and from Nottingham on the long drive with chats about Doctor Who and indie comics. Big shout out.
To my left was the Mighty Prolix who rules all he surveys. He got me these as an early Burpday present and I was (for just a moment) overtaken with a lump in my throat. I’d recommend working with Nick to anyone (you’ll just have to wait in line).
Opposite me was the Awesome Comics table being run by Vince and Jo. Shows how busy we both were that we barely got to chat. Issue 3 of the Awesome Comics anthology was selling like hot cakes and I even got to write the odd insult on comics that came to the table. Loving the work everyone concerned is doing on this series and hugely proud of Vince, Dan Marc and Mr P!
Comics Power Couple Christian Wildgoose and Laura Trinder were there repping for Improper Books. Both are working on a Batman book and I got some insider secrets about their process.
Chris gave be a copy of this excellent Porcelain print.
Laura handed me this ‘So good it makes me want to weep’ print as well.
I barely got to walk around but I did manage to pick up this sketchbook from one of my new favourite artists. Head over to Instagram and look up @ian.aschcroft.art for more from this exciting new talent. I also witnessed the top moment when Ian’s daughter presented Luke with her Hilda story. Who says comics ain’t great!
CYN got a release as well. Mine and Matt Harrower’s homage to sexy demonic nymphomaniac, bumpkin searching nineties comics characters. These are available to buy here at only one of your alien pounds! https://hpmatt.bigcartel.com/product/cyn
And finally (for the moment) I got to see the physical copy of Inter Space. The charity anthology that Nottingham Comic Con produce every year has myself and Dave Broughton in a four-pager affectionally poking fun at (so-called) Comicon pop culture guests. Head over to http://www.nottinghamcomiccon.co.uk/ get your own copy.
I am writing this on Sunday afternoon and am still buzzing from a brilliantly run event. This is exactly what the UK comics scene should be bout. Loads of comics, loads of smilies, a real creative buzz and some veggie Haribo delivered to my table (by Kel Brett). All of this run by volunteers for charity.
Highly recommended every single year.
More to come.
Many thanks for reading.
No comments:
Post a Comment