Edinburgh Comic Con Report - Part 1.

As I had business up north of the border I arranged my trip to coincide with a cheeky day at the Edinburgh Comic Con 2019. I haven’t been to this one before but knew that a lot of my favourite creators would be there so thought I would give it a punt.

The wet weather didn’t seem to put anyone off and there was an impressive line to get in forming an hour before opening.  

Edinburgh also boasted an impressive overseas guest list with Mike Norton (Gravity, Battlepug, Green Arrow/Black Canary and more), Kevin Nowlan (Batman, Azrael, Tomorrow Stories and more) and Scott Kolins (Flash, Blue Beetle, JLA, Omega Flight and more). They also had some great homegrown talent like Colin McNeil (2000 AD and DC Comics) and Emma Beeby (Doctor Who and Judges Dredd and Anderson). Gordon Rennie was also there looking mostly a little unhappy.

The venue was arranged into two main halls. One side had Comics, Small Press and a wall of TV stars (I didn’t know who anyone was except that bloke from Buffy). This was an absolute joy and I chatted, bin dived, spent and wandered for a good couple of hours.

The other hall had a Wrestling Ring, Tatt, Crap, Shit on a Stick, my morning business and some arcade games - all for sale at a hefty and shameless price. This hall and the connecting hallways were packed at all times with people dressed up strangely and even some in inflatable dinosaur costumes. The stalls seemed all to be pretty bloody busy. However when your job is selling furry tails that people are more than likely to stick right up their collective arses you could do with reassessing your life?

I thought I’d better show good faith and walked into Vomit Hall. As I fought my way round I found myself picking up a wallet with an Avengers ‘A’ sign on it and wondered who I had become. As I looked around I saw a lot of people screeching loudly, running around, they were mostly in badly fitting costumes and there was a smell of Body Odour you could cut with a samurai sword. I put the aforementioned wallet down and wandered back into the Comics Hall and felt a whole lot better. That episode in my life is better forgotten.

Truth be told I bought far too much. But these foreign devils convinced me that the Scottish scene is pretty darn healthy. It strikes me that there isn’t the divide that you see in the London comics scene. Everyone is in it together, action, horror, autobio, capes, politics and more all rub shoulders with each other. Scotland is after all the home of UK comics.

It was a pretty successful Convention from a personal perspective too. I got to meet loads of people for the first time. Those fine gentlemen and recent Awesome Comics Pod guests James McCulloch and Johnny Canon were great company. I also finally got to meet that new voice in Underground Comix Mr Dimitris Zach. (Here’s a photo I made him take holding the Awesome Comics anthology). He gave me an amazing piece of his art (have a look at this post for full details.  http://neverironanything.blogspot.com/2018/12/aint-comics-great.html ) as well as a Greek volume of Dylan Dog! (How freakin’ cool is that!)

I also got to meet Pete Watson and he revealed a few secret plans about the next stretch goal for his ‘The Lang Walk Hame’ that he will be telling everyone about soon (it’s very on brand! And funny.) Head over to his Kickstarter and pledge to this brilliant new project  http://neverironanything.blogspot.com/2019/03/coming-soon-to-kickstarter-lang-walk.html?zx=2db666bfd90fcd22

Turns out that Adam Falp, the creator of some of the most original books I have read recently including ‘Sin’ and ‘The Fragment’, only lives about five miles from me. We travelled between us around 850 miles to find that out but it was good to chat to him nonetheless. He was stationed opposite, what I like to call, ‘Shite and Deluded Fake Celebrity Row’ - an area so quiet it made ICE Brighton look like like Euston Station at 6pm. So never mind all that nonsense and head over to https://goodfornothingcomics.wordpress.com/ and grab some crazy good art.

I also finally got to meet Steven Ingram and bought a copy of the hot off the press MurMur issue 2. A great book of funny, personal and introspective moments. I read it over a coffee break. Find out more about Steven at http://blurredlinescomics.co.uk/ or follow him on Twitter @blcomics 

It’s rare that a popular culture convention is free of ‘Art Prints’ of the currently cool and hot. One table ran the length of one side of the hall and was filled with some rubbish. Surely there can’t be enough people at this event for them to sell out? I groaned so much I popped a rib.

(Part Two - with more bile, peanut butter pant stuffing and comics enthusiasm will follow soon. I am off to the pub.....)

Many thanks for reading. Con Haul and more verbal diarrhoea to follow.....