Bristol Comic Expo

I'd sorted out my twitpic account juggled my phone e-mail settings, loaded my netbook with the info I needed, checked flight modes, yes, this time at Bristol Comic Expo I would be all singing all dancing photo uploading tweeting social media interactive life as it happens reporting.. and then we arrived at the hotel/venue.

It was just all too good, too busy, too frantic plus it occurred to me that updates and tweets would just be a long list of namedropping, which is rather unpleasant really.
 I was there with a few different hats on;

1.  Selling & promoting the 'Slaughtermans Creed' Book, published by Markosia. This included participating in an illustrated ( and recorded ) talk with the rest of the team and having a table to sign, sketch and sell the book from.
2.  Promoting Hi-Ex 2012, which involves getting a bit embarrassed when amazing guest type people start singing its praises & saving me the bother.
3.  Catching up with friends.
4.  Meeting the large team of writers & artists who are involved with a rather exciting anthology called 'Bayou Arcana'. I will be illustrating a great story in this.
5.  Promoting my own work, selling my wares & being bamboozled by offers of new work.
6.  Talking about 'Women, Politics and Cartooning' on a discussion panel hosted by Jaspre Bark.

All of this is good & well but requires a dedicated and practiced technique of chat, listen, pounce, introduce self, dine, pounce on someone else, flit, float, schmooze, drink, garble, not sleep and forget who i'd promised to mail within seconds of speaking to them ( remind me! ).

GREAT bits included ( warning- may contain namedropping ) ;

• Talking Dreamtime & Scythian stuff at dinner with Rick & Cindie Veitch.
• Seeing the latest books by lovely Micheal Carroll.
• Seeing lovely books & comics in general, mmm Cinebook.
• Meeting political cartoonists and doing a panel with Blue Lou & Kate Evans.
• Seeing 'Slaughterman's Creed' finally in print. Selling loads of it!
• Getting really big headed from loads of feedback, sales and loveliness.
• Drawing a Fairy for Jaspre Bark's delightful daughter.
• Seeing the mock up of the 'Spirit of Hope' book coming out this summer with CBA. Wow!
• Hotel breakfast buffets.
• Meeting a load of really groovy new people ( you know who you all are! )

less great bits included;

• The early morning Fire Alarm on Saturday morning- although it was very entertaining seeing everyone in various states of attire & hungoverness.
• The £2.70 cup of tea and £9.30 gin ( although it was a double, hey I'd earned it! ).

It was a fantastic show, the two teams of organisers in both the main and 'small press' venues had done an outstanding job as usual, the Ramada staff were all very friendly & tolerant of the invasion of creative geeky types.

So now I have a billion e-mails to write, Hi-Ex to start pulling together, some much needed sleep to catch up with, a tonne more art work to do, a tonne new projects to start on, trying to remember who I promised what, unpacking... though I might not bother as we're galavanting away again in 3 days. I will definitely tweet that adventure instead of selfishly enjoying myself. maybe.

The Slaughterman's Creed team; Cy Dethan ( writer ), Nic Wilkinson ( letters, design & general organisational awesomeness ), Stephen Downey ( Pencils, some colours & inks ), Me ( some colours )

'Women, Politics and Cartooning' , me, Kate Evans, Blue Lou, and moderator Jaspre Bark

Me and Scott Grandison from Comic Book Outsiders, who bravely let us paint him up as Mr Green.

The Slaughterman's Creed team explain the ideas & techniques behind the book

Stephen explains how he aged the characters & used layouts and body language to drive the narrative tension.

Nic sheds light on how balloon placement adds another layer to the characters and action. Clever stuff that I imagine most readers and some letterers aren't aware of!

John Higgins ( Razorjack, Dredd, Watchmen ) at work.