Well, it's been a few weeks. I'm not so good at blogging in detail about such events as the British International Comics Show (BICS) but I'm gonna have a go anyway. Time was, when I used to do these things, most notably the Bristol show, and before that UKCAC in London, as a self-publisher, I'd hire a table, roll up with my box of comics, lay them out on a tablecloth, and sit down. I'd sit there for a weekend giving out my speil on a loop, and sell a few comics. At its peak, BAM sold nearly a hundred copies on a weekend. Hard to believe now - that was a fair few years ago. There's a strange paradox these days: the quality of fare on offer is much higher than when I'd spread out my black and white photocopies efforts, but people are more discerning in their purchases. That said, there seemed to be plenty of books from Accent UK, Garen's Rainbow Orchid, and Classical Comics being shifted. I mention those only because those were the main places that I hung out.
And hanging out was about all I really did. And it was great. I seem to occupy a strange hinterland at the moment between amateur and professional. Certainly the boundary is greyer than it used to be anyway. Accent UK are actual proper publishers producing high quality books solicited through Diamond, so how can they be called small press? But I'm no complainer! I was there with my 'look at me: I'm a professional even if you've never heard of me' pass. I spent a while chatting to organiser Shane Chebsey about how I-am-but-I'm-not-really and enthusing about how successful the show seemed to be. That man is so enthusiastic about comics - he deserves some kind of award for ambassadorship for comicsness. Or something.
I'll get to my main recommendations for purchase from the weekend in a mo. In the meantime, some highlights of the weekend: grabbing my copy of Accent UK's
Whatever Happened to The World's Fastest Man first thing on Saturday. This is a really accomplished piece of work, about a man who finds he can freeze time. Writer Dave West has really worked out some physical rules for how this might work: in order to move anything with moving parts such as a wheel, the character has to unfreeze time. This proves to be a problem when he finds himself in a situation where a bomb is about to go off and all the people in an area have to be evacuated. There's a real dilemma: do you save yourself or freeze time and drag everyone, one at a time, miles down the road to safety? You could choose the latter, but it takes years. A lifetime in fact. This is a great story, well paced, emotionally true, with an ending that, whilst not entirely unexpected, is beautifully cathartic. I'm glad to be able to say that Dave's book is the best comic I've read all year. Not only that, but the artwork by
Marleen Lowe is amazing. Truly. A talent to watch for.
My other favourite purchase is Sarah McIntyre's
Morris the Mankiest Monster, a children's book. I got Sarah (who is unbelievably lovely by the way and probably one of the happiest people I've met in a while - I've yet to see her not smiling or laughing) to dedicate the book to my daughter, who
really enjoyed the snot on the front cover. Stroke of genius: Sarah was providing colour-your-own-monster sheets for kids.
I also managed to have a nice chat with the great Bryan Talbot, who was there with his new book
Grandville - I have it on the shelf, planning to read it all alone on an afternoon in the coming week. Great pleasure was to be had with Jo and Clive at the
Classical Comics table, chatting and enthusing over the new books. Romeo and Juliet and The Tempest are beautiful works of art, and I was lucky enough to see a few pages from my forthcoming An Inspector Calls, now drawn by
Will Volley. Amazing. Beautiful. And, even if I do say so myself, proof that it's got a great script! It really breaks out well from the single-set drama of the play into some really interesting visuals.
On Sunday, I came into the hall early to find Paul Cornell sitting on his own reading a book. The usual dilemma: do I be a fan and gush; do I ignore him and pretend to be cooler than I am; or do I just say hi and introduce myself and to hell with how I come across. I went for option 3, and he was very gracious with me interrupting his time alone. Just a quick chat, and I left him (as I did almost everyone who I chatted to for any period of time) with a copy of Best of Bulldog. The rest of Sunday morning was taken up with the
Adapting The Classics panel which was over far too quickly. Note to Shane: we need an hour for panels, not 45 minutes, and we need more than 3 minutes for audience questions. That said, it was great. Clive and I talked up Classical and I talked (obviously) about adapting Frankenstein, Dracula and An Inspector Calls. Also there was Ian Edginton, there to promote his Sherlock Holmes books from Self-Made Hero. I've got
Hound of the Baskervilles on the shelf next to Grandville. It looks great. Artist Ian Culbard is brilliant. Ian E's not too shabby either, and a real pleasure to talk to. Paul Birch completed the panel, along with avuncular presenter Steve Green. Paul seemed to be having a great time. I've known him on and off for years, and he's a true gent - here he was talking up his literary adaptations for the Indian market, in particular Ben Hur and Ivanhoe! Can't wait to see those.
By early afternoon I was ready to drop - and I didn't even have the stress of having to sell stuff. I haven't even mentioned the best part of the weekend: spending a very civilised evening at dinner with lovely people including Dave West, Colin Mathieson and Garen Ewing, along with their respective wives and Dave's daughter. Chinese food, Tiger beer and conversation. Brilliant.
But not as brilliant as grabbing some time with Paul Harrison Davies, a true talent that I've known since those black-and-white photocopying days. Paul and I are working on something that I hope will be a special project, but that's all I'm saying for now because I'd better get back to it.
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