Our first FCon was five years ago and it was a bit of a shock, after being entrenched in comics events, to show up somewhere and not know anyone! Thankfully in those five years of attending we’ve met lots of people and now always have friends to talk with in the bar.

Chaz Brenchley & Bryan Talbot

For a change we managed to get there on the Friday before the reg desk closed and pick up the goodie bags. Then headed straight into the small press panel… which concluded that we really should rename it the indie press… the same debate has raged in comics for years! It wasn’t surprising to note that many people were very in favour of the small presses for their dedication, author support, editing skills and as a learning ground in the sf&f and horror fields. Plus for publishing those more speculative and undefinable stories that would never find a home with big publishers. Not that different from the comics small press, apart from it is much more accepted to self-publish in comics than in the book world. Possibly because there are even fewer places to pitch comics? Or because there are big names in comics who have gone down this route to maintain complete creative control?

We then planned on going to the bar but met Mark West on our way out the room and got dragged back in to take part in the quiz. Could hardly answer any of the questions, even the supposedly easy ones! Our team, the Fantastic Furies, came last (thought there were less points in it than expected), but it was good fun (plus there were free chips). Finally made it into the bar for a few quick chats before heading out.

Never Again Launch & Signing

Saturday we made it in time for a quick scoot around the dealers room and an early lunch before heading into two of the Special Guest interviews. First up was Lisa Tuttle being interviewed by Stephen Jones. I’d not heard of Lisa before she was announced as a guest at FCon, but managed to pick up one of her short story collections before the event and I’m  a convert. Intriguing stories with good central ideas and characters, plus a feminist overtone that appeals to me. I later succumbed to buying the lovely special collected edition of her early supernatural stories “Stranger in the House”. Interesting to hear about her life and decision to move over to the UK from America. Her thoughts on what she writes, and on British accents.

Next up was Chaz Brenchley interviewing Bryan Talbot. Now we’ve heard Bryan doing talks several times about his different projects, but I’d never heard about his early influences and work. Chaz did a great job of steering us through Bryan’s career and Bryan was entertaining as usual (see my last post to see us co-presenting a British Fantasy Award at FCon).

Then straight off to the Never Again launch for me, and the Rio Youers reading for Jay. Lots of authors were signing for the Never Again launch, in support of the good causes the money is going to. Showed the passion and hard work put in by everyone involved in the project, especially editors Joel Lane and Ally Bird, and publisher Gary Fry. (Otherwise known as the lion, the witch and the wardrobe).

Allyson Bird with her new short story collection, Wine & Rank Poison, & charity anthology Never Again.

We then got a chance to chat to a few people, like Simon Marshall Jones  and spend more money, before heading off to dinner with Jan Edwards, Peter Coleborn, Jen Barber, Mike Chinn, Debbie Bennett and the rest of the gang. Thanks for inviting us along.

Obviously we got back in time for the awards. Congratulations to all the nominees and winners. We then planned to head off, but got immersed in conversations at the bar!

Selina Lock (me) & Bryan Talbot presenting British Fantasy Award for Best Artist. Winner was Vinnie Chong.

Terry Martin with the British Fantasy Award for Best Magazine, which he won for Murky Depths.

Sunday was a much quieter day, as we got up somewhat late and didn’t make it over to the con until lunchtime. I made the mistake of wandering around the dealers room too many time and spending all the money I had left! We decided to stay for the raffle and won a few things, though didn’t manage to win anything for Mary Talbot who had to leave part way through.

There are always strange goings-on at FCon...

The weekend finished off with chatting to Di Price and Marion Pitman, who we hadn’t met before, and many goodbyes.

FCon Loot

Now we have to work out whether we can afford FCon next year, as it’s moving to Brighton.

Stickers Collected 1

Sunday is always a bit more laid back for the committee, as the set-up is already done. I did my final taxi runs to pick up guests and/or luggage from Milkas and then went back on duty at the reg desk. As it was pretty quiet in terms of new attendees I also joined in the sticker game with attempts at drawing pandas and spaceships. In return I collected some fab stickers… though I did have to hum loudly when conversation turned to Scott Pilgrim #6, which I was hoping to read after Caption. (Edit: Now read it & it was good.)

Stickers Collected 2

All of our guests were great this year, as usual, making themselves available to chat and joining in. Several participated in the sticker game, or sat in on other talks, or sat sketching, and Melinda even brought in a big bag of mini-muffins for everyone on Sunday morning!

Al Davison & Melinda Gebbie

I also got some free time later to sit in the bar chatting with Matt Badham, Paul Rainey and Peet Clack. I valiantly tried to recruit some new committee members to replace Jay and I, as we’d decided to step down after five years, but we’ll have to see if that bears any fruit!

Darryl Cunningham being interviewed by Sarah McIntyre

I attended my only programme item of the weekend, which was Sarah McIntyre interviewing Darryl Cunningham about his work. I’ve read bits of Darryl’s work via his livejournal, but hadn’t read anything of length until picking up Psychiatric Tales a few weeks ago. It’s a very powerful book that informs about mental health issues while also using humour to entertain. Having suffered from depression myself, I found Darryl’s autobiographical section at the end of the book to be very moving. The interview was interesting, with the option to pipe up throughout with queries, making it nicely interactive.

I did have to rush off just as it was ending to get back to the Caption table and help Siobhan tot up people’s takings, as there’s always a rush near the end of the con.

Jay and I picked up a big haul of comics, which I’ll be reading over the next few months. Hopefully I’ll also get time to review a few as well. Particularly looking forward to reading There’s No Time Like The Present # 13 by Paul Rainey and then re-reading the whole collection as one huge story dollop. (Edit: Read TNTLTP #13, which was fab, now to re-read the whole set…)

Swag!

A bit of rushing around and packing up and then it was time to go. We arranged to drive home via Northampton to drop Melinda Gebbie off at home, and were also kidnapping Terry Wiley for a few days. The drive back threatened to be busy with warnings of events at Silverstone, but I think all the bikers had already left. On arriving in Northampton Melinda and her husband Alan Moore invited us in for a cuppa and chocolates, so who were we to resist!

We had a lovely chat about the Caption ethos, and were very pleased to hear that Melinda had enjoyed herself greatly. Alan gave us a sneak peak at some some League of Extraordinary Gentleman in the Sixties pages, and then we went in search of food before Jay and Terry fainted with awe.

Overall, another successful and friendly Caption. Thanks again to all our lovely guests and attendees. I look forward to attending next year….

Vinnie & Roger. Creators of the brilliant Harker detective comic.

A few weekends ago saw us visiting the Expo as punters for the first time. It didn’t feel as strange as I thought it might and I thoroughly enjoyed the freedom! We arrived Friday night to stay with friend, and Midwinter Comics Retreat Organiser, Debra. Then fellow Caption organisers Damian and Jenni, and Jenni’s partner Richard arrived for an evening of food, wine and chatter. A great start to the weekend.

David Goodman

Dave Hitchcock & new comic Madam Samurai

It was refreshing to be able to amble into the convention after the start time, instead of rushing in early to set-up a table, and take our time wandering around. We made a flying visit to the Ramada to pick up tickets and whizz around the very, very warm dealers rooms. Then it was over to the Mercure for about fours hours of small press perusing. Chatted to lots and lots of small pressers, from old friends to new faces. All the while pimping Mad Science Caption of course!

The only downside of not having a table was missing seeing people who would normally find us, and not being able to sit down! By the end of the day our legs were about ready to fall off. So it was back to Deb’s for Doctor Who and a super curry at a nearby restaurant. We were too tired to journey back in for the inevitable crush at the Ramada bar, so sorry if we missed seeing you there.

Karen Rubins & Willie Hewes

Peet! Clack

Sunday continued in the same vein with a leisurely start and a slower wander around the Ramada and Mecure. We had good intentions about going to panels and talks, but you know what they say about good intentions…

Andrew Cheverton. Writer of West.

Tim Keable. Artist of West.

Paul Rainey. Creator of Book of Lists & There's no time like the present.

Andy Radbourne of Britforce.

Terry Martin of Murky Depths.

Cliondhna Lyons & Friend

Now we just have a massive pile comics to read and review! Though I also succumbed to a very cute bag sporting a skull motif and some green alien earrings. Some of the familiar faces were missing this year at Bristol so we’re hoping to catch-up with more people at Caption or Birmingham. Really ought to make a start on that pile of comics….

Large amounts of swag...

Bryan Talbot @ Leicester Libraries

I’ve been remiss in mentioning that we went to see Bryan Talbot talk about Grandville & the Anthropomorphic Tradition at Leicester Central Lending Library on Thursday 7th May.

Bryan’s talk was part of the ongoing strand of BLAM! comic events organised by Leicester Libraries. They do a wonderful job on these events and their guests have included Paul Gravett, Al Davison, Matt Smith (2000AD) and  John  Freeman. Jay was also involved in a BLAM! event about Breaking into Comics. Interested in forthcoming BLAM! events then keep an eye on the Leicester Libraries website or follow The Book Doctor on twitter.

Having been to Bryan’s talks on One Bad Rat and Luther Arkwright I was looking forward to this, and wasn’t disappointed. He provided an entertaining and informative history on the use of anthropomorphic characters. From early pictograms, to newspaper strips (such as Rupert the Bear), to use in the art world (Coolidge’s dogs playing poker), to use in hit European comics (Black Sad).

Bryan illustrated some of the influences he used in Grandville, such as guest appearances by Snowy the dog, and how some panels were based on classic paintings. I always feel I’ve learned a lot about art, and the pure craft of comics, after a Talbot talk!

If you have the chance to see any of Bryan’s talks then I highly recommend them, and if you haven’t read Grandville yet, then why not? If you live in Leicester, you can certainly borrow it from the library 

Banner outside the Hall.

On Saturday the 27th of March we headed down to ye olde London Towne for The UK Web & Mini Comix Thing. We’ve been going to the event for several years, but this was the first time attending as punters rather than stall holders, which gave us a new perspective on the event.

As The Thing is mainly a market type set-up I was a little worried that we would get around it in no time and then find ourselves with nothing to do. Oh no, not the case, as it took us nearly five hours to make it round, and even then we didn’t stop at every stall! Obviously we can talk for England!

Stickers I collected at The Thing

Part of the reason we made very slow progress around the hall was due to pimping Caption, as we were keen to speak to people we didn’t know about it, well as chatting to the many friends in attendance. Another reason for slow progress was my desire to take part in the fabulous idea of collecting stickers from all the different stalls, and putting them in the Dinosaur passport. It felt like being a kid again, was really good fun and a great way to find out about different comics, even if we couldn’t afford to pick them up on the day. In fact I love the idea so much I’m trying to figure out a way of stealing paying homage to it, and using it as a networking tool at Caption.

The first draft of this report turned into a massive list of people we spoke to, which wouldn’t be too interesting to you folks out there, and I’d probably be mortally embarrassed by missing someone out. So, here’s some of the interesting titbits and events from the day…

Marc Ellerby’s Chloe Noonan comic seems to be selling far better than his autobiographical work at the moment. Hopefully he’ll continue Ellerbisms online, while concentrating on Chloe in print.

David O’Connell was pleased to hear Jay had enjoyed his surprise Xmas prezzie of one of David’s Monkey prints.

It was great to have a chill out zone on the stage, for those of us who needed fortifying with chocolate and a sit down. The main downside of not being a stallholder is not having a base of operations. I’m sure if we’d asked, someone would have let us stash our bags and coats behind their stall, but we didn’t want to impose.

Several people with tables on the stage were new to comics, or new to us, so the small press is obviously still expanding at the moment, or at least replacing those who fall by the wayside.

Kudos to Teatime Comics for giving out party type goody bags with sweets, flyers and badges. I certainly enjoyed the chews and lollies the next day!

We had an interesting dicussion with the Geek-Girl crew, and others, about whether Caption was their kind of event, as they were looking to pitch to bigger publishers or go down the Diamond route. Our response was that Caption wasn’t really the kind of place to pitch or sell huge amounts, but they might get good advice from others who had gone down similar paths.

Conversations with Oliver Lambden and Jake Harold often turn quite surreal, in this case Jake was demonstrating how to fool a pedometer by shaking his wrist in a very suggestive manner! Oliver has also done some fab hand drawn covers for Curtis and Terrorist. Tip for potential purchasers – think about choosing one of the designs that will take him longer to redraw. ; )

Roger Langridge

Roger Langridge and other creators who hadn’t got stickers printed in advance were busy sketching on blank stickers, meaning we got some tiny original sketches in our passport.

Roger was lamenting the fact that his major work at the moment, The Muppet Show comic was only available in America. It’s such a shame, you’d think it would be a good seller over here so why hasn’t Titan or someone picked up the license for UK editions/distributions? Perhaps the upcoming new Muppet movie will help to tip the balance, and we won’t have to get hold of grey market copies… We had to console ourselves with his new Mugwhump the Great mini-comic instead.

I was also amused by Roger’s ever-changing table sign, which this time read along the lines of “Please buy my comics so my children don’t have to eat out of bins”, and for once, his kids were actually present to prove he wasn’t fibbing. Unless of course, he’s taken to hiring child actors to increase sales…

We met the guys behind successful internet site Edd Egg, and asked for some advice on marketing webcomics. They thought that word of mouth and personal recommendations were the most important thing in building up an audience. So, if you like The Girly Comic online then don’t keep it to yourself – tell everyone you know…

The next several stalls were  bit of a blur, as my stomach had started to demand lunch by that time, but I know we picked up flyers and comics from a few people on that row. Realising it was past one o’clock, we decided we’d better make a dash to Gosh to drop off some Girly Comic books, and grab lunch at Wagamama. We managed to grab the mini-comics Ellen Lindner had kindly put aside for us as we raced out the hall, bumping into Oli Smith on the way, arriving fashionably late. Unfortunately, as Mile End tube station was closed it turned into more of a trek to Gosh than a dash, but we made it back by four o’clock to try to tackle the rest of the hall!

Jay had a good chat with Simon Perrins of Hope for the Future, which we’ve been following for several years. We were pleased to hear that after a few ups and downs, it was back in print and moving full steam ahead towards the final part of the story. If you like good characters, mixed up with sci-fi and humour you should check out Hope for the Future.

The Goodman Brothers didn’t have anything new out, so we grabbed one of Arthur’s cool Year of the Metal Tiger postcards, and chased David for a Girly strip he’s working on.

Ellen Lindner with her new mini-comic

Time started running out and we pressed on, with me accidentally being rude to someone by saying we only wanted to talk to people we knew. I didn’t quite mean it like that, I just meant we’d promised to catch-up with some people before the event closed. I was heading for Will Kirkby’s stall when I got distracted by the beautiful work of Tpcat and just had to pick up a couple of her books.

I finally made it over to Will’s stall to let them know that I’d written a review of the Birdsong/Songbird anthology they had for sale.

With a few stalls left to glance we saw a chappie climb onto the stage to bellow that the show was over. We took this as our cue to stride off to The Half Moon pub and grab a seat before they all disappeared, as in previous years. Another boon of not having to pack up stock and take it back to the car before heading to the pub.

During the evening, we were joined by fine fellows such as Ed Hillyer, Mark Stafford, Roger Langridge and Karen Rubins. We also had Moroccan olives and ritz crackers pushed on us by a slightly scary Irishman! The olives were very nice, but we were slightly intimidated when our olive pimping friend returned after a few minutes to express disappointment that we hadn’t polished them all off yet. We hadn’t realised it was a time trial!

Ed told us a bit about his new novel The Clay Dreaming, which we’ve now acquired, and it’s huge! May take me a while to read that.

Mark’s busy working on Cherubs 2 (with Bryan Talbot) and is still working at the Cartoon Museum. He was brow-beating us all into going to see the excellent Ronald Searle exhibition (demonstrating that Searle’s work extends far beyond just Molesworth and St Trinian’s). Alas, there is never enough time to do everything we want to while visiting London.

Karen enjoyed her recent stint as artist in residence at the V&A, but is now engaged in campaigning for her current employers (a local library) to let her build up and promote an adult graphic novel collection. Go Karen!

All the stuff we got!

We had also hoped to pop into Schmurgencon but needed to make our weary way home instead. Hopefully next year.

Photos from the event and of all the comics we bought can be found over on our Flickr page, and I’ll be reviewing some of them here very soon.

Thanks to everyone we saw, chatted to and hugged at The Thing, for making it such an enjoyable day.

After stating we wouldn’t be sitting behind any stalls selling comics this year, we found ourselves doing just that last Saturday. We were tempted by the offer of a free table at a local independent book fair at DeMontfort University in Leicester. States of Independence was organised by Ross Bradshaw of Five Leaves Publishing, in association with the Creative Writing staff and students at the University, and a jolly good job they did too.

Jay & Selina @ the Factor Fiction Stall

We arrived, were shown to our table and quickly had a very lovely student, Chris, go and fetch us free tea and biscuits. We were actually supposed to go and get it ourselves, but weren’t going to turn down being waited on. In fact we think this service should be instigated for stallholders at all events!

The fair had a wide variety of indie publishers present, ranging from crime to poetry to literary to local history. Comics and SF&F were represented by ourselves, Timebomb Comics, Comma Press and TTA Press (Interzone & Black Static). It was nice to see plenty of people from the local writing communities. I also got to meet and chat to Catherine, who is one of the organiser of Alt Fiction, which we’ll be attending in June.

Alison: Leicester Libraries Book Doctor

It was difficult to tell how well attended the event was, (the organisers estimated around 400), but there was a steady stream of people passing our table throughout the day. Lots of people stopped to chat, and were pleased to see comics available. This didn’t translate into huge sales, but we were there more as a public relations exercise and to advertise the webcomics.

A frequent question was whether we made our living out of comics, though people weren’t surprised when the answer was no. As one lady put it “It’s your passion then.” The exhibitors seemed to be split between those who did make their livelihood from small press, and those, like us, who published out of passion.

One interesting venture we were introduced to was the Online Alternative Bookshop, which other indie publishers should check out as another place to advertise their stock. They have created a portal for the public to buy indie publications through. Publishers using them receive orders directly (minus 30% of the cover price) plus a standard postage fee. We would certainly look into using them if we weren’t running out of print stock (hint, get your lovely hardback Girly book while you still can!)

One gentleman exclaimed on seeing us that “comics must be on the rise, as they’re even reviewed in The Independent now”. Others took the time to reminisce on their childhood love of comics and the heyday of Bunty, etc.

Everyone I spoke to was polite and interested. Jay had a few other reactions, including several people trying to pitch novels at him!

Roy @ the TTA Press Stand

Alongside the stalls, there was a good programme of talks from writers, publishers and other interested parties. I only made it along to the one run by Crème de la Crime publishing. Lynne Patrick is quite possibly the only female crime publisher in the UK, and specialises in publishing debut authors. Crème de la Crime came out of Lynn’s frustrations with her novels being rejected because she was an unknown author. This led her to abandoning writing in favour of giving new authors a chance to get their foot in the door.

It was interesting to hear from Chris Nickson, one of Lynn’s latest novelists about his decision to go with Crème De la Crime. Lynn actually told him that she thought his submission was so good that he ought to take it to the bigger publishers, who would be better placed to do it justice. However, Chris started his non-fiction writing career as a music journalist in the punk era, and maintained the punk/DIY ethos of going with a publisher who genuinely cared, rather than being a small cog in a big machine.

Jay went to a few of the other talks, so I’ll hand over to him for his impression of the event…

It was certainly a change to our usual madcap preparations for exhibiting at a convention. Being local, it was a fifteen minute car journey, if that. Having abandoned print publications for the online world, I didn’t have the last minute preparations of printing, folding and stapling new issues, something that at the time of writing, I can empathise with fellow small press comics folks who are getting ready for the two comic events that are happening this weekend (Hi-Ex! in Scotland and the UK Web & Minicomix Thing in London).

Selina and I tag-teamed manning the table, going round the tables and to talks. I sat in on an intimate chat led by Rod Duncan on the subject of book groups, based on his explorations of a lot of different groups throughout the East Midlands. It was the first time I’d had an opportunity to meet Rod, despite owning his trilogy of crime novels. It was an extremely friendly group, chatting around the subject and exploding the myths about book groups being made up of middle class ladies of leisure over 40. Rod found a lot of common ground, but also some interesting variations, including a group that specialised in manga. He punctuated the chat with interview clips from the DVD to accompany the project.

Steve of Timebomb Comics

After lunch, I toddled along to see David Belbin’s talk about literary forgery, with specific regard to his novel The Pretender. I wasn’t familiar with David’s work before the talk, but after he read some excerpts from the book, and talked about how he came to write it, I made a point of tracking down a copy from the Five Leaves stall afterwards.

A lot of interesting discussions were had with punters and fellow publishers across the day, trading war stories, but the most amusing one of the day was with the elderly gentleman shepherding his wife around, that I can only presume was going to every table attempting to convince publishers to take on his wife’s short stories. Despite the big green Factor Fiction banner and the entirely comic-related wares on our table, he pressed on with the pitch without blinking. “I’m sorry, but we only publish comics”, I told him. “Ah, she only writes ‘proper’ stories. Perhaps you could add another string to your bow?” In other circumstances, I might have been offended by his dismissal of comics as ‘proper’, but I couldn’t help but smile. I did say that I’d take issue with the word ‘proper’, and another punter who had been earwigging took that as an opportunity to jump in to my defence: “I don’t have any interest in that stuff either,” he interjected, “but I’d take issue with that description too.” In an extended chat with him, he told me about his own work, involving a married pope.

I got a chance to look through the promotional advance pages of Timebomb Comics’ upcoming titles, which look interesting as usual, particularly one featuring one of the artists from Commando Picture Library. I also got myself caught up with the most recent issues of Black Static and a Gary McMahon novella.

I’m not sure if I’d want to do non-comic shows too often. Too many people for whom comics hold no interest at all, but every so often, it’s good to shake things up and do a bit of outreach. It’s easy to just stay in the comics box and get to know pretty much all the other publishers, and see the same punters time after time, but we’ve found that by going to non comics-specific shows, we’ve learned a lot of tricks and found a lot in common with our prose publishing peers.

You can see a few more photos from the event on our Flickr page.

We’ll have new comics in the form of The Girly Comic #18, Violent! #14 plus a few copies of the MCR comic: The Fiend in Five Dimensions!

We were also hoping to launch The Girly Comic Book Vol 1, but printing delays mean we will now be launching that at Thought Bubble in Leeds on 15th Nov http://www.thoughtbubblefestival.com/08home.asp

The Girly Comic Book will be a 280 page hardback edition.

Hope to see lots of you at the events.

luv & jellybabies
Selina & Jay

Jay recently chaired a panel on Breaking In To Comics, as part of the BLAM! Season, which Damien Walters is running on behalf of Leicester Libraries. The other panel guests were Matt Smith, Editor of 2000AD, and John Freeman of Down the Tubes, Rok Comics and former Marvel UK and Titan Magazines Editor.

The event was very well attended, with over 60 people in the audience and people travelling from as far away as London and Barnsley. It was a wonderful mix of age, race and gender.

Some of the top tips from the panel were:

• Read and follow the submission guidelines.

• Get some experience and hone your skills in the small press or webcomics arena.

• Try to be original. For example, 2000AD has seen numerous time travel, virtual reality prison stories etc.

• Remember that you are competing with the current contributors to publishers, so you have to be as good as, or preferably better than they are.

• Know the market you are submitting to. If the publication only publishes 5 page standalone stories, don’t submit a ten page first instalment of a 300 page magnum opus!

• Writers: Try to get an artist to work on some of your spec scripts in order to understand how your writing works once it is illustrated.

• Artists: Be ruthless with your portfolio – have no more than 5 pages of your best comic strip work, and do not include pin-ups. The editors want to see your ability to tell a story.

• Artists: When showing your portfolio to an editor, make sure you have illustrated pages using their characters. For example, if you’re trying to submit to 2000AD then you might illustrate one of the spec scripts from their website. Don’t send them your Spider-Man art pages. Send them Judge Dredd or Strontium Dog.

• Attend and network at comic conventions – it’s a great way to make contacts and hear about new opportunities.

• Think about all the different types of places you can submit to:

  •  

    • 2000AD (Rebellion)

    • Commando (DC Thompson)

    • Junior titles (look at what is on the shelves of your local newsagent)

    • Independent & Small Press publishers

    • Webcomics

    • Comics for mobile phones (Anyone can submit to ROK comics)

    • Educational comics

    • Business/Health comics

    • Manga – Tokyo Pop Rising Stars of Manga competitions

    • Mainstream Book Publishers. For example, Jonathan Cope, Gollancz and David Fickling Books

    • Competitions elsewhere. For example, the recent Observer/Jonathan Cape newspaper competition

    • Student newspapers

    • Fanzines

    • Magazines

BUT, most of all, have fun and enjoy creating comics, otherwise it’s not worth the effort!

Related links:

BLAM! Season

Breaking In To Comics report by John Freeman.