Thing to Shmurgencon

This year's Thing went off smoothly. Having started out in two minds about the sticker passport, I ended up getting quite competitive with Sally Anne, pretty much filled mine and scored some beauties.
Due to extreme skintness I made very few purchases/swaps this year. Everything I came home with was top notch, from Ellen Lindner's gorgeous Train Lines mini and Joe Decie's musings in What I Drew volume 2 to Dan Berry's newspaper-sized Oxford Clay. (I have slight reservations about this format – it is wonderful to have room for the artwork to breathe, it looks fabulous, but it's so fragile and difficult to store safely...)
And to keep up with some of my favourite series, I now have the final part of Rob Jackson's Gothic mystery Great Deeds against the Dead, part 11 of Paul Rainey's epic No time like the Present and the latest Sally Anne Hickman Diaries, covering Jan-March 2010, resplendently clad and sparkling with touching honesty.
Rob also traded me a Schmurgendoll for a Bog Wizards duck! Result!

After the show we went on to Schmurgencon 4 at the Globe a few doors down.
Imagine my elation when presented with an award for Fastest Penciller by the great man himself. Unfortunately my joy was short lived as an obviously jealous party accidentally set fire to it soon afterwards. Oh well half an award is better than none.
I was in good company as other luminaries included Paul Rainey, Best Writer/Artist, Dan Lester, Best Painted Cover and David Baillie, Best Scrotum...

Striptacular 2

I did it!
A brand new comic for your delectation, hot off the press, will be available from moi at the UKWebcomixthing tomorrow for the modest sum of £3.00.
Come on down to Mile End and grab yourself a copy!
There will be stickers too, and if you come later on, the Schmurgencon 4 awards are at the Globe, from 4.30 until closing time, just down the road. Uncompromising fun!

Gin Palace

Look what arrived in the post yesterday: Gin Palace!
It looks lovely and contains an eight page story by yours truly as well as some splendid work by Rob Jackson, Dave Hughes, Ant Mercer, Jarod Rosello, Lee Johnson, and Simon M. There is more info here
You can buy it from Rob's website, or wait until the Webcomixthing in two weeks.
Also I have ordered some stickers in order to take part in this Dino Saw Us idea at the Webcomixthing, but also just for the hell of it as I have never made stickers before.

This what I hope they will look like.

I will also endeavour to have Striptacular 2 ready in time...

The Thing vs Schmurgencon

Saturday 28th March dawned and Richy K. and I set off for the wilds of Mile End, fortuitously hooking up with Sally Ann on the tube. We set up our wares on our very well-positioned table, next to Rob Jackson, and awaited the rush of punters. It was busier than last year, possibly due to it not being Easter weekend, with a fair amount of the traffic stopping at our table. At the end of the day, I sold all my copies of Striptacular and came away with a profit after table costs, which is a good result.
I picked up the latest Curtis and Terrorist from Oliver Lambden, Jake Harold's That Time I Went on a Trip to Berlin, Rob Jackson's Bog Wizards 2 (with board game!), Paul Rainey's No Time Like the Present part 8, Phil Spence's Reasons Why I'm Scared to Love You and Whores of Mensa 4.
All really good stuff – I will endeavour to review things more fully at some point.

We then moved on to Schmurgencon which was taking place in uncompromising fashion just down the road.
It was altogether a more intimate affair, involving a certain amount of liquid refreshment and experimental performance art. The mysterious Norwegian was nowhere to be seen, he was rumoured to have suffered some kind of accident...

Of Mars and pen

Got my contribution to the Thing anthology finished. Hurrah!
Here's a taster.

Now just got to get the new comic completed in time...

Here is a rather splendid portrait of lovely Oliver Lambden from the Fitzroy pubdraw, who incidentally celebrated a birthday yesterday. I've been producing some very satisfying sketches lately thanks to my lovely brushpen, I will post some more when I get round to it.

The Thing

It's been a while - had my head down for the last few weeks desperately trying to get the new comic finished for the Thing last Saturday. Printing, collating and stapling until past midnight but was all set for the early start in the morning. Had the good sense to wrap all comics in plastic as it was pissing down on the way there. Travelled from West London with the lovely Richy K Chandler and met up with the excellent Richard Peel at the venue. We were sharing a table and endeavoured to squeeze our wares on to the tiny space.
It was a fun day despite the cold and miserable weather. Didn't spend enough time browsing the other tables but still managed to come home with a pile of purchases and swaps which I am still working my way through.
On top of our usual stock, we were offering Richy's sweet new minicomics (Mish Mash Mosh, Govindra the Meditating Rabbit, and Subject 14d), Richard's bewildering array of £1 comics (as well as Intense Sticker Warriors), and my new opus.
I didn't do too badly but but felt unhappy with the cover which just isn't eye-catching enough. I am now redesigning it. And maybe renaming it.
I should have given it a lot more thought but was so determined to have it ready for the Thing...
The few people who aquired it on the day will have that uber-rare version that will be worth a mint one day.
As well as the above mentioned, I have so far enjoyed Alex Potts' Lost Shoe Comics number 4 (now that's got a great cover- lino cut), Will Kirby's one about getting over his girlfriend in Paris, Cath Arctic's Waterloo Teeth.....
There is lots more I haven't even looked at yet, including the anthology (except to check that my effort printed OK).
David O'Connell had the table next to ours, and, not content with being a thoroughly good egg, has produced the amazing Tozo in impeccable "ligne claire". I loved his hourly mini too.
Managed to catch a couple of drinks with Peter Lally in the pub but pushed off too early to really get stuck into the post-thing thing as I had a scrummy mexican meal awaiting chez Krissie.