Pics from Angouleme

Having recovered from my aprés con lurgy, here are the few non blurry photos worth posting.

Dutch posters were too covered in glue to steal

Sally Anne engages with the customers

Old friends

A big plate of vegetables at Le Terminus

Hugo holds forth

It's over for another year

Sean's got it all on camera

Loitering with intent

Just in case it wasn't clear enough

Sketches from the frontline

I made it home with my sketchbook this time. Unfortunately I managed to leave my copy of Jennifer Hayden's excellent Underwire on the train. You win some, you lose some...

Angouleme was a treat comme d'habitude. Great exhibitions, such as Dreams in Comics, which features plenty of Windsor McKay of course, but 70 other artists are on show. Quite a few strips involve sexual fantasies and neuroses of all sorts (Guido Crepax anyone?) with the odd one covered to shield it from the innocents' gaze. It is always a joy to peruse gorgeous artwork from Hugo Pratt, Fred, Moebius, etc etc – the list is endless. I particularly enjoyed the anxiety dream from JC Menu where president Mitterand comes to visit and he can't find anything to show him. He ends up having to give the first lady one of his rare vintage American comics.

The Willem exhibit was particularly fascinating, I emerged after an hour and a half having only read and examined half of it.

The Dutch contingent who designed and screenprinted posters over the four days were a brilliant idea led by Joost Swarte. I did not regret getting up extra early to catch his joint talk with Willem.

While I was in revelling in the Willemness of it all, Sally Anne was having a Dash Shaw fest with a talk, book signing, and generally spotting him around the place. The social aspect is also important, as we met old friends and acquaintances and made new ones. My fellow Dessinators Sean, Sally Anne and Oliver were once again perfect travelling companions, and my brother Hugo joined our gang for a while.

And to compensate for last year's sad loss, I managed to capture Willem afresh while he drew me an fabulous personalised dedicace.

What we will do

This time next week...

Greetings etc

The festivities are almost behind us, the guests have departed, the house is quiet once more...

Regroup Re-energize

Having failed to take any decent pictures at Leeds, I give you a blurry one of the giant who came by our midget table. The weekend went smoothly with my excellent companions Sally Anne and Paul, despite a freezing cold and dimly lit hall. The party took place in a sort of shopping mall and felt oddly soulless— but maybe that was just me.

Sean gave us a pep talk and reorganised our table, alas too late to make much difference but we are determined to be more focused come Angouleme. A midweek walk through the park with Heather Johns to the Dulwich Picture gallery and the Whistler exhibition fired me up to do a spot of lino printing. Saturday saw Sally Anne and I at the lovely Jeffrey Brown's workshop at Orbital. He showed us how to draw Star Wars characters — you never know when that may come in useful.

Bubbling away

Next weekend I shall be at Thought Bubble in Leeds, hopefully crashing at the boy's pad. I will have a couple of new things on the table – about bloody time, you might say. I will be sharing space again with my lovely fellow Dessinator Sally Anne Hickman and according to the plan we will be canal side in the new Allied London Hall. The event seems to have grown exponentially so we won't even be in the same building as another Dessinator, Sean Azzopardi... See you there!

Comiket coming up

The Dessinators are back this time with a second helping of selected comics from myself, Sally Anne Hickman and Sean Azzopardi, and will be found at St Martin's College of Art in King's Cross at Comiket on Saturday 2 November. Having been firing off in all different directions over the last few months , we are coming together once more, with renewed perspective and inspiration. While I have mostly been attending to family business, Sean seems to have been popping up at events all over the globe, while Sally Anne is embarking on a M.A. in illustration at Camberwell.

However, being faced with the necessity to produce material, I managed to pull something out of the bag and seem to be back on track for now.