Thought Bubble 2025

Wow.

Thought Bubble 2025 was a fabulous way to end 2025's convention circuit.

It's a long way to Harrogate, and I pick up Gary Crutchley on the way, which adds an extra hour(ish). He's good company in the car though and we talk about WesterNoir most of the way before moving on to setting the world to rights.

Our location in the 2000AD Hall was always a worry.

We were at the far end on the rows of tables, on the corner effectively, and I worried that most people wouldn't even see us.

This turned out to be a valid concern but we did manage to interest most of those who did come past our table, and gained quite a few new readers of our books, as well as meet a number of our existing readers again.

This year we had two new comics

1. WesterNoir Tales and 
2. WesterNoir - Dead End.

Both were very well received.

We also had a new WesterNoir mini poster, coloured by Matt Soffe, and a load of new figures (gator men). 

It was a busy table that's for sure.

I gave out a few Contributor copies of WesterNoir Tales and also got to give one to John Reppion and thank him for his Introduction in the book. It's something I'm almost reluctant to ask people for as it puts them in a spot really. As a friend it'll be difficult for them to say 'No', without feeling that they are letting us down. We really do appreciate it and I wanted to make sure John knew that.

Gustaffo Vargas was pleased to receive his copy. It features his first ever professional (in so far as we paid him for his work) gig in the UK. He was ok with my colouring attempt as well, or was too polite to say otherwise 😀.

Ian Ashcroft also attended the Con, talking to 77 Publishers about his new book with Pat Mills (you can check it Hellbreaker which is still active over on Kickstarter). Ian also picked up his copy of WesterNoir Tales and we had a good chat about Kia Wordsmith over a coffee. All very positive and I'll be working on the script over Xmas, Ian has already has10 pages of script to complete so that should work nicely.

Jemma and I talked to the very talented Norm Konyu about illustrating a 10, or so, Cassidy McRae story for WesterNoir Tales 2, and he was more than happy to get involved, which is fabulous.

We are extremely fortunate to be able to have so many talented people involved in our works.

Added to this we now have WesterNoir books on sales in Harrogate's very own Destination Venus comic shop.

A great weekend.

I just need to recover now 😆 

Thought Bubble next weekend.

Well, it's that time of the year again when many comic creators and readers head up North to Harrogate for the annual Thought Bubble.

If you love comics and haven't been then you really are missing out.

It's the UK's version of San Diego, back when it was all about comic books.

We're in the 2000AD hall this year, only on the single table (we felt greedy getting two the last couple of years and so decided to downsize) so it'll be a very tight squeeze. Find us at B28.

Please do pop by and see us if you're at the event.

It's a great end to the year. 

Dead End has arrived...

 ..in plenty of time for Thought Bubble.

It's a great little book. 

Self contained story. 

An extra 10 pages.

Same cover price (because I forgot to ask Andy Bloor (who did his usual wonderful job pulling it all together) to update it) 😆

WesterNoir Facebook Group

Oh yes, forgot to say, I've set up a WesterNoir Facebook Group where we'll share news, sample pages etc.

Please feel for to pop over and join...

WesterNoir Facebook Group

Getting stuff ready for Thought Bubble.

Thought Bubble in the biggest Comic Convention in the UK.

Many tables full of wonderful comics, posters and prints.

It doesn't have the footfall or an MCM but the difference is that all of the people who come to Thought Bubble are looking for comic books and not a signature from some Dr Who actor or someone who was behind the voice of a cartoon character.

It's all about comics.

So, if you're going to bring out something new then this is the Con to do it at.

Along with WesterNoir Tales we are also hoping to launch out second Cassidy McRae collection, Dead End with art from the very talented Gareth Sleightholme. 

Here's the thumbnail of the cover that Gareth sent for approval before proceeding.

It really is great.

Phew. We made it.

The great news is that our WesterNoir Tales Kickstarter successfully reached its £3,000 target.

We had 111 backers in the end, which is a nice number.

Now it's just a matter of getting the money in from Kickstarter and then printing the book and the special double sided art cards.

And then sending everything out to our backers.

Happy days.

The Crusaders came back.

 I couldn't resist getting some Crusaders out to man the castle.

That really took me back.