Belfast MCM.

Just back from another fabulous Con in Belfast.
This is a Con we never expect to make money on, the cost of flight and lodgings etc always mean we'd have to sell more books than we can possibly get into our 23kg luggage allowance, but we have such a good time it's always a Con we try to get to.
This year we nearly missed it as our friends, Steve Tanner and Paul Birch were organising a Con in Birmingham, but that fell through and we jumped at the chance to go back.
Arriving early Friday morning we took our time getting to the venue, spending the morning in the city, made easier by Colin's decision to hire a car this year.

We've got setting up the table down to a fine art, made even easier due to the reduced stock and lack of banners and other props. Gary Erskine was there already and had already planned out the weekend, which saw us that night sitting in a pub with a troop of 2000AD fans, most of whom were also involved in a Cosplay group (dressing up as Star Wars characters in the main I think). I know I'm getting old when I struggle to hear what is being said to me due to the noise... errr ... sorry .. music, but I was amazed to find many of the group were IT professionals and of a similar age.
A very enjoyable night that ended up with us chatting with Glenn Fabry and offering to chauffeur him to and from the event over the weekend. It's strange when you meet someone whose work you have admired over the years. You worry that you won't like him and that that would somehow make you see his work differently from then on. This was not the case with Glenn though, he's a really nice bloke and fun to be with.

Hopefully this is some kind of salute, acknowledging
quality and not them showing us where the door is.

Saturday saw good sales, and by mid day I'd sold out of all the copies of the WesterNoir Trades that I've taken. They are quite big books and I had to balance numbers of these with the other comics, a copy of the trade taking up the same weight as 5 other books.
This didn't trouble a number of people though as they still bought copies of issues 5, 6 and 7, saying that they'd order the trade through the post.

Colin would often wander off, I spotted him at one point
chatting to Gary Erskine at the other end of the
Comic Village.

Saturday night we caught up with Gary Erskine and Jenika Ioffreda for tea and chat, which is becoming a bit of a nice habit.
Sunday morning it was great to see a few customers who bought the trade on the Saturday rush over to the stall on Sunday to get the rest. We had one of our busiest Sunday mornings ever I think.

Meow.

Sunday was as busy as Saturday and it felt to me that the whole event had a better attendance and more energy than last year's.

I caught Moon artist Steve Penfold admiring his own work....

All in all we had a great time.

Colin hadn't noticed his passenger...

Monday morning, following the fire alarm going off twice in the Premier Inn, was a slow start but we made it into the city again to find the Ulster Museum closed and The MAC art gallery changing all of its exhibits, so we went shopping and tracked down The Comic Guys great new store.

Yep, a really nice weekend. We'll be back.