ASYLUM-X

We must say that we were pretty excited about this year's Asylum event.
This is THE Steampunk event and is probably the biggest in the World, it's certainly the biggest in Europe. This year we had our secret weapon..

No, not Colin, our very own comic that tells stories about the Steampunk personas wailing around us for the three (or four) days.
This year Jemma came down to visit my in High Wycombe and we both set off early Friday morning to get to the event and set up in the University building before the weekend's event took off. Interestingly when we arrived we found that the hall we were to put our table in was already very busy and so it was an even quicker than normal set up (helped by the fact that Colin hadn't arrived yet and so I could get away with my less than perfect attempt).

And trade was brisk.
I'm glad we didn't stop off for a coffee on the way up, as I'd intended.
Colin arrived later on and re-arranged things a bit but we had a very busy afternoon.
Gary arrived even later on, he'd stopped for a nice cup of tea with Karen on his way up Steep Hill.
The highlight was when Lady Clarajane (one of the characters in the Enter The Asylum comic) turned up and let us borrow the airship (made from Lego) that her husband, Capt. Rivington, had made based on the image in the comic. It added very nicely the table display.
On Saturday we were moved a little and found ourselves next to Timebomb Comics, selling their Chapbooks and Flintlock. We had enough people manning the stalls that Jemma and I could wander into town where we met old friends who had just popped over to see what it was like and I met up with Ian Ashcroft, artist on Kia Wordsmith, our new comic. It's always great chatting to Ian and we discussed Kia's  (which is now launched over at www.kickstarter.com) future issues amongst other things.

Saturday evening saw us all chilling over a meal and talking about how well Enter The Asylum had done. It had been a risk but it seemed to have captured the attention of the Steampunkers.
Sunday was similar to Saturday, just as busy and we met a number of the Mountain (errr... Steep Hill) Climbers from one of the Enter The Asylum stories..

which was great fun. They loved the story and felt honoured to be in the book. The honour is all ours of course.
A few presentations and a good day at the table later and we found ourselves sat with Timebomb comics enjoying a nice meal.
This is a great event and one of our favourites for many reasons.
Monday was much quieter which meant more time to socialise and we took this great photo of the Enter The Asylum cover stars...

It was funny that we had to close the door that someone (what ? me?) had opened in front of the banner and which had obscured one of the 'stars'...

I've no idea how that happened ... honest.
So, another great Con and one that celebrated 10 years of Asylum.
I'll leave the post with my favourite costumes.
Group costume...

and individual...

but there were so many to choose from.
I need to work on mine for next year. I've got a hat that fits now, which is a start and something that some people thought impossible :o)