It's been a strange few weeks. I went to the opening of the Contemporary Craft Open Exhibition and was a little humbled by the professionalism of the other entries. True to any form of art there were those that I liked and those that I didn't, but overall I felt a certain amount of pride that Belmat was even there.
He didn't get a prize of course, but he did look the toughest exhibit in the room and I certainly noticed that none of the other exhibits would look him in the eye.
I have plans for entering something next year, but we'll see if I ever find the time to make it.

Yesterday Accent UK had a table at the Comiket in London and sold a good number of our books. All was going very well until I sold a copy of Robot Shorts to a Spanish (I think) couple.
'My partner makes robots', the lady stated, very proud of her chap.
 'Hey, so do I', I felt a bond forming between myself and the gentleman. 'I make mine out of paper mache' I explained.
'Oh, he programmes his to avoid objects...'
'Oh... real robots...' I felt a little like Androx The Mighty and crawled back behind the table to deal with the next customer.
Still, it feels good to know that a Robotics Engineer now possessed a book of my about robots.
Next weekend I'll be at the Leeds' Thought Bubble Festival, so do pop in and say hello if you're in the area, and if you happen to be a Robotics Engineer it might be best to mention that early in the conversation, to avoid my embarrassing myself... again.

From Comiket to Mocca

Well, we had a great time at the Comiket convention in London yesterday (you can read a very brief report over at the Accent UK news and reviews blog), and I'm now thinking about packing my bags for Mocca, NYC, USA. 
Comiket was a first for a number of things from me this time around... first appearance at a Con of Robot Shorts, first appearance at a Con of The One-Eyed-Robot and also first appearance of the first Robots Shorts - A to Z of Robots Greetings Card ...

I added colour to the black and white (and grey) version that appears in the Robot Shorts book, and it looks really nice (and shiny). Hopefully tomorrow will see, along with the delivery of our first WesterNoir comic, the arrival of the second card (in the possible series) with Belmat.

I had to change the text a little to let him stand on his own, as it were, so the 'Belmat however was real big and mean..' becomes 'Belmat 2000 was real big and mean...'.
Tomorrow I'll start to pack my bags ready for flying out on Thursday... lots of copies of WesterNoir Issue 1 ... can't wait to see it... and get it on our table at Mocca... Stuart at UK COMICS CREATIVE has once again pulled all the stops to turn the WesterNoir printing around in a very short time... so a big thanks to him, as always.

Comiket, WesterNoir and stuff...

I'm off the Comiket next Saturday, you can find out more about this great little event over on the Accent UK news blog, but I'm really looking forward to it.
WesterNoir is complete and with the printer. It should be ready in time for the Mocca event in New York which we will be attending the weekend of the 28th April.
Busy times ...