Successfully funded.

Yep, the great news is that we gathered 91 backers for our Return To The Asylum Kickstarter, which is up on last year's 78 backers for Enter The Asylum.
A good trajectory :o)
We have also gathered two backers of the 'appear in the next issue' reward tier, another great sign.
The next issue is already in planning.
Really chuffed all round.

Return To The Asylum - Update

We've managed to exceed the number of backers we got on Enter The Asylum with the 79th person backing us today, and they did it in style. The 79th Backer backed two tiers and helped push ones raised into a nice place as well.
All backers of physical tiers will receive the third art card along with the other two.
This one is by cover artist Gary Crutchley, and I managed not to mess it up with the colouring.

The Kickstarter ends in less than 2 days so if you have been tempted then why not give it a go.

'Return ToThe Asylum' Kickstarter

I'm really happy with the progress on our latest Kickstarter.
'Return To The Asylum' follows on from last year's 'Enter The Asylum' and with a week to go looks to be on track to equal the 78 backers of our first steampunk anthology.
It's a bigger, and dare I say better, collection this time around and we're already working on next year's book.
It's great fun to pull together and to work with the characters in the comic, all of whom are people we meet at steampunk events or who back the 'Senior Principal Engineer of Steam' reward tier (and there's one left if you fancy seeing your steampunk persona in a comic book).
Pop over to Kickstarter and check it out, if only to enjoy Andy Bloor's great little video.

 

Coming in 2019 - Enter The Asylum Issue 2

Ouch.
We need to get busy on this one first thing next year.
That'll be tomorrow then.
Gulp.

Enter the Asylum.

The first Kickstarter (KS) for me, and Accent UK, was Enter the Asylum.
This is a steampunk book written about the personas of the people who dress up for and attend the Steampunk shows across the country.
We started with a fairly small (24 page) colour comic and told stories of a handful of characters.
Involving the people themselves in plot development was an interesting departure from our normal approach, and proved to be fun.
Ahead of the launch we produced and handed out fliers at a couple of Steampunk Cons, and other comic shows.
We also plugged the KS on various Steampunk Facebook Groups.
Then we launched and went around the Facebook Groups again telling people it was now active.
A £500 target was hit very quickly, I think within a day or two.
The final amount raised pretty much paid for everything.
I think we were short a little on what we paid out for artists and colourists etc but it certainly allowed us to consider reporting the whole thing next year.
And every year going forward if the KS boost continues.
A great first Kickstarter.

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)

Kickstarter.

Well our first ever Kickstarter campaign was a success.
We hit out £500 target for Enter The Asylum steampunk anthology in less than a day, if memory serves.

The tiers helped it get over the target and it made me aware that had we not had Stephenson's Robot reward tiers then we would have jut missed the target, something to remember for future campaigns.

All's well that ends well though and we made it.
As I type this the special print cards and the comic itself are with the printer.
It is a lovely looking little comic and I can't wait to see it in the flesh.
Hot on the success of Enter The Asylum we are in the middle of our second Kickstarter campaign, Hard Country.
Hard Country has been Gary Crutchley's pet project for a good many years and we've Brough the tale into the WesterNoir universe and published it as a Tales of WesterNoir special.
You can check it out over at Kickstarter.com, it's doing pretty well, hitting the 92% of target mark in a week. Pop over and watch the great video that Andy Bloor pulled together for us.

So, all's looking good on the Kickstarter front.

The first ever Portsmouth Comic Con.

Last weekend saw the Accent UK A-Team, or Team-of-One (that's me then), drive down to the first ever comic con in Portsmouth's Guildhall.

I set off extra early as I had little idea of where I was going, how I'd get there, how long it would take and what I'd do if, be some fluke, I should find the place.
Yep, I was a Team-of-One.
Actually, I guess I was a Team-of-Two. GoogleMaps was along for the ride and so I did actually make it in pretty good time.
The omens were good.

I had the sense that my Stephenson's Robot, in that it features Isambard Kingdom Brunel, would do pretty well as the pub across from the venue was advertising for me.
Even on my own I managed to set the table up in about 10 mins, which is actually quicker than normal as normally Colin spends the next 10 minutes re-arranging things :o)

Having one table meant that I could only take limited sock and that I had to make use of a comic box on the table to hold back issues. The comics on the table itself were pretty much all the latest issue of a series or imprint. It seemed to work pretty well though.
And there I was, set up between Mr Lego and The Back Issue Brothers (who actually ran the local comic shop (Room 237) and took some Accent UK to consider for their store).
In the main hall, Comic City 1, there was a real mix of tables and I wondered if I'd suffer because of that. Comic City 2, the room behind me, was more Independent Comics based.
I did, however, get to see the comic stars as they made there way to the signing area, and managed to get a copy of ...

signed by the man himself. An excellent start.
I decided to not only try to sell comics but also try to promote our Kickstarter and so as people stopped and chatted, whether they bought anything or not, they ended up walking away with one of our Enter The Asylum fliers.

Some people were happier to do so than others and there being a great Steampunk presence, courtesy of The Gosport Steampunk Group, certainly helped.
Saturday then was a good day, a decent start sales wise but very long.
It was due to finish at 8pm.
The organisers took pity on us however and let us leave at 6.30pm due to our good behaviour I think.
Sunday was pretty much the same. Sales were good, people were more than happy to stop and chat. I think there were more families checking out what was going on but the number of people looked to be about the same.

...and of course Steve Tanner was there selling boxes of his Flintlock comic to everyone.
It was great to catch up with Russell Mark Olsen and pick up the latest issue of his great Gateway City comic, to have breakfast with Mike Garley and Martin Simmonds, to trade quips with Dave of Timebomb Comics and meet John Freeman (DownTheTubes.com) again after many years.
I also made contact with a sculptor which will hopefully lead to something quite exciting in the not too distant future. I'll keep the details close to my chest for now but I'm pretty excited, well, as excited as an English man gets which is typically not noticeable to anyone else.
Reflecting on the Con as I was driving home I realised that it had been probably the most successful first attempt at a Con of that size that I've ever been to. I think most stalls did good trade, most people had a good time and Portsmouth benefitted from the extra business.
Congratulations then to Joel Meadows and his team on a great Con.
I've already registered interest in next year's event and can only hope I'm accepted.

Kickstarter.

Accent UK are launching their first ever Kickstarter on the 1st of May. The new comic, titled 'Enter The Asylum', features 4 five or six page stories about the Steampunk persona that you'll see at the Asylum event in Lincoln in August.

It's a TimeQuake!

A new Steampunk event in Manchester?
Are we interested in having a table?
Hell yes.
Are we interested in doing something a little more involved than just putting comics on a table?
Errr... yeah... let us have a think.
It's one of the things we love about the Steampunk events. It's not just us turn up with boxes of comics, put them on the table and try to sell them. It's us turn up dressed as Steampunk characters and attempt to display our comics in new and interesting ways. And then try to sell them.
We've tried a few things before but this time (mostly due to Colins efforts) we went the extra mile.

We got lucky with the positioning of the wood panelling but the rest of it we brought ourselves.
I must say I thought it would look cool, but it looked fabulous.

We used the event to also plug our new comic, to be launched at Asylum X, called Enter The Asylum. It will feature comic stories about the characters that you'll see if you wander around the Lincoln event in August and will be our first attempt at Kickstarter in May.
We had lots of interest in the chair...

and got to meet a lot of interesting characters, some we wanted to chat to...

and some we didn't...

This event was unlike any other we've been to, in that it had the general Steampunk people wandering around with jet pack and googles but also Western and Post Apocalyptic Steampunk. There were all manner of contraptions on display and to be honest it would have been an interesting day for anyone, not just people into steam. It even had Dr Who characters and authors.
The funniest moment was when someone turned up and spotted themselves in our advertising picture, art by the talented Gary Crutchley.

Turns out this is just one of many costumes he wears, all of which are fabulous.

..and not surprising from a man who is obviously a creative wizard.
It was a long weekend but very enjoyable and successful.
Colin even took some time out at the end to try the chair himself...

... I think it, and the rug, might become a feature in his lounge.