WesterNoir stock ready for Thought Bubble

It's great that the number of WesterNoir titles and extras are growing, but it does mean a lot of stuff to sort out for Conventions.

Everything WesterNoir is ready for Thought Bubble now...

Thought Bubble - last Con of the year

As is traditional these days, we ended another year of comics with what is probably the best comic convention in the UK, Thought Bubble.

Having moved from Leeds, the event now takes place in Harrogate and the venue is ideal, as is the town itself really.

Two days of meeting up with fellow comic creators and readers.

I picked up a lot of great books, congratulated people whose books I'd bought earlier in the year and met a lot of people who read Time Bomb comics. 

Steve even talked me into trying to emulate the now famous pose that he does before every Con.

As you can see, I'm no natural.

I really enjoyed this Con, and I know I always say that but this time I enjoyed it more than I have for a number of years.

I really did manage to mix my love of buying comic books as well as making and selling them.

I even managed to buy some original comic book art pages from Dean Ormston and Jeff Lemire, having had them sign my collected Black Hammer.

A greats way to the the Con year.

Last Con of the year.

Next weekend is Thought Bubble, always a great social event as much as one to meet customers, new and old.

Thought Bubble has come a long way since the fist we attended in a room in Leeds. It has improved year on year and is now pretty established and stable, and based in Harrogate. 

A lot of wonderful publications to be found and creators to chat with, well worth a visit if you're able.

WesterNoir Volume 2 and Scar are both back from the printers...

 ...and they look great.

really happy with how they turned out

just need to get Kia Wordsmith Issue 3 and we're all set for Thought Bubble launches.

Two more conventions

I've just been notified that I've been accepted into both the Nottingham Comic Con and Thought Bubble events that take place later this year. Check the side bar t the right for dates.

I love both of these events, and it's great that they are taking place again this year, real comic shows.

Thought Bubble 2021

In a word...Wow.

It was my first time in Harrogate, we'd missed the previous Thought Bubble due to other commitments, and I was intrigued to see the new venue and how it fit into the local area. I'd heard that Harrogate was a bit of a pain to get to if you haven't got a car, and wondered if there was further hassle once you actually arrived in the city.

Picking up Gary Crutchley on the way meant that I had company for at least half of the drive up from the South, and it was a long drive. It's been a while (due to Covid) that I'd driven so far, so we had a couple of stops for food and caffeine, but it all went pretty smoothly really.

We decide to find the venue and offload stock before going to the hotel, and unlike most Cons, where it's a bit of challenge finding where everything is the first time you attend, this was very easy. You couldn't miss it, it was just on the edge of town and well sign-posted.

You really couldn't miss it.

Saturday arrived and it was great to see that queues were forming...

and impressively long ones at that.

Inside the hall we'd set up in the RedShirt Hall, there were three halls in all. All of the halls had wall to wall quality stalls selling posters, comics, graphic novels and everything else you'd expect in a comic con.

As you can see from the image above, there was plenty of space between the rows of tables to minimise risk of Covid infection. Everyone was asked to wear masks when in the hall, which although a little uncomfortable for 2 days, was a small price to pay. Everyone also had to prove they had a Covid pass on entry. The organisers had done as much as they could.

Two days of great sales, meeting our creative friends and really enjoying being back out there.

A great Con, good number of attendees, good sales.

What more can you ask for?

Well, how about 'When's the next one?'.

Thought Bubble.

 Accent UK will be in the Redshirt Hall, stalls 44-45, at this weekend's #thoughtbubble2021 comic festival. 

Kia Wordsmith artist Ian Ashcroft and V2A Wasteland Chronicles co-writer Drone will be with us on the Saturday. Sunday it be WesterNoir co-creator and artist Gary Crutchley and I, proving the old boys have the stamina to do both days')

Please do pop over to the stall and 'Hello' if you're passing, it's been too long since the last one.

Thought Bubble 2021

Yes, we have a table at Thought Bubble and as we've been busy during Lockdown Year the table will look quite different to the one at the last Convention I made it to, which was True Believers back in Feb last year.

This year we may also be joined by some of the V2A guys, as we'll have issue 1 of V2A Wasteland Chronicles available.

Can't wait.

Thought Bubble 2020

We've managed to get ourselves accepted into this year's Thought Bubble Comic Con in November.
Check out their website for more details.
We missed last year due to booking on a Con that clashed, before the Thought Bible dates were announced. It'll be great to be back.

16th of 16 in 16.

Thought Bubble was our 16th and final convention of the year (I've got Jeremy Briggs to thank for the title of this posting).
As the biggest and best pure Comic Convention in the UK it is always a great end to the Convention year.
With four members of the Accent UK team at this year's event we were raring to go and as is always the case, completely blown away by the other comic books on display in the three venues.
With Thought Bubble we find that we have more returning customer's, looking for the latest issue of WesterNoir or Stephenson's Robot.

It was great catching up with our readers, most of them I recognize now, and amazing that some of them have framed our prints and Tarot Cards or have a shelf in their houses dedicated to Accent UK books. Very humbling.
I managed to get a couple of books signed by Mike Mignola and missed out on a Sketchbook by Kim Jung Gi but managed to catch him working some of his magic...

 ...amazing.
It was great catching up with a whole host of people, old friends and new.
Yep, Thought Bubble has a real comic buzz about it that I feel at no other Convention. All credit to Nabil and the gang for keeping it the success it has become. We were at the very first event some 10 years ago and to 15 or so tables have become... well... a lot more.

Thought Bubble 2015 - Last Convention of the Year.

It's always great to end the year on a high, and last year Thought Bubble was certainly that, with our best TB show ever from the perspective of sales made.
We are always a little nervous before a show, and looking around at the quality of comics on display on the many stalls around the New Dock Hall we were more nervous than normal. The quality of the whole independent comic book 'industry' just seems to get better and better. The concern is always one of, 'With so much to choose from, would customers actually have any cash left by the time they got to our stall ?'
Saturday the doors opened on a cold Yorkshire day and people quickly filled the hall. New Dock Hall being one of three, I wondered if the other halls were similarly busy and a quick dash around them later in the day actually proved this to be the case. The Convention has grown year on year and this year I actually felt that the number of halls and stalls were justified by the number of people looking to buy comics.

This year we were sandwiched between the very impressive Improper Books, who have a whole range of very nicely printed books of great quality, and Do Gooder Comics, with their great little Dungeon Fun comic.
For the first time I brought some of my own sketches to produce some limited Stephenson's Robot sketch and Tarot card packs and the sketches worked a treat, encouraging people to buy the first two issues. This works so well for WesterNoir I thought it worth trying.

During a busy day I managed to spend a few minutes catching up with Andy Bloor at his stall, selling copies of Midnight Man and his new 'Andy Thology', which includes along with some of his Accent UK anthology contributions, sketches and a couple of new Midnight Man pages. It's great to see Andy at his table enjoying the Cons.
Saturday ended with us looking at a very productive day, and we celebrated with what is becoming a traditional pub meal with Lucky Target Comic's Sumyra and whoever happens to helping at her stall. No Chris Dingsdale this year though, I hear he was out of the country on a Yak drive or some such, but we were joined by long time friend Tony Hitchman. A late night talking comics lead nicely into Sunday.

Scott and Colin acting out a scene
from Scanners....

Sunday is always more relaxed, giving me time to spend longer looking around, and spend some money. This year however my purchases were limited to The Wrenchies (which I queued to get signed (and a sketch)) from Farel Dalrymple (I've been a fan of his since Popgun War), 2 Sisters (which I got signed by Matt Kindt along with my copy of Pistolwhip) and the first three issues of Dean Beattie's great Random Trials. I have to limit spending at these events, which is really difficult, as I need to save as much as I can for the next WesterNoir and Stephenson's Robot print bills.
Sunday, whilst not as successful sales wise as Saturday, was a pretty good day. We got to meet a few great new artists who we may well work with us on some future books and I also got to chat to Dave Hitchcock and show him the colour effect I'd added to his pages for a future Stephenson's Robot back story, which he was very happy with.
I disappeared from the table for more than an hour and caught up with an old boss from my day job. Rosemary lives in Leeds and yet I've never mentioned the fact that I go there every year for TB. That is until this year. It was really great catching up and hard to believe that 15 years had passed.
Looking back over the two days it was great to have so many people buy the WesterNoir sketch packs but there is nothing more rewarding than have customers go straight to issues 5 and 6 (which weren't available at last year's event). People are really getting into the story.
So, another great Thought Bubble end to the comic con calendar on what has been by far our most successful year yet.
Thanks go out to everyone who has come to our stall over the year and talk comics and maybe try some of our books. Hope to see you all again next year.

Getting ready for Thought Bubble.

Next weekend Accent UK will have a table at Thought Bubble, our last convention of the year.
I've been busy doing some Stephenson's Robot sketches for a limited number of sketch packs and painting some of Gary's great WesterNoir sketches and as is the always the way, time is fast running out so there won't be a whole lot of either...

Where does the time go ?

The last Convention of the year.

You may have got a sense of it from reading Convention reports on this blog, 2014 has been the best year yet for Accent UK.
We've made record sales at Conventions and our on going series WesterNoir has really begun to gather more and more readers with each Con we do, as well as bring existing readers to the table to pick up the latest instalment.
Before WesterNoir however Stephenson's Robot was going to be our first on going series, well a 7 issue mini-series, and it's a very ambitious project for us which meant it has taken longer to get to print. But it did. And Thought Bubble saw it on the Accent UK table in all its splendour.

It's a very different book to WesterNoir and there's always the slight concern that readers of one wouldn't naturally be interested in the other.
So, with two new books and one of them, Tales Of WesterNoir, extending an existing series, we felt well placed to do well at this Convention too.
Driving over and setting up the morning of the first day of the Con is nothing new to us and we made it in plenty of time for 'doors opening'.
We were joined once again by WesterNoir co-creator Gary Crutchley (and you can read his report over on his blog) and Scott (Colin's son), so we had enough cover to allow us all to take time out from behind the table and wander around.

It was great to bump into Bridgeen Gillespie again after so many years and I of course picked up her great little collection of short stories, Flash Fiction.
This year we had Andy Bloor on his own table sat next to us, selling his own self published book Midnight Man. It's a very different book to Wolfmen, being written by Mo Ali and is a frantic fast pace actioner from beginning to end. It looks great with Andy's moody style jumping at you from every panel.

The organisers of Thought Bubble had changed things once again, this time adding a large Marquee to the square sat between the Main Dock hall and the Armouries. And it worked really well. This then was where most of the professional guests were sat and this is where the fan boys queued for signings and sketches. I was one of them for a while and spent a nice half hour chatting with Brian Hurtt as he drew a great sketch in my collected The Sixth Gun. We handed him a copy of the WesterNoirs as a thank you.

A typical slow start soon turned into a busy day, with repeat customers, Facebook friends, new customers and interested folk coming in waves.
WesterNoir being very well established now got the most interest but Stephenson's Robot had more than its fair share of sales as people were drawn to INDIO's wonderfully crazy artwork. It really is a gem of a comic.
So, by the end of the day we realised this was our best Thought Bubble ever, and that we'd already sold more books than we had over both days last year.
A nice evening spent talking comics over a burger and beer, and it was the perfect end to a great day.

Sunday started slower than Saturday. it always does, but unlike previous years, rather than sell half as many books over the day we actually sold nearly as many as we had on Saturday.
This was turning into one of our best ever Cons.
All books sold well but newer books sold better than the others, which is to be expected.
The Tarot Card edition of Stephenson's Robot went down well, as hoped, and we'll certainly continue producing a new card with each issue.

Andy Bloor, next to us, also had a good con with plenty of sales.
So, all in all it was a great two days and certainly just what we needed to keep us energised over XMas to continue working on the next issues of WesterNoir, Tales Of WesterNoir and Stephenson's Robot, as well as a number of other projects.

The First Magnificent Seven.

The first Magnificent Seven customers the buy our new Tales of WesterNoir comic will receive a free print of Josiah in action ...

and it'll be signed by Gary and myself.
Also, the first Stephenson's Robot Tarot Card will be available in a limit Tarot Card pack, for the princely sum of £5, which equates to £3 for the comic and £2 for the card... art by INDIO!, colours by Jon Ayre and card design by Andy Bloor.

And... we're in the news ... comic books news that is of course.
Stephenson's Robot gets a mention over at DownTheTubes as does Tales Of WesterNoir at DownTheTubes.
So if you can make it pop over and see these up close ...
You can also see what we're up to over on the Accent UK Comics group on Facebook.

Comic books launched at Thought Bubble next weekend.

I'm creatively involved in two books to be launched at next weekend's Thought Bubble in Leeds.
Stephenson's Robot has been in development for a while now, but it's quite an undertaking and we've taken our time a bit to make sure we're all happy that it's the best it can be. With amazing art from INDIO!, this builds upon the characters introduced very briefly in a tale in the ROBOTS anthology we produced a few years ago.

With a fabulous cover, designed by Andy Bloor, and a back up story illustrated by Marleen Lowe (whose work you'll have seen Whatever Happened To The World's Fastest Man ?) this seven issue mini-series will see events unfold in an alternate reality First World War. Written by myself and Jon Ayre with all character designs by INDIO!. I've been looking forward to seeing this book on our table for a long time now. And it's a full colour comic, I can't wait for next weekend.
The other new release is a companion comic to our WesterNoir mini-series, which will be continued early next year with Issue 1 of the second mini-series. Tales Of WesterNoir then allows us to tell the stories that surround events in WesterNoir, featuring main characters and minor characters alike. The first issue has tales from Gary Crutchley and myself illustrated by Roland Bird and Pedro Lopez respectively.

Again wrapped in a cover designed by Andy Bloor, illustrated by Gary Crutchley and coloured by Matt Soffe.
And if you're a fan of our Wolfmen books then be sure to check our Andy Bloor's self published Midnight Man... he's got the table next to us.

The last page of Strange Times 2.

Well it had to happen eventually.
I'm just finishing the last page of Strange Times Book 2.
People have been very patient and very gracious, coming up to me at Conventions and asking if Book 2 was available to buy yet, only to be told, once again, that it was nearly finished.
Well, not for much longer.
I'm very happy with how it all resolved itself, and it may seem a strange thing to say (as I'm writing it) but that's actually how it feels. These strange little characters have kind of told their own tale as the book has gone along. I started each page knowing where I thought it would go and quite often found it taking a slightly different path.
Challenging me to hold the story together.
I've really enjoyed travelling it with them.
But, it had to end and end it has.
So, when will it be ready ?
Well, a very good friend has offered to proof read it for me (Thank You Claire), even after having read Book 1 :o).
Once that's done it'll be over to Andy Bloor to work his usual magic for me and pull it all together, injecting some nice design elements, as he as with the cover.
...and then it's off to the printers.
I'm considering having it available for Thought Bubble, but I've another book being launched at Thought Bubble already, of which I shall tell more soon... should I launch two books at the same Con ?
Oh, why not :o)

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.