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 this week coming.

I must say it is my favourite event.

It's all about comics.

Yes, it's getting bigger and bigger, which results in each creator getting less sales, as there is so much quality competition, but who cares. It's great.

I spent this weekend getting stock together. 

I'm taking all the WesterNoir books and some of the new figures, in their boxes.

Lots of help on these.

Gary Crutchley and his son Jason on printing the figures themselves and Andy Bloor designing and constructing the boxes. I'm very happy with how they turned out.

Writer's retreat.

I've been writing a book for about 20 years. 

It started when my daughter was about 5, I thought it would be good fund to read her something I'd written amongst all those greats by Roald Dahl and the like. It's a Science Fiction tale, of course.

I wanted to see if she noticed 😀

Every year since then I've picked it up once or twice. Re-read, improved what I had and added another chapter.

I realised, and accepted, recently that at this rate I'm never going to compete it. And then I got chatting to a writer at the LFCC event earlier this year. 

She suggested that I needed to get away from the house and leave everything behind except what I needed for the book.

What a great idea.

I did exactly that and booked an AirBnB in Deal, Kent. I chose that as it meant I could also visit my parents whilst I was down there as they would be only 30 minutes away.

My window faced the sea and it was nice watching the waves come in and go out, mesmerising at times.

Despite that lovely distraction I did write quite a few chapters, and managed to get a few nice walks in along the coast.

..usually at night when I'd finished writing.

Did I finish it? 

Well... No.

But I'm closer 😉

WesterNoir Kickstarter Posting

I spent the last week or so making packages for all the WesterNoir Kickstarter Backers.

Quite an ordeal really, and made all the more complicated by the number of Add Ons we were offering.

It all seems to go fairly well though, and hopefully everyone will be receiving what they expected to receive.

The toughest part was parting with my painted Cassidy McRae figure.

She's gone to a good home though and I thank the backer for adding it to their pledge. 

London MCM as a punter

MCM events have become more and more expensive over the last year or so.

We've found ourselves nudged out of what was Comics Village, and is now Artists Alley, as we are seen as Publishers.

This has meant we are being asked to pay about twice as much for a Booth as we used to be asked for a couple of tables. 

Added to this everything has gone up in price and it's just not cost effective.

So, no Time Bomb table or Booth, but I thought I'd go as a punter and experience the event from the other side of the table.

I got a normal entry ticket for Sunday, the quieter day, and queued with those looking to get into the event at 12.01. I arrived at about 11.30am and was in by about 12.05pm, so not too bad really.

I found Artists Alley easy enough, event though they'd moved it the North Hall.

Wandering the aisles I didn't find a lot of comics on sale, each aisle seemed to have at most 3 tables with them, surrounded by artists selling, mostly manga, art. 

Chatting to my fellow comic creators the feeling was, yes, the event felt busy enough but people weren't interested in comics with few stopping at their stalls even.

I bought a few comics, chatted for a will with Titan's Conan comic writer Jim Zubb, and got him to do me a Conan sketch, and then went for some food.

Whilst sat at a table thinking about whether or not to just go home after eating my lunch, I'd been there for a couple of hours by then, I was approached by one of the Con helpers asking if I'd be willing to do a survey, give my feedback on the event and how to improve it.

"Sure." I said.

The survey consisted of 48 Questions, like 'What would you like to see more of at MCM?' with 5 options ... More Guests, More Artists, More Merchandise, More Games and I forget the last one but what it wasn't was More Comics. In the entire 48 Question Survey Comics were not mentioned once.

I guess things change and the event has evolved into what it is today but it feels a bit of a Con to say it's a ComicCon... ah.. unless the clue is actually in the name.

I can't see Time Bomb every selling at a future MCM, which is a shame as we enjoyed meeting the people walking passed our table/booth and chatting about our comics.

Quantum Issue 10 is at the printers

 This issues cover is Peter Thomson by Gary Crutchley and coloured by Luca Mattioni.

Last Sunday I went to the Tetbury Comic Con.

I came across one of those Facebook advert posts, which are so targeted these days that they are pretty much always of interest.

This one was for a 1 day Comic Convention in Tetbury, with special guest Brian Bolland.

Now, I've seen Brian at a number of Cons over the years but there have always been long queues and with the need to man the Con table I've always missed out.

So here was an opportunity that I couldn't really miss, despite the 1.5 hour drive to get there.

A small Con with no TimeBomb table to worry about.

I was surprised by how easy it was to find, and how beautiful the village and its surrounds were.

It was a very small Con.

About 5 comic tables, about 3 times that of other stuff and yes, Brian Bolland.

It was nice to clap Brian's Life Time Achievement award, along with those for the guy who runs the Comic Museum in London and someone from Rebellion.

And it was nice chatting to the few guys in the queue.

Brian was nice to chat to, whilst signing my 7 2000AD collected books, the first Batman - Black and White book and a Judge Anderson poster I bought off him on the day.

I also picked up issues 1 and 2 of After The Robot Apocalypse, a fun little romp which is really nicely illustrated.

The journey home took an hour longer due to a road being closed and SatNav not understanding, or accepting, that this had happened, but it was a nice day out.