Birmingham Comic Festival and Peggy the Car.

The second one day event co-organised by our good friend Steve Tanner (of Timebomb comics) took place last Saturday.
The Accent UK crew this time around consisted of the old guard; Colin, Gary and myself, and as is typical we organised the transport to optimize comfort and minimize cost. Colin therefore drove to mine, parked his car in front of my house and transferred his stock to my car. We then picked up Gary, taking a small detour, before joining the M6 and heading down the 50 minutes or so stretch of motorway that took us to the Edgbaston Cricket Ground.
As usual we were set up very promptly, with Gary overseeing things..,

...he does like to see things set up just so.
The day was pretty much like last year really, Sales were OK, we chatted a lot about all sorts of things, bumped into old friends (great to see Jason Cobley back on the scene) and, well, had a good time.
This year seemed to have even more families attend than last and the Festival did have a really good feel to it. The Lego version of our characters drew plenty of attention as always from kids and adults alike, with the focus shifting from Kingdom to the Co-joined Twins.

It was a long day and we were pretty tired when this monster of a Cosplay wandered past. I'm not sure what he was looking for and we were all too afraid to ask. Fortunately he carried on passed our table...

And then the day ended.
We did a quick count up and found we'd done a little better than last year, which is a good sign.
We stopped off on the way back and have a Cantonese Buffet, which was excellent and a perfect end to the day.
Only it turned out not to be quite the end.
On getting back to my house, having dropped Gary off, we found that Colin had left his lights on all day. Peggy, his car, was dead. The batteries totally flat.
I took Colin home and returned to mine in the knowledge that tomorrow would see me meeting the RAC. It turned out to be more complicated than that and I got to meet a locksmith too, but that's a story for another day.
Would we go back for a third Birmingham Comic Festival ?
Yes, we would.
Would I check that Colin has switched off his lights next time ?
Yes, I would.

The First Birmingham Comics Festival

Accent UK have been to a good number of 'first time' Comic Conventions over the years, and we always expect them to have their organisational and logistic problems. We always expect attendance to be a little lower than we'd like and therefore do no expect great sales. You have to allow these Conventions the room to breathe and grow, so there really is no value in giving the organisers a hard time.
So, expectations low, Accent UK (Me, Colin, Gary and Jemma) were pleasantly surprised that this convention was, without a doubt, the best 'first time' Comic Convention we'd ever been to.
The advertising beforehand was impressive.
The organisation on the day seemed to be flawless.
The way the organisers treated the guests and exhibitors could not have been better.
The number of customers...., well, OK, the number of customers were actually typical for a new Con. The numbers weren't fabulous, but that said, there was always a steady trickle of people wandering around, stopping at the stall, chatting about our comics and buying stuff.

Jemma gives Colin a talk about sales targets and
 expectations before the doors open.

The quieter Cons allow us to meet our creative friends, sometimes for the first time in the flesh, which is always great. I won't try to list everyone but it was great to chat with Dave Hitchcock, usually we are both too busy to spend much time talking but at this Con our tables were back to back, Matt Soffee (who is doing such wonderful work colouring our WesterNoir covers, Andy Winter (who has been away from the comic scene for quite a while now) and Patrick Scattergood (who makes his own comics as well as reviews those of the likes of Accent UK).
A quieter Con also lets us have more time to chat with the people the other side of the tables, as the whole thing moves at a slower pace.
All in all we had a really enjoyable day, and for the record we sold 4 times as many comics as at any of our other 'first time' Conventions. I think this Con is going to grow into one of the great Cons and we've already signed up to come back next year.

Birmingham Comics Festival next weekend, and other stuff.

It's been a busy few weeks and now we're all focused on next Saturday's comic festival in Birmingham. It's the organiser's first event but they've certainly been putting in a lot of time and effort promoting the event through the web and SFX magazine. It should be great.
From an Accent UK perspective, we've had to reprint issue 1 of WesterNoir as the first printing has all but sold out, which is great news. We've taken the opportunity to also change the cover slightly to bring it more in line with later editions, so the second printing cover looks like...

Also, great news that co-creator and artist of WesterNoir, Gary Crutchley, has been invited as a Guest of the event, let's hope it doesn't go to his head...
We'll be giving away a free print to the first Magnificent Seven customers who buy a complete set of the first WesterNoir mini-series (4 issues), and as usual there'll be plenty of other great books to pick up, including the first issue of our new 7 issue Stephenson's Robot series, with limited edition Tarot Card.
The focus of last month was the 50th birthday of Accent UK co-founder Colin Mathieson. I clubbed together with Gary and Colin's family to buy him a gift that we knew he would really appreciate ...

...I think we hit the mark there. Certainly the biggest present Colin has ever received... now he just needs to find somewhere to hang it...