Convention Season is starting...

I'll be at the Time Bomb Comics stands at both the MCM event in London on the 26th to the 28th May...

and also the Portsmouth Comics Convention the 3rd and 4th of June. 

Can't wait.

London MCM

The last Con of a very busy May was the London MCM.

Last May's event hadn't been great. We'd had one table, which was stuck in the middle of a row of mostly artists selling prints and we were effectively invisible when approaching from one side due to the wall of prints that the table next to us had put up dividing the tables.

Still, I'm not one to complain and we took this in our stride.

Some Cons are better than others.

This time around we had two tables again and Jemma and I were joined by Colin and Scott.

We were hoping that this May's MCM would be better than the last.

In short, it was.
It certainly got off to a fun start when, on arriving, I found this on my table..

Gary Erskine is a constant at the MCMs and always fun.
Friday was it's usual very slow affair, and really isn't worth a day off work.

Saturday made up for it though and Sunday was almost as solid, so overall we did pretty well.

MCM is under new management and there have been a number of improvements over recent Cons. 

This time around the Stewards were much better organised and attentive.

I liked the way the professional comic creators were placed around the Comic Village so the punters looking for them had to wander a little, and maybe notice something of interest that hasn't had any involvement from Stan Lee.

Yep.

MCM is still a huge corporate monster of a Con.

It still attracts more people looking to spend £70 on 2 seconds and a signed photo from some extra in some Star Wars movie or other.

It still has loads of Cosplayers who just aren't interested in the source of the character that they are dressed as.

But, because it's so big there are still plenty of plenty coming around the Comic Village to see what's on offer.

I think it's trying to raise the profile of Comics and it's not doing a bad job.

The rest is down to us to produce quality comics, engage with browsers and look to build a reader base.

Can't really ask for much more than that.

Portsmouth Comic Con

I've a lot of catching up to do, things have been very busy, the day job, life and comics all competing for attention.
May was very very busy for Accent UK, with 3 Cons, which unbalanced my usual balance.
It all started with the second Portsmouth Comic Con.
A Con where I fly solo.
Driving there and back to my flat each day to drive (sorry) down costs.
Last year's event was had all the right signs of this Con growing into something quite special.

And signs were good in that's when I arrived, with about an hour until doors opened, there was already a queue building.

I was happier with my position this year, being in a smaller hall with more independent comic people, rather than the main hall where there were more comic shop and Lego dealers.
There was an extra 'hall' this year, outside in a marquee, which I feared might have a negative effect on sales, but chances were that the Con would attract more visitors, following the good feedback on last year's event, so I kept positive.
Saturday was fairly good. My table was next to Soaring Penguin and it was nice to chat to Tim Pilcher for the first time. Between chats we had plenty of browsers and customers, for me a number of returning customers who picked up issues 5 to 8 of WesterNoir, having bought the TPB last year.
Despite decent sales, the highlight for me was catching up with sculptor Alan Longmore. At least ear's event we had discussed him taking on making a model of Kingdom. I'd not been in touch over the last few months as I don't like to pressure people so imagine my surprise at seeing...

He'd done the job, and brilliantly.
I love his version of Kingdom. A little leaner than Indio! draws him, so its very much Alan's artistic version but having all the ingredients. I love that.

We're looking to get this 3D printed if possible, so if anyone knows a 3D scanner company who aren't too expensive then please let me know.
Saturday night, despite the drive home, was spent chatting comics over a burger and beer, ginger beer as I was driving. I met Chris Sides for the first time that night and spent a nice evening with him, Steve Tanner and Dave Morris.
Sunday was actually pretty much a repeat of Saturday.
Sure the quiet periods were longer but overall sales were pretty much the same and the chat with browsers just as much fun.
Will I go back next year?
I've already sent in my request : o )

Nottingham Comic Con.

I've just booked on this year's Comic Con in Nottingham in October.

Gary Crutchley and I love this Con. Small enough to give everyone time to chat but busy enough to be financially viable.

From Manchester to Worthing.

Well I've been to a few Cons since my last posting and have decided to try to catch up this weekend.
This post will call out the high points of the Manchester MCM and the Meanwhile event in Worthing. Very different shoes and they actually sum up, for me, the polarity of shows today.
On one side you have the small comic event that pulls in local people (both creators and customers) and at the other a monster event that pulls in people from across the UK, and beyond.
MCM Manchester then was its usual huge self. Loads of dealers selling, well... stuff you can buy in stores in the main, and smuggled in amongst it all the Comic Village.
As always the quality of independent comics was high but we had a great weekend and caught up with existing customers..

Josiah Black pops in the check on things...

and new...

visiting the stall and checking out our books.
As always it's great catching up with people and the MCMs are two full on days.
Worthing's Meanwhile Event, on the other hand, is a small event in a Town Hall type building. Much fewer stalls and comic creators but much ore relaxing with much more time to chat to people.

The Kingdom figure got his first outing and got plenty of attention.
Fewer comics were sold but I had a really enjoyable day and with driving there and back again on the day I kept costs very low. Simon (Blue Fox Comics) is certainly doing all the right things and I'll certainly be back next year.

All set up in plenty of time.

Preparation is everything.

I've been asked to write something about 'Preparing for a Convention' from the perspective of an independent comic creator.

An interesting request.

Interesting in that we've been doing conventions for so long now, 15 years, that we kind of just get on with it.

I'll do my best though.

1) Booking the event to start with.

It's a challenge getting tables at a lot of Cons in the UK, so when the date for one is announced independent creators across the land hit their iphones and android devices. Only when they've successfully requested their table do they then sit back and look at where the convention fits in their schedule. 

It's useful to have a print out, on a page, of your convention season. There are a number of ways to avoid surfing the net for upcoming events. Sites like www.eventbrite.co.uk are becoming a useful hub for such things and if you're thinking or running your own Comic Event (and we've been tempted over the years) then that seems fairly straightforward too (Eventbrite's registration online page). Regardless of how you've come across the event before you push the 'submit' button consider the logistics of how you can get from the convention before it to the one you are booking, or from the one you are booking to the one that follows. Travel to and from a convention can take up the Friday and the Monday around the weekend that it's on. Another long trip the following weekend will be very draining. Another the weekend that follows may be just too much. Turning up exhausted at a Convention isn't great for sales and it isn't good for you.

2) Get your stock sorted we'll ahead of time.

There's nothing worse than finding out the week before the Convention that you've sold out of the middle issue in your mini-series. Keep an eye on stock levels. There's also nothing worse than looking out of your living room window the day before you travel, hoping that the latest issue of your comic is going to be delivered in time. This is sometimes out of your control a bit, as we all aim a comic at a particular Con, but try to give yourself a few weeks

3) Think about sketch packs, print packs and multi-buys.

If you're going to have some interesting incentive packs on your table then make sure you start pulling these together a week or so ahead of the Con. That way you have time to get comic bags, sellotape etc. Print some nice clear labels with the details and price information. It's nice, if you can, to take Show Specials, with the name of the Con on the labels. Makes it feel limited.

4) Take the right amount of stock.

It does make sense not to take too much stock. There's nothing more soul destroying than lugging a load of boxes of comics to your table at the beginning of a Con, only to lug most of them back to your car again afterwards.

Keep a count of the comics you sell at the Cons you attend. It gives you a feel for what's popular where (although this isn't something you can rely on) and more importantly a feel for how many you're likely to sell when you go back. We tend to take that number plus 25% or so, in the hope that things improve.

Selling out of a title towards the end of the event is not necessarily a bad thing, it gives you a buzz. Selling out an hour into the event however is not good. 

Having an idea of number you're likely to sell helps avoid both.

5) Tell everyone that you'll be at the Convention.

Use Twitter, Blogs, Facebook Groups... and anything else at your disposal to spread the word.

6) On the morning of the event...
Set your alarm clock...

Leaving New York's never easy.

This year I went to New York City's MOCCAFest comic convention, along with Colin Mathieson, co-founder of AccentUK and his son Scott. This was our first Mocca event and had been recommended by a few people as 'the comic event in the US for Small Press and Independent comics', but it was Cliodhna Lyons, who seems to have been to most of the US Cons, who finally convinced us to go. Flying Delta airlines was problem free, and whilst being tempted on the plane to part with $995 in order to have my very own Easter Island Head, I arrived in JFK airport tired, but pretty much OK.

I've done a few Cons now and I tend to keep a little 'journal / scrapbook' going to capture the events of the days. Before I did this I'd get back from a trip completely exhausted and struggle to recall much of what had happened.

I've scanned a few pages of the book and scattered them, hopefully not randomly, amongst the write up.

So, arriving on the 7th April we found ourselves checked into the hotel and were wandering passed the Chrysler Building by around 3pm. The Chrysler has always been my favourite building and it is even more impressive than I thought it could be when seen in person. We had a bite to eat in Grand Central Station, remembering the films that it had been featured in, wandered around Times Square, avoided Comedy Club ticket salesmen, and then planned what we'd do tomorrow, as we had a day free before the Con started. The Museum Of Modern Art was top of the list, Colin for the African Art exhibition (hoping to see some Zulu art I bet) and myself to see the Picasso Guitar exhibition. Scott was happy to pop in with us as it was on the way to Midtown Comics, kind of :o).

The exhibitions were amazing, and the normal collections very impressive. It always strikes me how much more impressive paintings are when seen for real. Pollack's explosions of colour just don't translate into smaller books.

Midtown Comics is a real comic shop. A huge selection of comics and minimal toys and other merchandise. We actually found some AccentUK titles there as well, which is great.

This was followed by lunch in a 'posh' diner (well, it was more expensive than the others we'd been to), before setting off to find The Strand, which is a great bookstore. Selling both second hand and new books, and being on 4 floors. We miscalculated the time it would take a little I think, but we made the 40 block walk and it was certainly worth it. The store is incredible. Sadly out of time we had to leave and decided to return on the last day and buy a whole heap of books, if we had room in our suitcases.

We took the subway back. It was certainly quicker.

The evening was finished off with a Chinese Meal, plentiful portions meant that none of us could finish it, but the food was great, and cheap. The fortune cookie had me a little worried though. 'Catch on fire with enthusiasm and people will come to watch you burn', can be interpreted in a couple of obvious ways, one good, the other not so.

And so the 9th April had arrived. No need for breakfast as I was still digeting last night's Chinese meal, Colin, Scott and I set off, suitcases loaded with comics, in search of the venue. What can I say, the grid set up to the city streets made it painless to find.

The venue itself is the Armory on Lexington Avenue, which is still in active use, and consequently pretty basic to look at. What you could sense though from first entering the building was the passion and energy being generated by all the creators setting up their stalls. I'll not talk about the event from a comic's perspective (or try not to anyway) on this blog as that will be covered, with photos, over on http://accentukcomics.blogspot.com/ but will say that our comics were received very well. We met a number of very talented creators, mostly in our immediate area as it was difficult to wander off for too long, a spent some cash picking up some really interesting comic books.

I'll mention a few of the books I picked up. 'Jack' by Olivia Pelaez is a great little understated story illustrated very nicely, and her little greyscale paintings were wonderful (http://opelaez.blogspot.com/). Manny The Bot, by Maurice Murdock (who almost had the stall next to us) shows an emerging talent and is all the more impressive for being produced so quickly (http://www.murdockink.blogspot.com/), two amazingly designed anthology books called The Anthology Project from Lucidity Press (http://theanthologyproject.com/) and Ten Thousand Stories from Matthew Swanson and Robbi Behr of Idiots' Books (http://idiotsbooks.com/), all of whom have reviews and thoughts on Mocca.

I also got to meet some of the people who contribute to AccentUK's anthologies, Morgan Pielli, Jonathan Baylis and Charles.D. Chenet for example, as well as Martin Flink who was part of a Danish group who had travelled over. It's great being able to put faces to email addresses. A big surprise was meeting Ed Traquino again. Ed was a regular on the UK comic scene a few years ago but seemed to disappear. Well, that was because he now lives in the Bronx, NYC, and works as a story board artist. See, the comic world is not that big.

I also met Dennis Kitchen... ... briefly.

It was an amazing two days.

One of my main aims whilst there was to sort out an outlet for electronic versions of the AccentUK books. I've got an iPAD now, (yes ... I know ... it'll probably only give me 2 to 3 years of pleasure), and want to see our books in that format. I spoke to a very helpful guy called Frank Reynoso who had a contact for me. I also spoke to Justin Mound who is setting up a Comixology set of apps for Independent Comics. It's early days for Justin but what he does offer is an electronic store that doesn't get swamped with 30 X-Men titles every month. Following a few follow up chats with people we've decided to use Lush.

and see how it goes. I'm more than happy to share our experiences as we enter ... the Twilight Zone ... err ... digital age.

As we had a free morning, before our return flight, we went back to Midtown Comics. We wanted to meet the manager and thank him for stocking our books. We also had 8 comics left (from 4 boxes) and wanted to leave them with him as a free gift, and so the space that they would have taken up could be filled with other books :o)

A really nice guy. He knew of our books and was more than happy to stock them. His attitude to comics was excellent, actually using the sure sales of Marvel etc to allow him to take a few risks on some Independent titles.

And then it was just a quick trip to The Strand book store, by Subway this time, a morning buying books, a quick lunch and then the flight back home.

I would recommend Mocca to anyone, as either a creator, publisher of reader. It's one of those Cons that has a real identity and is all about comics. No Hollywood stars signing autographs, no props from movies, nobody only selling trading cards or merchandise.

We've already booked the same table for next year ...

... just need to create some new books for it now :o)