Liverpool MCM

This was the second MCM event in Liverpool.
No road race this year meant that our expectations were that there would be less confusion and congestion ,,, so more customers.
Saturday did feel busier and we found there was good interest in the whole range of books we had on the table. Plenty of return customers and as is always the case with MCM events, plenty of new ones.

There were plenty of Cosplayers parading around and a few, like Close Encounters of the Third Kind above, and the costumes certainly liven up the whole event.

I'm not sure who Frank was calling but it was great to see something from one of my favourite films.
Sales on Saturday were very healthy, not quite as good as last year but still pleasing.
Sunday, as is always usually the case, was quieter for us. We talked to a lot of interested people, comic buyers and general passers by and the table was rarely quiet. Sales were less but the day passed quickly and we enjoyed it.
It was good to see Steve Tanner of Timebomb comics at his table, and for the meal on Saturday night. Steve has had a couple of operations on his eyes over the past month and we did wonder if he'd make it, or it in fact it was wise for him to do so. There he was though, the same old Steve, doing what he loves to do, selling his comic (which has a Robot in it ;o).
We had a great time and I even found out who wins the Game Of Thrones.

Tales Of WesterNoir #3.

Issue 3 of Tales of WesterNoir is almost ready for the printers.
This is the special Willows Fall issue, which tells a huge piece of the backstory of Josiah Black. Gary Crutchley and I do the writing honours as always, and as always we have some talented artists helping us out.
Three new artists in fact : Ian Ashcroft (who produced the art for the cover), Gustavo Vargas Tataje and Chris Przygrodzki.
All work wonders bringing the stories alive in a larger edition than is the norm for the Tales comics.
The comic should be available at the Liverpool MCM event on the 11th and 12th of March.
See you there.

Liverpool MCM... another first time Con.

Accent UK are enjoying the MCM shows.
They are so full on, thousands of people in all sorts of costumes, stalls that range from T-shirts to Lego figures, from stars signing photos to comic books.
We've been to MCM events in London, Manchester, Birmingham and Belfast.
This weekend we were to add Liverpool to the list.

As we can drive from my house to Liverpool, Jemma and I left around 6am to pick up Colin, Scott and Steve Tanner (Timebomb) who was staying at Colin's, before heading off to the venue which was at the Exhibition Centre. Steve had set up his stall the night before, so finding the loading bay and table were easy and before long we were all set up and ready.
MCMs tend to draw large crowds and whilst this venue is smaller than the Manchester and London, meaning that there would be fewer people let in due to Health and Safety, it felt pretty busy for most of the day. Sure there were quiet spells, there always are, but it also got pretty busy.
Mike Garley was there with his Kill Screen and Samurai Slasher, and he showed me a sample copy of his oversized hard cover limited edition Kill Screen and it certainly got me thinking ... an oversized hard cover edition of WesterNoir would be cool.

All in all we had a pretty good first day. We spoke to a lot of new customers, some returning customers from the Manchester MCM (which was unexpected) and also just people who were enjoying the event and wanted to know what we were up to.
The day ended on a bit of a worrying note when we were informed that tomorrow a lot of the surrounding roads would be closed as the Liverpool Half Marathon was taking place.
Ah well, we thought, we'll arrive well before that starts.
There shouldn't be a problem.
Sunday morning then saw a convoy, well Steve's car following Colin's, heading from Manchester to Liverpool's Exhibition Centre. We got so close that we could see the venue, several times. Each time however we came across a barrier, with people and sometimes police, pointing us in a different direction to the one we wanted.
Our 'hour plus' contingency evaporated.
The following car evaporated. We lost Steve at a junction. We later found out a policeman had stopped him as he tried to follow us into the race.
Yep, for a hundred yards or so we were actually "driver's side wing mirror" to shoulder with the leading pack.

We decided that we'd better leave the race as soon as we could though, although I quite enjoyed waving to the crowds, and we ended up heading out of Liverpool in an attempt to approach the docks from a completely different direction.
Replacing TomTom with ColCol.
It took a while and a few U-turns.
But we did it.
Not only that but having parked the car and walked from there to the venue doors we saw that we'd actually beaten the winning runner.
Rather than try to claim our prize though, we decided it would be best to go and man our table, as we were already 30 minutes late.
As we entered the hall we discovered that the race had had no effect at all on the number of people who had turned up for day 2.
We also discovered that Steve Tanner had beaten us there, having abandoned (parked) his car somewhere and walked in.

Sunday was actually busier for us than Saturday had been.
We spoke to more people and sold more books.
My Lego adapted figures were a success, getting lots of interest, particularly Lillian and Gillian.
We sold our last copies of Who On Earth Was Thaddeus Mist ? and sold a good number of the other anthologies...

...yep, nothing daft about our Robots anthology.
All in all we had a great Con, enjoyed catching up with some of our fellow creators, ended up entering the Half Marathon and met some great people...

..including the Justice League, although I do hope the movie version of Wonder Woman looks better than this one.
We look forward to the next one.