And the second Comic Con booked is...

MegaCon Live in Manchester on the 30th and 31st of July.

MegaCon Live

Mr Benn in Manchester

A friend sent me this photo of the Mr Benn version of one of the Bees in Manchester.

A little weird but pretty cool

Manchester MCM

We're really getting into the whole 'MCM' things these days.
The comic village is growing its own identity as a regular section of the event and attracting a good number of people, whether these are bemused Cosplayers, mainstream comic customers or fans of independent comics.
It has quiet periods but it also has completely hectic 'can't deal with all the customers wanting to buy stuff' periods.

The sea of people in strange costumes seems never ending and it's fun working out who they are dressed as... or trying to in some cases (due to my poor knowledge of Manga and Anime, my daughter Jemma always had to explain those to us).

Two days stood on your feet, when you're not sat at the table painting or sketching, can be pretty tiring but you only notice it at the end of the day and it's a good kind of tired.

On a personal note the highlights for me were :-

• Stuart Gould (our printer) driving all the way up to the event from Birmingham JUST to deliver copies of Stephenson's Robot #2. It was great to have them on the table and very good of Stuart to put himself out in this way.
• The customers who pounced on Issues 5 of WesterNoir and Issue 1 of Tales Of WesterNoir, as it wasn't on the table at last year's event.
• Watching Gary Crutchley pitch the WesterNoir concept to a number of people, he's a far better salesman than I'll ever be.
• Catching up with some great friends from my days working in Manchester :- Neal Morrow, Alan Rigg with his son and Claire Smith with her daughter Olivia.
• Seeing Olivia (dressed up in Frozen Princess costume) walk up the stall with her face painted like The Hulk. Not a princess then ? Not for Olivia :o)  Frozen-Hulk Smash !!
• Meeting and chatting to so many new Customers
• Sitting at the stall and painting some of Gary's great sketches for the WN Sketchpacks.
• Watching my daughter Jemma look so at ease explaining the comics to potential customers.
• Catching up with some of our comic creator friends.
• Selling a record number of books, yep, this Con took us over any previous record ... by about 20%.

My water colours on top of Gary Crutchley's great sketches.

The MCMs are quite an event. I only got to wander around a little on the Sunday and it is incredible how it has grown. On the logistics side, the queue system has been improved, the space between the stalls is about right, the food area is big and out of the way and the car parks are close. And more importantly everybody seemed to be having a great time.

Being our local MCM meant that we drove in each day, so there were no hotel bills and no hangovers. We did miss the socialising that comes with staying over but it is nice not to have all the hassle with sorting out hotels (and also the cost). As an Independent Comic creator, who needs to make enough money selling comics in order to be able to afford to print the next one, this is all important stuff. Which makes the fact that we sold more in Manchester than we did at the London MCMs all the more significant. 

This MCM event also say one of the great mysteries of Comic Cons solved at last.
When Colin goes to get the tea, why is it always cold ?

Colin chatting with Adam Cadwell for 10 minutes ...
holding my cup of Earl Grey Tea, so close and yet...

A great two days and a great Con.

Skulduggery Pleasant in Manchester.

Skulduggery Pleasant is one of the central characters in the series of wonderful books by Derek Landy.
I can't remember who started reading these first in the West household but we are all fans of the series and eagerly await each new book.
I was shocked this week whilst wandering through the Arndale in Manchester to see that Derek Landy was due to do a book signing on Saturday (that's today) at 10am. I risked being late for the meeting I was rushing to, to text my daughter Jemma, but should have known that of course her phone would be out of charge.
Anyway, it was back to Manchester today and we were in the queue as the doors to W H Smiths opened at 9am.
What a nice bloke Derek Landy is.

He was very generous with his time as he chatted to each eager fan in turn and was more than happy to pose for photos.

Jemma asked him about where his ideas came from and he told about his decision to set the skeleton detective in today's world rather than a purely fantasy setting and I think I surprised him when I followed her question by asking whether he had clearly defined rules about how magic worked in his 'universe'.
Yes, I do read the books myself.
He then went on to sign Jemma's copy of Deathbringer (which is her favourite, so far) and almost personalised my copy of the latest, Last Stand Of Dead Men, to Jemma as well, but we stopped him just in time, he'd written 'To', and I now have 'To Dave' rather than 'To Jemma' in my copy of the book I'll start reading tonight.

Jemma then got her photo taken with one of her favourite authors.
We had a great day.