Yes, I know where Oli stashes the bodies.....

Darling of the indie small press scene Oli Smith writes a lovely little "thank you" to me and Joe and the FPI blog over at his website. Much appreciated.

One day I'm actually going to get down to a London Underground Comics event. But not the next one - family party to go to.

But everyone else needs to head down to LUC176 - 27th June. Guaranteed to be a good day, guaranteed to be at least one comic you'll fall in love with.

Look ma, tis me......

This is the great power of the Internet: I makes a twitter post to Oli Smith about the recent interview and made mention of him being "nice and controversial". To which he made twitter comment "'nice and controversial' now there's a good description of me... better than 'sketchy and self absorbed' at least ;)"

So I twitter back: "how about "able to take his criticism well"? Anyway, I think we're all looking forward to the responses to the interview."

Which leads us to this:



Oli Smith ladies and gentlemen - currently stressed out over final exams. He's not normally this violent. But I am now a famous cartoon character. So all is good. And Oli is still my favourite london based, comic convention organising comic person in all the world.

Oli Smith's Grumpy Days With Sean & Oli

Oli Smith and Sean Azzopardi, the loveliest couple in British Comics are the stars of the new webcomic by Oli Smith called Grumpy Days with Sean & Oli. You can find it over at Oli's new website. It's funny.

The Oli Smith

Oli Smith has recently updated and relaunched his website - www.theolismith.com. For a young man who writes gentle, thoughtful comics (Hazy Thursday, Summer Ball)he certainly has a real knack of pushing himself forward.

He's also getting better and better at making his promo videos for the London Underground Comics group. The last one; promoting Comiket at Paul Gravett's Comica festival is excellent. And the upcoming movie Weekend Friends looks very good as well (Weekend Friends trailer). Multi-talented and young. Damn him.

Alan Moore at Resonance FM - Lost Girls

The latest show over at Resonance FM (through their weblog Panel Borders) is an Alan Moore special:

"In an hour long St Cyril’s Day special, Alex Fitch is talking to Alan Moore about his 16 years in the making, 264 page, 3 volume hardback graphic novel Lost Girls (finally available in the UK) in an interview recorded last month at Gosh! comics in Great Russell Street, London. Alan also talks about his Dalek-like domination of artists, showing off his rippling abs on The Simpsons and techno-organic copulation in The Saga of the Swamp Thing. With a ten second cameo by London Underground Comics’ Oli Smith and a competition to win a copy of Lost Girls, this may be the most romantic thing you’ll hear all day!"

London Underground Comics

Welcome to the world, little London Underground Comics.
It's the brainchild of Oli Smith, and is really the rebranding (what a hateful word) of the Camden Comics Stall. Which, as you all recall is a new initiative down at Camden Lock market to get comics from the creators into the hands of the general public. It highlights the sheer diversity and brilliance of some of the comics being produced right now.

Joe at FPI blog has an interview with Oli here.

Oli's looking like a little Paul Gravett right now, setting up his own version of the Fast Fiction stall from over 25 years back. And he seems to be doing it for exactly the same reasons.

Enter Camden comics alternative. A stall that sells comics to people who are looking for something new and most of whom don’t realise non-spandex comics exist. With a regular turnover of different punters, a fantastic social atmosphere and with sale figures that mean, not only does it require no investment, but it also turns comics from an expensive hobby for people with spare cash kicking around to, at the bare minimum, a past-time that pays for itself. Why spend £80 on a table at a convention selling to the saturated market of people who came last year, when you can spend £2 on rent and sell ten to twenty copies each week as well as getting to spend time with fellow comics-creators.

I tout the stall as non-profit making cooperative, with me only taking the money from wares of my own (I kick myself every day for saying that I would do that), but it just goes to show what you can achieve without ANY investment whatsoever, and if we can do that, so can everybody else. We hope to lead by example and if I had a few grand kicking around I could have easily done something more spectacular (the world’s first small press comics shop- not far away now, mark my words), but would it have inspired as many people to come and join in?

Having broken the thousand comics sold mark a month ago, (that’s three months after opening for people counting), never having failed to make the rent, with deliveries of new stock at least twice a week and the idea of a permanent second table being kicked around as well as branching out to Spital Fields Market, it can’t get much better (oh did I mention ALAN FRICKING MOORE?!).

So it seems that we have a new movement starting up. It's going to be really interesting to see how it all turns out. After all, we know what happened to the last lot of young bucks running a comics stall don't we?

Compare and contrast time. On the left, Fast Fiction in the 80s.
Eddie Campbell, Ed Pinsent & Peter Stanbury.
On the right, London Underground Comics, right now.
Sean Azzopardi, David Baillie & Oli Smith.

The London Underground Comics Website.
London Underground Comics on Facebook.
The FPIblog interview with Oli Smith.
Oli at You Tube - including the Alan Moore endorsement.
Fast Fiction pic via Comic Reader archive.
(update - according to Eddie Campbell - and he should know, being in the pic after all - it's from a Fast Fiction appearance at UKCAC 86 and thinks the photographer was Phil Elliot.)