Okay so that was the Bruton family weekend, but whilst Louise and Molly headed for the delights of Cadburyland I stayed in Birmingham and did the comic thing.
Off to Nostalgia & Comics which is most of the way through a refit. The store looks partly fantastic and partly looking like a small bomb has hit. Stock everywhere as you might expect with the new shelving just installed, but once it gets onto the gorgeous new bookcase shelving it's going to be fantastic. At some point I'll get a series of pictures together and post the before and afters.
In one way I'm ridiculously jealous. For years and years and years I'd been saying that the shop needed bookcase shelving and only now, when I'm gone, does it finally happen. This is not fair. I actually spent a few minutes between chatting and waiting for Dave to get some lunch tidying and sorting a couple of sections and it's so amazingly easy. Not fair at all.
One thing I did do when I was perusing the shelves was pick up a few current superhero comics to see what I may have been missing. I figured it had been a while since I read any superhero stuff and maybe I should see what's out there. And I flicked through them, trying to keep an open mind about it all. But to no avail. Everything I picked up, all the big name books, had so much going on, som much backstory and so little points of entry for poor folks like me that I had to admit defeat.
Later on, when I had a moment to process some of the weekend I got aroundd to thinking about he reasons that I've sort of fallen out of favour with superheroes or maybe why superheroes have fallen out of favour with me.
And I'm beginning to develop the germ of an idea tying together comics, classic characters such as Spider-Man, Batman, The X-Men and classic pop music of my youth and today. Nothing concrete yet, but something that I will be doing later in the week. Oh, I bet y'all can't wait.
Monday, June 29, 2009
Sunday, June 28, 2009
Party weekend for Brutons...
This weekend the Bruton family headed back down to Birmingham early Friday afternoon to celebrate a family party. Actually two parties in one, as it was Molly's cousin Helen's 21st birthday and her uncle David and auntie Sharon's 25th wedding anniversary (plus auntie Sharon's birthday). We got to cheapy hotel with enough time to get showered and changed and then out to big swanky hotel for the happy occasion. Much fun was had by all, but especially Molly, who was resplendent with her beautifully grown up straightened hair and even a party dress (and Molly only does dresses for the most important people).
Louise and I discovered how very difficult using hair straighteners are after one of our Pocklington friends lent us a pair on Friday morning. It took both of us and a lot of patience in the hotel room on Friday evening to get Molly's hair to her high standards. But we think we did an okay job.....
And here's a couple of shots of the folks involved; first my rather crappy photo of Molly with Auntie Sharon and Uncle David:
And here's the 21st birthday girl herself and even though she obviously forgot to put the anti-red eye on, I think Molly's taken a fine photo here:
And finally for the pictures of the night, one of Molly with slightly younger cousin Rachel. Who makes me feel old every time I see her, since my first memories of her are as this angelic little toddler with an unfailing ability to embarrass my early 20s self. Rachel took this and it's obviously a young people's skill; the My Space / Facebook self photo. Because every time I try to take a nice photo of Molly and me with the camera at arm's length I never get the composition looking this good!
After getting back to the hotel to get a night's sleep in at half one in the morning, we still managed to get up early Saturday and headed into Birmingham and the best kept secret of the weekend. I left Molly and Louise as they headed to meet friends over in Bournville. Off the bus and the news that she's finally off to Cadburyland has Molly speechless with excitement.
We'll be eating chocolate for weeks to come. But it was everything Molly hoped it would be. Despite having lived in Birmingham for all those years, it's always been one of those things we really wanted to do, but just somehow never got around to when we actually lived in Birmingham. An evening at friends, a sleepover for Molly and Louise and I headed to Birmingham to sit, drink and watch the beautiful (and not so beautiful, not too mention ridiculously under dressed) people drink too much and fall over.
And that was the weekend that was.
Louise and I discovered how very difficult using hair straighteners are after one of our Pocklington friends lent us a pair on Friday morning. It took both of us and a lot of patience in the hotel room on Friday evening to get Molly's hair to her high standards. But we think we did an okay job.....
And here's a couple of shots of the folks involved; first my rather crappy photo of Molly with Auntie Sharon and Uncle David:
And here's the 21st birthday girl herself and even though she obviously forgot to put the anti-red eye on, I think Molly's taken a fine photo here:
And finally for the pictures of the night, one of Molly with slightly younger cousin Rachel. Who makes me feel old every time I see her, since my first memories of her are as this angelic little toddler with an unfailing ability to embarrass my early 20s self. Rachel took this and it's obviously a young people's skill; the My Space / Facebook self photo. Because every time I try to take a nice photo of Molly and me with the camera at arm's length I never get the composition looking this good!
After getting back to the hotel to get a night's sleep in at half one in the morning, we still managed to get up early Saturday and headed into Birmingham and the best kept secret of the weekend. I left Molly and Louise as they headed to meet friends over in Bournville. Off the bus and the news that she's finally off to Cadburyland has Molly speechless with excitement.
We'll be eating chocolate for weeks to come. But it was everything Molly hoped it would be. Despite having lived in Birmingham for all those years, it's always been one of those things we really wanted to do, but just somehow never got around to when we actually lived in Birmingham. An evening at friends, a sleepover for Molly and Louise and I headed to Birmingham to sit, drink and watch the beautiful (and not so beautiful, not too mention ridiculously under dressed) people drink too much and fall over.
And that was the weekend that was.
Saturday, June 27, 2009
PROPAGANDA Reviews: Neil Gaiman's The Graveyard Book
The Graveyard Book
by Neil Gaiman.
Illustrated by Chris Riddell (younger readers version) and Dave McKean (adult version and slipcased edition)
The Graveyard Book’s been out for quite a while now, having received many plaudits and accolades along the way and most recently winning the prestigious Newberry Medal, given by the Association for Library Service to Children to recognise the most distinguished contribution to American literature for children. I held off reading it for a little while as I’d decided that it was something I wanted to read with 9 year old Molly after we read Coraline (reviewed here).
We find Neil Gaiman’s children’s books, every single one of them, to be wonderful, imaginative and magical things. We’ve read them all in our house and the act of reading them out loud has convinced me that Gaiman works best this way. His adult prose may lack something for me (one of these days I will convert you to them! - Joe), but his storytelling, his works as performance are great things. And so it is with the Graveyard Book. Night after night Molly and I read this one, with Molly deciding that she wanted the room as dark as possible so she could close her eyes to better imagine the creatures filling the pages of the book.
Now, considering that The Graveyard Book begins a particularly nasty serial killer brutally killing every member of a family except the baby, this could potentially have led to many, many nights of terrible nightmares. Luckily, Molly’s made of stern stuff and realises, just like many children do, that sometimes the stories need a little death to make a life more interesting.
(“They say a witch is buried here” Art from chapter 4 The Witch’s Headstone by Chris Riddell.)
The Graveyard Book starts, as I’ve already mentioned, with a grisly set of murders. The murderer; The Man Jack, is a genuinely chilling and scary villain and mother, father and daughter lie dead by Jack’s hand. Miraculously the baby of the family escapes and finds unexpected refuge in the local graveyard where he’s given a new name; Nobody Owens, and gains a new extended family of ghosts, ghouls, spectres and spooks all doing their best to hide him from The Man Jack who carries on his hunt for the one that got away.
And if all this sounds rather familiar, a young boy rescued by a strange group of creatures and raised as one of their own, all the while under threat from a powerful monster, it’s no surprise. It’s the Jungle Book with dead folks and Gaiman acknowledges his huge debt to Kipling’s story in the back of the book.
So Bod finds a new home in the graveyard, looked after by his ghostly adoptive mother and father, tutored by ghosts, mentored by his vampiric guardian and given the freedom of the graveyard. It may be no ordinary life that Bod has, but it’s certainly not boring. But there’s only so much that the dead can teach about life and Bod finds himself drawn, time and again, into the land of the living where danger and adventure waits in equal parts.
The book is almost structured as a series of short stories, as Bod ventures through the graveyard’s various mysteries, finds a ghostly witch girl her headstone, takes part in the Danse Macabre where the dead venture from the graveyard and dance amongst the living, and becomes the imaginary friend to a young girl (told by her parents that the boy she plays with is her imaginary friend and why should she disbelieve them?). At one point I began to wonder where Gaiman was taking us with the story, as each chapter / short story seemed to be only moving the story along by accident rather than design. But I need not have worried, as he skilfully and magnificently draws all of his many threads together as The Man Jack comes crashing back into Bod’s life to finish the job he started nearly 16 years previous.
(“The four men stood at the door to number 33″. Chris Riddell’s wonderfully detailed art is the perfect match for Neil Gaiman’s decidedly scary story of The Graveyard Book.)
It might be a prose story, but I have to mention the artwork of the book. Gaiman’s frequent collaborator, the great Dave McKean provides some magnificent art for the adult version of the book. But I picked up the children’s version for Molly, with illustrations by Chris Riddell. And it surprised me, because when I did see McKean’s visuals I realised that, not only did I prefer Riddell’s version, I actually thought the pictures were far scarier than McKean’s. Take that image above, from Chapter 7 where the mysterious men representing the Convocation appear, as threatening and disturbing as anything Gaiman can think of.
Not that McKean’s images aren’t as impressive as usual, far from it. His images of Bod and the graveyard are lovely, haunting things. I just find Riddell’s to be far more disturbing and suitable for the book.
(Bod in the graveyard. Art By Dave McKean from the adult version of The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman.)
The Graveyard Book is typical Gaiman; packed with imagination and invention, delightfully scary with at least a couple of truly disturbing moments that are almost guaranteed to have younger children cowering with thrilling fear beneath the covers. Yet for a book set so firmly amongst the dead, The Graveyard Book’s real message is that life, no matter who, what or where you are, is always worth living and a really good life has to be experienced rather than observed.
It’s a book to be treasured for a long time, a natural successor to the great Coraline and, whether it’s enjoyed from under the covers late at night with Dad providing all the scary voices, or a little later on to be read alone with the scares all playing out in their head, it’s something children and grown ups will absolutely love.
The Graveyard Book is available in three flavours: The Children’s Version, illustrated by Chris Riddell; The Adult Version, illustrated by Dave McKean and the slipcased edition illustrated by Dave McKean. It’s also available from the Mouse Circus website (Gaiman’s site for younger fans) as a series of videos, each from one of Gaiman’s Graveyard Book tour readings from October 2008, where Gaiman reads the entire book over nine stops.
Friday, June 26, 2009
Michael Jackson, Fahrah Fawcett and Stephen Wells - only one of them matters to me.
Fahrah Fawcett died yesterday. As always, a terrible shame, but not something that impacts upon me to much.
Then Michael Jackson goes and the entire uber-media erupts. Internet fails. Twitter explodes. And every news anchor is falling over themselves with effusive and adjective laden praise for Michael Jackson. A man who had a habit of paying children to keep quiet and not pursue their child abuse lawsuits. At best Jackson was a seriously mentally unstable individual who made some great pop songs. At worst? Far, far darker than anyone will be talking about tonight. I'm sure in the next few weeks we'll hear no end of stories about MJ.
But the worst news I found out yesterday? Warren Ellis put a blog post up about the death of Stephen Wells. You possibly knew him as Swells from when he wrote in the NME. He wrote beautifully scathing stuff, incredible, emotive pieces that were some of the best writing about music I've ever read.
His final piece is here. And his last words in this final piece:
Then Michael Jackson goes and the entire uber-media erupts. Internet fails. Twitter explodes. And every news anchor is falling over themselves with effusive and adjective laden praise for Michael Jackson. A man who had a habit of paying children to keep quiet and not pursue their child abuse lawsuits. At best Jackson was a seriously mentally unstable individual who made some great pop songs. At worst? Far, far darker than anyone will be talking about tonight. I'm sure in the next few weeks we'll hear no end of stories about MJ.
But the worst news I found out yesterday? Warren Ellis put a blog post up about the death of Stephen Wells. You possibly knew him as Swells from when he wrote in the NME. He wrote beautifully scathing stuff, incredible, emotive pieces that were some of the best writing about music I've ever read.
His final piece is here. And his last words in this final piece:
I speak as someone whose greatest craving at this exact moment is not world peace and universal democracy or a rational and global redistribution of wealth, but a can of ice cold ginger ale.The others I can do without. Swells? Him I'll miss.And of course all this bollocks is written by an idiot who has polished his image as an existentialist, atheist hard-man and anti-mope, forever sneering at the tribes who wallow in self-pity -- the gothers, the emo kids, the Smiths fans -- the whole 900-block-wide marching band composed entirely of the white male urban middle classes who are convinced that (as the most affluent and pampered human beings who have ever walked the planet) theirs is a story worth hearing. Blissfully unaware that they are but a few generations away from regular visits to the doctor who would wind parasitic worms from their beer bloated assholes using sticks. (Check out the AMA logos, those smiling beasts are not snakes.)
You could blame this fallacy on poor education, cultural deterioration, or simple moral decline.
Me? I blame it on sunshine. I blame it on the moonlight. I blame it on the boogie.
Thursday, June 25, 2009
My little girl's growing up. Woe is me.
Molly had her hair done and straightened for a party tomorrow. And when it was done she suddenly looked so grown up and so big I felt quite horribly sad. She's growing up and there's nothing I can do about it. But luckily she's not too grown up to give daddy a great big smile and a huge hug when he (finally) put the camera down.
Another moany post about work, work and more work.
God, I'm tired. At present all I seem to be spending my time doing is working and writing, writing and working. It gets to the stage about 1am when I can actually feel my eyes hurting and have to fight against the tiredness to just stay awake and stay functioning.
School is now into the grand end of year changeover and sort. It may seem a long time to spend on this sort of thing, but it's now last week in June effectively. We finish on 17th July. This means that I've only got 17 days left at school to get it all done. And, aside from the complete clean off I'm planning, there's a lot of stuff to get done. This year I'm going round every single computer, cleaning it out, trimming the OS, making them all run cleaner and faster and then physically cleaning the mountain of dust out of them as well. Then there's changing all the network stuff over and final year end bacups to clean off the server, plus the website to change over to reflect the new school year; moving all of the galleries for 08/09 to archives and setting up new galleries for 09/10. Lots and lots and lots of work. But all relatively easy and simple. Just got to rush to get it all done.
And on the comic reviews front it's just as busy. The review shelf is looking fairly full but I've got at least 10 books that really need reviewing NOW. After all, when people are kind enough to send them for review I feel some moral obligation to actually review them in some timely manner.
It hasn't helped that the last three reviews have been absolute bastards to write. And every single one of these difficult as all hell reviews was actually of something I figured would be quite easy. The last one took 5 bloody days to get right. Nothing would flow on it for the longest time and then suddenly tonight, all came good.
Probably isn't helping that I'm making time to get a little Wimbledon viewing in as well!
School is now into the grand end of year changeover and sort. It may seem a long time to spend on this sort of thing, but it's now last week in June effectively. We finish on 17th July. This means that I've only got 17 days left at school to get it all done. And, aside from the complete clean off I'm planning, there's a lot of stuff to get done. This year I'm going round every single computer, cleaning it out, trimming the OS, making them all run cleaner and faster and then physically cleaning the mountain of dust out of them as well. Then there's changing all the network stuff over and final year end bacups to clean off the server, plus the website to change over to reflect the new school year; moving all of the galleries for 08/09 to archives and setting up new galleries for 09/10. Lots and lots and lots of work. But all relatively easy and simple. Just got to rush to get it all done.
And on the comic reviews front it's just as busy. The review shelf is looking fairly full but I've got at least 10 books that really need reviewing NOW. After all, when people are kind enough to send them for review I feel some moral obligation to actually review them in some timely manner.
It hasn't helped that the last three reviews have been absolute bastards to write. And every single one of these difficult as all hell reviews was actually of something I figured would be quite easy. The last one took 5 bloody days to get right. Nothing would flow on it for the longest time and then suddenly tonight, all came good.
Probably isn't helping that I'm making time to get a little Wimbledon viewing in as well!
Tuesday, June 23, 2009
Head Girl? Fingers crossed
Tonight (last night? it's 1am Tuesday as I write this, to me it's still Monday night) we found out Molly has been put forward as a nominee for head girl at her school. Wow. Proud.
But there's a rather convoluted story behind it all. For the origins of it you really have to go back to Molly's first schol in Birmingham. Perhaps the nicest thing the headmistress ever said to us about Molly (and she said plenty of nice things) was that if they did ever decide to have head boys and girls Molly would be the one she'd pick for it. That was just lovely.
So obviously, as it's the end of Year 5 for Molly now in her new school where they do have head boys and head girls we started to think about it again. Only to have our hopes dashed by Molly coming home one night and telling us that they'd been asked to put themselves forward if they wanted to be considered and she'd been too scared to put her hand up. This is one of the character traits of Molly we're trying to change - she can be very, very nervous about putting herself forward for anything. If the teacher would have picked her she'd have no problem with it, but ask her to put her hand up and she'll think about it, think about it some more and then miss out because the moment has gone. We talked about it; Louise, Molly and I and she decided that she had wanted to go for it after all and was quite upset at how disappointed we were about it.
Anyway, we think the chance has gone. But it seems not. Molly's on the shortlist anyway. Maybe the teacher made a mistake. Maybe she put her name down anyway. Who knows. But tomorrow she has to give a presentation to her year 5/6 class and to the year 3/4 class about why she would make a really good head girl.
Which is why she insisted on writing out her speech/presentation tonight and performing it. Then rewriting/reperforming it. and then doing it again. and again. and again. Louise and I deliberately didn't chip in much, just guiding and suggesting. So the speech is all her own work.
We'll find out at prize day in July. Fingers crossed everybody.
Sunday, June 21, 2009
Happy Father's Day to me .......
Woken up this morning by extremely happy and excitable child, bouncing on the bed with a big bag of goodies. We had hand made stickers, badges, a beautiful new #1 daddy mug and two beautiful cards with incredibly sugar coated words inside.
Exactly the sort of wonderful stuff I was looking forward to today. It may well be one of my favourite days of the year. Molly really is the best present any father could wish for. Every year I get scared that this will be the year she finally grows up and doesn't really need me as much and each year I realise I'm just being stupid and as long as I do the job right the position of Daddy is something that will continue for as long as I'm breathing.
Being Daddy is my favourite thing in the entire world. When it happened I was amazed at how much fun and how great it was. And every day since then I've always had something happen with Molly that makes me just glad to be alive and doubly glad to have someone call me Daddy.
Saturday, June 20, 2009
New Badger webcomic news.....
Howard Hardiman’s Badger was one of my favourite things from last year. Absolutely gorgeous, desperately sad, completely lovely. Here’s some of what I said:
“It’s an incredibly simple little tale. Yet it’s one of my favourite comics all year. It’s certainly the saddest … This tale of a lonely little badger living all alone in his London flat is heartbreakingly, tearjerkingly sad ….. a very simple, near perfectly constructed tale … I sat there after reading it and was struggling to hold back the tears. It’s very easy to describe, but very difficult to get over the complete sense of sadness that saturates every page … If your heart doesn’t break when you see Badger’s dreams you’re pumping anti-freeze rather than warm blood around your veins.”
So I’m obviously overjoyed to see that Howard has started a Badger webcomic over on his website. Early days yet, just three strips at the time of writing, but it’s already made it onto my short list of webcomics I follow.
Over to Howard:
“(Badger’s) story will be taking place in two time zones. First off, the woodland on the left is Box Hill in Surrey, where Badger is born, the panel on the right is the grown up Badger, where we left him in Brockley at the end of the book which I’m hoping you’ve all read.”
(Two episodes from the Badger webcomic. Howard’s promising baby badger and more sad grown up Badger. Oh, the tears are going to flow here.)
So bookmark Howard’s webcomic. And if you haven’t already fallen in love with Badger, buy the book now.Blog redesigns....
If you're a regular here, just having a look at the blog will mean you're well aware of what I spent my day doing today (and most of last night as well).
It's been complete redesign time here. I've been thinking about it for ages and have held back for a long time. The last mention of a redesign comes from August 2008 - so I've possibly lasted most of a year without changing it.
As usual it took far longer than it was meant to. Spent most of last night and this afternoon once I got home from school messing with the test blog I have for this sort of thing. Only when I was happy with the modified design did I take the plunge and actually drop the new template onto this blog.
Obviously I'm very pleased with it. I think it looks clean, simple and quite classy (if I do say so myself).
Wednesday, June 17, 2009
Miley Cyrus - money, money, money...... how bloody much for a ticket now????
Molly loves Hannah Montana and Miley Cyrus. We tolerate it. But we're good parents and always said we'd think about taking her to see the Smily Virus (as Mark Kermode put it once) when she tours the UK.
Well, maybe not. The ticket prices to see her at the LG Arena Birmingham are £49.50 and a whopping £6.25 Service Charge. (and when did the National Exhibition Centre; The NEC, become the bloody LG Arena?). So that would be £167.25 to see about 2 hours of Miley Cyrus. I don't think so.
When did tickets suddenly become so ridiculously expensive? I was starting to rant against the hideous corporate greed involved in getting young children to pester their parents for incredibly expensive tickets. But then I looked on the NEC website and saw that £50 is pretty much about right now for the NEC. I promised myself years ago I'd never go there again to see bands play to bad sound whilst sitting in horrible seats and having no visibility. Looks like I'll be keeping that particular promise.
Monday, June 15, 2009
Godfather - Me?
I'm someone's Godfather. yes, me.
(Neither of the pictures above really describes me as a Godfather)
One of my friends at school recently had a lovely baby boy and amazingly he's asked me to be Godfather. Now, this is a slightly strange situation for me. I did have to point out that, although I'd be honoured to do the job and was incredibly touched to be asked, I couldn't exactly fulfil the primary part of the job description; namely the whole God bit of the Godfather role.
I am, after all, about as atheist as they come. But even though both the mom and the dad knew this they still thought I'd be a good choice for the part. I figured I'd better get cracking on a little research if I'm to be any good at this surprising new role:
Cue Wikipedia:
Next up it was time to head over for a Google search. Yahoo Answers gave me this:
And almost everything else I could find seemed to be along similar lines. Which means it's up to me to make it up as I go I suppose. So I figure this is as good a time to start.
Therefore here's a few initial thoughts and pledges to my Godson:
As your Godfather I promise that I will:
1. Try to be supportive to your mom and dad whenever late nights / colic / sickness / anything else that tends to happen to babies/children happens to you.
2. Always be available to lend support and encouragement in whatever you do. Unless it's illegal / immoral / physically impossible. See Point 3.
3. Attempt to discourage you from doing the sorts of stupid things that all children seem to do at some point in their lives and where these things are either illegal or immoral will offer good advice and try to stop you doing some of the dumb things I did as a growing child / youth.
4. Generally always be there whenever you need help / advice / guidance from someone who isn't mom or dad. This offer does not extend as far as financial aid. I will not be able to buy you that toy / motorbike / car / house you are after. Sorry.
5. Contribute whatever valuable knowledge and important education I can share based on my own experiences. This does of course mean you are down to get some bloody strange books / graphic novels / music for every birthday / christmas present.
6. Never do the obvious gag of putting the Marlon Brando voice on at any family party I am invited to.
I figure that's a pretty good start. But I shall be refining this before I actually have to use it in any formal speech at Christenings or the like.
(Neither of the pictures above really describes me as a Godfather)
One of my friends at school recently had a lovely baby boy and amazingly he's asked me to be Godfather. Now, this is a slightly strange situation for me. I did have to point out that, although I'd be honoured to do the job and was incredibly touched to be asked, I couldn't exactly fulfil the primary part of the job description; namely the whole God bit of the Godfather role.
I am, after all, about as atheist as they come. But even though both the mom and the dad knew this they still thought I'd be a good choice for the part. I figured I'd better get cracking on a little research if I'm to be any good at this surprising new role:
Cue Wikipedia:
"Traditionally, godparents were counted informally responsible for ensuring that the child's religious education was carried out and for caring for the child should he/she be orphaned. Today the word "godparent" may not have explicitly religious overtones. The modern view of a godparent tends to be an individual chosen by the parents to take an interest in the child's upbringing and personal development."So not really that helpful then.
Next up it was time to head over for a Google search. Yahoo Answers gave me this:
Christian Responsibilities of a GodparentA clear no for 1 through 5. Although I do like the idea in number 4 of fighting against evil. I shall start making the superhero costumes now.
1. Pray for your godchild regularly
2. Set an example of Christian living
3. Help him/her to grow in the faith of God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, in which he was baptized
4. Give every encouragement to follow Christ and fight against evil
5. Help your godchild to look forward to confirmation.
And almost everything else I could find seemed to be along similar lines. Which means it's up to me to make it up as I go I suppose. So I figure this is as good a time to start.
Therefore here's a few initial thoughts and pledges to my Godson:
As your Godfather I promise that I will:
1. Try to be supportive to your mom and dad whenever late nights / colic / sickness / anything else that tends to happen to babies/children happens to you.
2. Always be available to lend support and encouragement in whatever you do. Unless it's illegal / immoral / physically impossible. See Point 3.
3. Attempt to discourage you from doing the sorts of stupid things that all children seem to do at some point in their lives and where these things are either illegal or immoral will offer good advice and try to stop you doing some of the dumb things I did as a growing child / youth.
4. Generally always be there whenever you need help / advice / guidance from someone who isn't mom or dad. This offer does not extend as far as financial aid. I will not be able to buy you that toy / motorbike / car / house you are after. Sorry.
5. Contribute whatever valuable knowledge and important education I can share based on my own experiences. This does of course mean you are down to get some bloody strange books / graphic novels / music for every birthday / christmas present.
6. Never do the obvious gag of putting the Marlon Brando voice on at any family party I am invited to.
I figure that's a pretty good start. But I shall be refining this before I actually have to use it in any formal speech at Christenings or the like.
Ipod A-Z - the adventure is over......
Ipod A-Z was an idea I had a long time ago now to listen to every bit of music on my ipod from A to Z. The reasoning behind this was to properly listen to everything I own rather than doing what I all too often do and just go for whatever is currently floating my boat or some old favourites. This way I figured I'd rediscover some old faves I hadn't played for a long time and also discover that there was some stuff on the ipod that I just didn't want anymore.
Well, I started it in August (here) and I've just finished it. 10 months it's taken me. And it's been a massive success. I've listened to loads of stuff that I hadn't played for the longest time, thoroughly enjoyed myself and managed to free up quite a bit of space by cutting out quite a lot of music that I just don't like anymore or by trimming the filler tracks from albums.
The only problem I have now is what I'm going to listen to tomorrow.
Well, I started it in August (here) and I've just finished it. 10 months it's taken me. And it's been a massive success. I've listened to loads of stuff that I hadn't played for the longest time, thoroughly enjoyed myself and managed to free up quite a bit of space by cutting out quite a lot of music that I just don't like anymore or by trimming the filler tracks from albums.
The only problem I have now is what I'm going to listen to tomorrow.
Sunday, June 14, 2009
Scott Pilgrim coming to the UK
Always a rather strange thing to have to report on a major graphic novel coming to the UK. Because of course said graphic novel has been available to us through comic shops since it was brought out in the states.
But no matter. According to the Bookseller website Fourth Estate (Harper Collins) is going to publish Scott Pilgrim, much beloved pretty much anywhere in comics circles.
And it's Sunday morning, and I'm tired, so here's the bloody press release:
Fourth Estate has paid a "decent five-figure sum" for a graphic novel series that is being adapted into a film by "Shaun of the Dead" director and co-writer Edgar Wright.The Scott Pilgrim website, Scott Pilgrim Versus The World movie site.The Scott Pilgrim series by Bryan Lee O'Malley will be published early next year. Editor Mark Richards bought UK and Commonwealth rights, excluding Canada, from Lauren Pearson at Regal Literary.
The book is about the eponymous hero, a 20-something slacker who spends his life playing video games and bass guitar in an indie-rock band, who meets and falls for roller-skating courier Ramona Flowers. In order to go out with her, he must defeat her seven evil ex-boyfriends.
"It's the wit and personality of the books that really got me. The dialogue is funny and smart but also weirdly true. It's not your typical comic book," said Richards. "It was very funny, well observed and well drawn."
Publication details have yet to be finalised. Richards said the publisher is likely to release the first three titles in the six-book series in January or February 2010. The remaining three will be released in April, when the final one is published in the US.
The movie adaptation, entitled "Scott Pilgrim vs the World", will follow in summer 2010. It will star "Juno" and "Superbad" actor Michael Cera as Scott Pilgrim.
The Complete Bojeffries - about bloody time....
Lots of mentions recently about the proposed Complete Bojeffries by Alan Moore and Steve Parkhouse coming out from Top Shelf sometime in 2010 or thereabouts. One of the places he mentioned it was over at the FPI blog in a massive interview with Padraig O'Mealoid.
It's about time. The Bojeffries Saga is one of the uncollected best bits in Alan Moore's work and well due this collection. It has been collected once before in The Complete Bojeffries from Tundra, but you just can't find it anymore (unless you really want to pay a fortune for it). And since the new Top Shelf Complete Bojeffries has lots of unpublished stuff plus a completely new story or two - it's going to be worth the wait.
In the meantime, Daily Scans has the complete "Sex, With Ginda Bojeffries" story up for your viewing pleasure:
Steve Bisette's Taboo Origin tales.....
Steve Bissette's (and John Totleben's) Taboo was a truly revolutionary thing back in the 80s. A ground-breaking indy published horror anthology bringing the best of established and emerging comic talent out in a beautifully presented graphic novel package. It introduced From Hell and Lost Girls, attracted all sorts of trouble from customs officials around the world declaring it obscene and generally made a big name for itself.
Steve Bissette is now doing a series of posts on his blog detailing the genesis of the magazine born in the creative fire of the late 80s where everyone who was anyone in comics seemed to be branching out into self publishing. And not surprisingly Dave Sim was in the background encouraging everyone to go for it. There's fascinating background stuff, great primary source material and much more. It's looking like a really interesting source of reding for weeks to come.
Star here at Bissette's blog.
Saturday, June 13, 2009
Reviewing: sometimes it's beautifully easy. Sometimes it's painful....
Yep, I've just spent the entire night writing a review for Nate Powell's Swallow Me Whole. It's a fantastic book from Top Shelf dealing with mental illness amongst a dysfunctional yet relatively happy family. I read it last weekend. And loved it.
Then I sat down to review it on Sunday night. And Monday night. And Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. The words just wouldn't come. Or at least not the right words. So much I wanted to say and yet I just couldn't get them to work. So last night I just went for it. Wrote and wrote and didn't worry about whether it was ordered right, or whether it made sense at the time.
I come back to it tonight and bloody hell, if I haven't got 75% of a good review there. Bit of re-arranging, bit of polish, lots of spell checking and write an extra few hundred words and it's very nearly done. But it's been a painful, frustrating week. Up until that point I was batting 5 in 6 days. Now it's 6 reviews in 12 days. But I can at least go to bed in a better mood than I did last night; convinced I'd just spent a couple of hours writing absolute garbage.
Then I sat down to review it on Sunday night. And Monday night. And Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. The words just wouldn't come. Or at least not the right words. So much I wanted to say and yet I just couldn't get them to work. So last night I just went for it. Wrote and wrote and didn't worry about whether it was ordered right, or whether it made sense at the time.
I come back to it tonight and bloody hell, if I haven't got 75% of a good review there. Bit of re-arranging, bit of polish, lots of spell checking and write an extra few hundred words and it's very nearly done. But it's been a painful, frustrating week. Up until that point I was batting 5 in 6 days. Now it's 6 reviews in 12 days. But I can at least go to bed in a better mood than I did last night; convinced I'd just spent a couple of hours writing absolute garbage.
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.
Friday, June 12, 2009
Planetary 27 - it's real!
Warren Ellis has been telling us for a while that the very final issue of his fantastic Planetary series would materialise at some point. And as some sort of proof he's posted this on his site:
A complete page, coloured and ready to go. Maybe we will see it before 2010. That would be a nice Christmas present.
A complete page, coloured and ready to go. Maybe we will see it before 2010. That would be a nice Christmas present.
OFSTED. Oh joy.
We had Ofsted in today. Always a joy. Obviously it's been a little stressful at work this week. Didn't help on Thursday that the school website went down for a couple of hours and one of the classroom projectors broke. Cue lots of running around trying to get replacements rigged up with teaching staff having minor meltdowns as their lesson plans evaporated. Likewise, the main network printer/photocopier just had to pick this morning as the perfect time to start misfeeding like a bastard. More meltdowns, more stress. (the misfeeds were, of course, caused by someone printing off a ton of double sided colour stuff in a hideous rush - got to show off for the ofsted folks!)
Personally I've always thought Ofsted should just come into a school without any notice. That way everyone would have to just do their thing as normal and the inspection team would get a true image of the school. The majority of staff will have everything pretty much in place anyway and it would certainly save on a lot of the hand-wringing, stressed out, get in hours early and put the extra work in we've seen this week.
And of course, it was all fine. We knew it would be. Didn't stop the meltdowns though.
The best Ofsted story I can tell is about the secondary I used to work at in Birmingham. The really bad school in Smiths Wood. Possibly the worst sink estate in the whole of Birmingham. Ridiculously bad exam results, at least half of year 11 had no interest in being at the school and by Christmas they always shuffled the classes around to have the phantom class - the kids that just never bothered turning up were stuck in one group on the timetable that freed up a member of staff for other things. Anyway, we went into special measures and there was talk of the school closing. Ofsted kept coming in and there was a huge push to tart the place up. Finally everything was done, all the relevant paperwork and assessments completed, a few more kids excluded for the Ofsted visits than were normal. And we sailed out of special measures. Absolutely NOTHING had changed in the school. The lessons were still an exercise in crowd control, kids still verbally and physically threatened the staff, fights were everywhere, kids just walked out of lessons whenever they wanted. But because the illusion of improvement had been created, we were suddenly an improving school. Quite ridiculous.
Personally I've always thought Ofsted should just come into a school without any notice. That way everyone would have to just do their thing as normal and the inspection team would get a true image of the school. The majority of staff will have everything pretty much in place anyway and it would certainly save on a lot of the hand-wringing, stressed out, get in hours early and put the extra work in we've seen this week.
And of course, it was all fine. We knew it would be. Didn't stop the meltdowns though.
The best Ofsted story I can tell is about the secondary I used to work at in Birmingham. The really bad school in Smiths Wood. Possibly the worst sink estate in the whole of Birmingham. Ridiculously bad exam results, at least half of year 11 had no interest in being at the school and by Christmas they always shuffled the classes around to have the phantom class - the kids that just never bothered turning up were stuck in one group on the timetable that freed up a member of staff for other things. Anyway, we went into special measures and there was talk of the school closing. Ofsted kept coming in and there was a huge push to tart the place up. Finally everything was done, all the relevant paperwork and assessments completed, a few more kids excluded for the Ofsted visits than were normal. And we sailed out of special measures. Absolutely NOTHING had changed in the school. The lessons were still an exercise in crowd control, kids still verbally and physically threatened the staff, fights were everywhere, kids just walked out of lessons whenever they wanted. But because the illusion of improvement had been created, we were suddenly an improving school. Quite ridiculous.
Wednesday, June 10, 2009
Spotify thoughts
Spotify is fast becoming my default music of choice at work. You know Spotify don't you? Free music service? Internet radio with exactly the playlist you want? Completely legal and beautifully easy too setup and use? Exactly. Bloody great.
I find myself using it at school as an extension of my music collection - sometimes playing stuff I've already got, sometimes playing unheard albums from folks I already like and sometimes listening to whatever hot young thing is making the most press that week.
It's turned into an invaluable service, allowing me to keep a little bit more up to date, find out what I really, really want and be able to hold my head up in music conversations with all the young things.
Which brings me to Little Boots. Beloved of the thinking press, touted as the next big thing on the back of a couple of songs and nearly completely unknown to me before now. I saw her do a bit on Jools a while back and thought it was good. Especially the new single New In Town (You Tube). And then it starteed playing around in my head. One of those songs that sticks and sticks. So I stick it on Spotify and listen to it. And again, and again, and again. It's pretty fantastic stuff. Sure, it's pushing every 1980s synth-pop button that it should and it's highly derivative. (If I were ladytron right now I'd be really, really pissed off). But it's also bloody great pop fun.
And all thanks to Spotify. What will be on the playlist tomorrow at work?
Tuesday, June 09, 2009
One week back and already running out of time....
Back to school one week and one day. Got just 29 days to go now. And I've totted up everything I really need to get done before the end of term.
And I haven't got enough time. There's a load of network changeover stuff that I'm spending all of July working on. I may have enough time to get it all done, I may not. This leaves the remainder of June to try and get a couple of things done. This may not seem too bad, except one of them is getting the start on the Learning Platform. Oh poo.
And I haven't got enough time. There's a load of network changeover stuff that I'm spending all of July working on. I may have enough time to get it all done, I may not. This leaves the remainder of June to try and get a couple of things done. This may not seem too bad, except one of them is getting the start on the Learning Platform. Oh poo.
Monday, June 08, 2009
Mayo, Kermode, Manchester, 2011 - I really shouldn't worry so....
Was reading the latest Word magazine tonight and one of the articles talked about Radio 5 moving to Manchester in 2011. But without Simon Mayo (amongst others). Now this shouldn't be something I'm thinking too much about really, but it's rather set me on a bit of a downer. Nothing too bad - I'm not that sad. But it does make me sad to think that a very enjoyable part of my week will potentially be lost.
I really enjoy getting home on a Friday lunchtime, settling back at the computer and listening to Simon Mayo's 5 Live afternoon show. The sports panel followed by Kermode and Mayo's film reviews that have transcended simple reviewing and become pure entertainment (or, as they often say: wittertainment) in itself. It's such an enjoyable afternoons listening, both live and later in the week on podcast that I'd be really sad to have to lose it.
The rumour is that Mayo will go to radio 2. I'm hoping that they'll let him ditch the music and keep his show exactly as it was on 5 live. I doubt they will, but I'm hoping anyway
I really enjoy getting home on a Friday lunchtime, settling back at the computer and listening to Simon Mayo's 5 Live afternoon show. The sports panel followed by Kermode and Mayo's film reviews that have transcended simple reviewing and become pure entertainment (or, as they often say: wittertainment) in itself. It's such an enjoyable afternoons listening, both live and later in the week on podcast that I'd be really sad to have to lose it.
The rumour is that Mayo will go to radio 2. I'm hoping that they'll let him ditch the music and keep his show exactly as it was on 5 live. I doubt they will, but I'm hoping anyway
Apologies from Yorkshire and the Humber.
I live in Yorkshire and I love the place dearly. But tonight it's a horrible place to live in. Tonight the populous of Yorkshire elected a fascist to the European parliament. A shameful thing.
They call themselves the British National Party but they represent nothing about the Britain that I know. And on this weekend of all weekends, where we celebrate the anniversary of the D-Day landings; that first push to reclaim Europe from the fascists of Nazi Germany.
Every person has their right to vote for whomever they please. But I have an equal right to despise those who voted BNP and here in Yorkshire it seems I have a lot to despise.
Friday, June 05, 2009
Cover Versions
Cover Versions by littlepixel are “classic records lost in time and format, re-emerged as Pelican books.” (via Kitsune Noir and Drawn)
Wednesday, June 03, 2009
Tinkering, tinkering, but resisting the temptation to change that bloody template.....
Spent the last hout tinkering with the blog. But I've been really good. A while ago I promised myself I would leave the damn template well enough alone. Bloggings not a fashion thing, it's not about how good your blog looks or how flash it is. I can leave well enough alone and just get on with writing (or maybe sleep - I hear that's good as well).
But tonight the urge to tinker and tidy came upon me. So I've changed a few colours here and there, messed around with a few things, moved some stuff around and severely crunched the sidebar. With over 250 comic review sitting on there it was beginning to get very, very long indeed and a bit stupid.
So now there's a section in the sidebar marked Fictions Comic Reviews which points to this post - a complete A-Z listing of every damn review on the blog. One day Blogger will get around to giving us the ability to use pages rather than posts for this sort of thing, just like Wordpress does. But until that point this will have to do.
But tonight the urge to tinker and tidy came upon me. So I've changed a few colours here and there, messed around with a few things, moved some stuff around and severely crunched the sidebar. With over 250 comic review sitting on there it was beginning to get very, very long indeed and a bit stupid.
So now there's a section in the sidebar marked Fictions Comic Reviews which points to this post - a complete A-Z listing of every damn review on the blog. One day Blogger will get around to giving us the ability to use pages rather than posts for this sort of thing, just like Wordpress does. But until that point this will have to do.
Something for Everyone: A conversation with Shane Chebsey
Hi all, recently Matthew Badham, all round nice guy and comic writer, got in touch to ask if a few of us comic type blogs - the FPI blog, Down The Tubes, Bugpowder and here would be interested in cross posting a few interviews about various comic conventions and events. The idea being to give a platform for the organisers to promote their event and to trigger a little debate over the pros and (ahem) cons on a the comic-con scene in the UK right now.
So here's interview #2 with Shane Chebsey, co-organiser of the British International Comics Show (formerly the Birmingham International Comics Show)
(NB: Answers have been edited only in terms of spelling, punctuation and grammar, and not for style or content.)
Matthew Badham: Please tell us a little about the history of your con/event and how it’s evolved over the years.
Shane Chebsey: The first BICS occurred in 2006 at The Custard Factory. Our biggest named guest was Michael Lark of Daredevil Fame, and right from the beginning we had wonderful support from the UK scene including publishers and creators. This is something we've always been very grateful for.
We just wanted to put on the type of comics show we'd want to attend ourselves, and figured there must be some folks out there who wanted what we did. Since then BICS has become the largest UK event devoted to the medium of comics, so I guess we weren't alone. Guests have included Mike Mignola, Dave Gibbons, Kevin Nowlan, Michael Golden, John Cassaday, David Lloyd, Alan Davis, Mark Chiarello, Olivier Coipel, Esad Ribic, Adi Granov, Mark Buckingham, plus many, many more top names in the industry.
(Mr Shane Chebsey, photo borrowed from John Freeman's Flickrstream.)
MB: How is your con funded, by ticket sales, the exhibitors, a grant from the council, some other means or a combination of these?
SC: A combination of table sales, entry fees and our own pockets. Last year we did receive some minor sponsorship and this year we are looking to build on that and we've be also applied for some government funding to help us develop and expand the show, enabling the event to reach out to a wider audience and benefit more people.
MB: What are the overall aims of your con/event?
SC: We have both short and long term aims and objectives for the show.
Initial Aims:
As well as producing an enjoyable event for existing comic fans, our initial aims with the first three shows were to establish a successful formula for running a comics event in Britain that would be recognised by the UK Comics Industry including publishers, distributors and retailers, as a major event. This was so that we could build a platform to achieve our main objectives.
With the first three shows we have achieved these aims.
We attracted over 2500 fans, press, creators and retailers to our last show and most western comics publishers now recognise The British International Comics Show as the major UK comics convention. These publishers include DC Comics, Dark Horse Comics, Rebellion Developments, Markosia Enterprises (who launched new titles at the 2007 show) and Manga Entertainment (who allowed us to show the first official UK screening of one of their new films at the 2007 show) and Random House, who have previously been sponsors of the show.
Main Objectives:
To provide an enjoyable and informative family event to the general public, allowing them to discover new comics and graphic novels they may not have previously encountered.
To give new writers and artists access to both publishers and professionals working within the industry both here in the UK and overseas, allowing them the opportunity to receive feedback and advice on their work and to learn more about the international and national industry and about the medium of comics in general.
To promote comics to the general public as both an educational and entertainment medium.
To provide a secure and fun environment for all comic fans, whatever their cultural, religious or ethnic background, to enjoy the medium, expand their reading and to meet comics creators from all over the world.
To give independent and small press creators the chance to promote their publications to the general public and to the larger publishers.
To create sufficient revenue to make the show financially self sustaining.
Long Term Aims:
To promote literacy and the visual arts in general.
To expand the reading of comics in the UK.
To support our national comics industry.
To promote diversity and originality within the comics industry.
To expand the show, attracting even more visitors to the event and to the City of Birmingham.
MB: Who is the con aimed at? What sort of punters do you hope to attract? Are you family-friendly?
SC: BICS is very family-friendly and we always aim to attract the full spectrum of attendees, from the young to the old, men, women, everyone! That's the great thing about comics. They are so inclusive almost anyone can enjoy them and create them.
MB: How effective have you been in getting those kind of people to attend?
SC: So far we've been very pleased with the varied representation of all groups attending the show. However, we continue to increase our efforts to attract even more diversity amongst our visitors.
MB: Can you give a projected (or actual) attendance figure for your event?
SC: This year we are aiming for 3000 people to attend the show over the weekend.
MB: What lessons have you learned during your time (co-)running a con, in terms of marketing and advertising your event?
SC: Lots of lessons have been learned. The hardest lesson would be that any expensive advertising must be very targeted to be cost effective. We have also learned not to announce any guests until they are 100% confirmed. We learned this after our very first show.
MB: Do you use emerging technologies to spread the word about your con? Do you have a website or blog, or use email mailing lists?
SC: This is our most effective method for attracting both visitors and exhibitors to the show. We have an active presence on many forums, a great website, and a very large mailing list that helps us to keep folks informed of developments.
We also have our own forum that enables visitors to ask us questions about the show and to share their show experiences with other visitors.
MB: What about print? Do you use print advertising, have a newsletter, anything like that?
SC: We advertise in many print publications including SFX magazine, 2000 AD and Toxic. We also print up flyers and posters for events etc.
MB: What's the mix in terms of exhibitors at your con? Do you even have exhibitors?
SC: We have great mixture of exhibitors at BICS. This year there will be 162 tables featuring retailers, publishers, art suppliers, creators and distributors. There really is something for everyone.
MB: What are your thoughts on the small press comics scene in this country? How do you try and support it (do you try and support it)?
SC: I have personally done my best to support the small press scene since 1999 when I founded Smallzone [Shane’s company, which acts as a distribution service for small press comics]. When I became involved with BICS I was determined to give small press creators a level playing field along with all the big publishers at the show. We offer small press creators a £40 discount from the normal table price to try and make it easier for them to afford being part of the event. We are very proud of the huge diversity of genres and styles on display at BICS, all thanks to the UK small press scene.
MB: How much are the tickets for your event? How did you arrive at that price? Please tell us about any concessions.
SC: Tickets are £12 per day or £20 for the weekend. Children go half price and under 5's go free. We also offer family passes, and free access for carers.
We have based these prices on our projected attendance against the cost of our venue and other costs involved in producing the show. When you bare in mind the full program of events happening at the show as well as the comics fair etc the entry fee is extremely good value for money.
How much is a 90-minute football match for all the family these days, or a visit to the cinema for two hours? At those events you don't even get to meet the players or the film stars. At our show you get to meet the stars of comics in a friendly and informal atmosphere. It really is a special opportunity for many fans and we love seeing the faces of young fans when they get their first signed copy of Watchmen or Planetary.
MB: How much are exhibitor tables for your event (if you have any)? Again, how did you arrive at that figure?
SC: Tables are £160 each for the weekend. We give discounts to small press comic creators and those making multiple table bookings. Again we arrived at this figure based on our costs, and based on the projected takings for the average exhibitor. We have tried very hard to make tables good value for money and provide steady through traffic for all exhibitors at the show. Obviously it's up to the exhibitors to sell or promote their work or products, we can't do that for them. What we do provide is a state of the art venue filled to the brim with comic fans and those who want to find out more about comics.
MB: Do you run workshops/events/panels at your con? Please tell us about those and how they are organised.
SC: We have a full program of killer events running all through the weekend of the show. These include exclusive creator interviews, fun quizzes, live art events and professional demos from some of the industry's top creators. We host panel discussions on topical subjects concerning the medium and the industry. We also conduct portfolio reviews for aspiring comics artists.
MB: Are there any external events connected to BICS? Educational stuff, talks, workshops, comics promoting, that kind of thing?
SC: We are running an outreach program this year, which involves talks, presentations and workshops in libraries, schools and colleges.
If anyone is interested in hosting a talk or workshop and would like to find out more, they can contact us at: info@thecomicsshow.co.uk
We are also presenting an exclusive IMAX Birmingham screening of The Watchmen in September hosted by Dave Gibbons, with a signing before the screening. Places will be limited to just 300.
More news of this on our website soon.
MB: As you've been kind enough to answer these questions, please fell free to big your con up a bit. Tell us what you do well, what your event's main attractions are and why our readers should attend the next one.
SC: If you love comics you simply must attend BICS 2009 in October. It's an essential event for every type of fan, whether you love manga, superheroes, small press or even if you're just curious about what comics are. BICS celebrates every form of the medium and is THE event to visit in 2009!
MB: Thanks, Shane, for answering our questions.
For more on BICS, please visit the convention’s website here.
Matt's Interview with Oli Smith of London Underground Comics is here.
So here's interview #2 with Shane Chebsey, co-organiser of the British International Comics Show (formerly the Birmingham International Comics Show)
(NB: Answers have been edited only in terms of spelling, punctuation and grammar, and not for style or content.)
Matthew Badham: Please tell us a little about the history of your con/event and how it’s evolved over the years.
Shane Chebsey: The first BICS occurred in 2006 at The Custard Factory. Our biggest named guest was Michael Lark of Daredevil Fame, and right from the beginning we had wonderful support from the UK scene including publishers and creators. This is something we've always been very grateful for.
We just wanted to put on the type of comics show we'd want to attend ourselves, and figured there must be some folks out there who wanted what we did. Since then BICS has become the largest UK event devoted to the medium of comics, so I guess we weren't alone. Guests have included Mike Mignola, Dave Gibbons, Kevin Nowlan, Michael Golden, John Cassaday, David Lloyd, Alan Davis, Mark Chiarello, Olivier Coipel, Esad Ribic, Adi Granov, Mark Buckingham, plus many, many more top names in the industry.
(Mr Shane Chebsey, photo borrowed from John Freeman's Flickrstream.)
MB: How is your con funded, by ticket sales, the exhibitors, a grant from the council, some other means or a combination of these?
SC: A combination of table sales, entry fees and our own pockets. Last year we did receive some minor sponsorship and this year we are looking to build on that and we've be also applied for some government funding to help us develop and expand the show, enabling the event to reach out to a wider audience and benefit more people.
MB: What are the overall aims of your con/event?
SC: We have both short and long term aims and objectives for the show.
Initial Aims:
As well as producing an enjoyable event for existing comic fans, our initial aims with the first three shows were to establish a successful formula for running a comics event in Britain that would be recognised by the UK Comics Industry including publishers, distributors and retailers, as a major event. This was so that we could build a platform to achieve our main objectives.
With the first three shows we have achieved these aims.
We attracted over 2500 fans, press, creators and retailers to our last show and most western comics publishers now recognise The British International Comics Show as the major UK comics convention. These publishers include DC Comics, Dark Horse Comics, Rebellion Developments, Markosia Enterprises (who launched new titles at the 2007 show) and Manga Entertainment (who allowed us to show the first official UK screening of one of their new films at the 2007 show) and Random House, who have previously been sponsors of the show.
Main Objectives:
To provide an enjoyable and informative family event to the general public, allowing them to discover new comics and graphic novels they may not have previously encountered.
To give new writers and artists access to both publishers and professionals working within the industry both here in the UK and overseas, allowing them the opportunity to receive feedback and advice on their work and to learn more about the international and national industry and about the medium of comics in general.
To promote comics to the general public as both an educational and entertainment medium.
To provide a secure and fun environment for all comic fans, whatever their cultural, religious or ethnic background, to enjoy the medium, expand their reading and to meet comics creators from all over the world.
To give independent and small press creators the chance to promote their publications to the general public and to the larger publishers.
To create sufficient revenue to make the show financially self sustaining.
Long Term Aims:
To promote literacy and the visual arts in general.
To expand the reading of comics in the UK.
To support our national comics industry.
To promote diversity and originality within the comics industry.
To expand the show, attracting even more visitors to the event and to the City of Birmingham.
MB: Who is the con aimed at? What sort of punters do you hope to attract? Are you family-friendly?
SC: BICS is very family-friendly and we always aim to attract the full spectrum of attendees, from the young to the old, men, women, everyone! That's the great thing about comics. They are so inclusive almost anyone can enjoy them and create them.
MB: How effective have you been in getting those kind of people to attend?
SC: So far we've been very pleased with the varied representation of all groups attending the show. However, we continue to increase our efforts to attract even more diversity amongst our visitors.
MB: Can you give a projected (or actual) attendance figure for your event?
SC: This year we are aiming for 3000 people to attend the show over the weekend.
MB: What lessons have you learned during your time (co-)running a con, in terms of marketing and advertising your event?
SC: Lots of lessons have been learned. The hardest lesson would be that any expensive advertising must be very targeted to be cost effective. We have also learned not to announce any guests until they are 100% confirmed. We learned this after our very first show.
MB: Do you use emerging technologies to spread the word about your con? Do you have a website or blog, or use email mailing lists?
SC: This is our most effective method for attracting both visitors and exhibitors to the show. We have an active presence on many forums, a great website, and a very large mailing list that helps us to keep folks informed of developments.
We also have our own forum that enables visitors to ask us questions about the show and to share their show experiences with other visitors.
MB: What about print? Do you use print advertising, have a newsletter, anything like that?
SC: We advertise in many print publications including SFX magazine, 2000 AD and Toxic. We also print up flyers and posters for events etc.
MB: What's the mix in terms of exhibitors at your con? Do you even have exhibitors?
SC: We have great mixture of exhibitors at BICS. This year there will be 162 tables featuring retailers, publishers, art suppliers, creators and distributors. There really is something for everyone.
MB: What are your thoughts on the small press comics scene in this country? How do you try and support it (do you try and support it)?
SC: I have personally done my best to support the small press scene since 1999 when I founded Smallzone [Shane’s company, which acts as a distribution service for small press comics]. When I became involved with BICS I was determined to give small press creators a level playing field along with all the big publishers at the show. We offer small press creators a £40 discount from the normal table price to try and make it easier for them to afford being part of the event. We are very proud of the huge diversity of genres and styles on display at BICS, all thanks to the UK small press scene.
MB: How much are the tickets for your event? How did you arrive at that price? Please tell us about any concessions.
SC: Tickets are £12 per day or £20 for the weekend. Children go half price and under 5's go free. We also offer family passes, and free access for carers.
We have based these prices on our projected attendance against the cost of our venue and other costs involved in producing the show. When you bare in mind the full program of events happening at the show as well as the comics fair etc the entry fee is extremely good value for money.
How much is a 90-minute football match for all the family these days, or a visit to the cinema for two hours? At those events you don't even get to meet the players or the film stars. At our show you get to meet the stars of comics in a friendly and informal atmosphere. It really is a special opportunity for many fans and we love seeing the faces of young fans when they get their first signed copy of Watchmen or Planetary.
MB: How much are exhibitor tables for your event (if you have any)? Again, how did you arrive at that figure?
SC: Tables are £160 each for the weekend. We give discounts to small press comic creators and those making multiple table bookings. Again we arrived at this figure based on our costs, and based on the projected takings for the average exhibitor. We have tried very hard to make tables good value for money and provide steady through traffic for all exhibitors at the show. Obviously it's up to the exhibitors to sell or promote their work or products, we can't do that for them. What we do provide is a state of the art venue filled to the brim with comic fans and those who want to find out more about comics.
MB: Do you run workshops/events/panels at your con? Please tell us about those and how they are organised.
SC: We have a full program of killer events running all through the weekend of the show. These include exclusive creator interviews, fun quizzes, live art events and professional demos from some of the industry's top creators. We host panel discussions on topical subjects concerning the medium and the industry. We also conduct portfolio reviews for aspiring comics artists.
MB: Are there any external events connected to BICS? Educational stuff, talks, workshops, comics promoting, that kind of thing?
SC: We are running an outreach program this year, which involves talks, presentations and workshops in libraries, schools and colleges.
If anyone is interested in hosting a talk or workshop and would like to find out more, they can contact us at: info@thecomicsshow.co.uk
We are also presenting an exclusive IMAX Birmingham screening of The Watchmen in September hosted by Dave Gibbons, with a signing before the screening. Places will be limited to just 300.
More news of this on our website soon.
MB: As you've been kind enough to answer these questions, please fell free to big your con up a bit. Tell us what you do well, what your event's main attractions are and why our readers should attend the next one.
SC: If you love comics you simply must attend BICS 2009 in October. It's an essential event for every type of fan, whether you love manga, superheroes, small press or even if you're just curious about what comics are. BICS celebrates every form of the medium and is THE event to visit in 2009!
MB: Thanks, Shane, for answering our questions.
For more on BICS, please visit the convention’s website here.
Matt's Interview with Oli Smith of London Underground Comics is here.
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