Thought Bubble...

Just a quick reminder that Accent UK have a table in the Main Hall at next weekend's Thought Bubble Comic Festival in Leeds. Hope to see you there.

Also, don't forget to check out Colin's blog, for his review of our last event.

To Comiket and back...

Yesterday Colin, Gary and I went to the Comiket Con in London (around the back of King's Cross station).
It's the second time Comiket has been at this venue and lst time around we did pretty well.
Setting off on the 7.20am train from Crewe all went pretty much to plan and pretty soon Colin and I found ourselves meeting up with Gary in Euston station before heading off with bags full of comics. I must say that it's a tough venue to find first time around but we knew where we were going and so, apart from my suitcase wheels buckling under the pressure, we made good time and were set up 30 minutes or so before doors opened.
As is typical of these events the doors opened to a trickle of customers, the trickle being pretty constant through the day. Paul Gravett got the Drawing Parade off and running straight away. This is where artists get to sit at the front of the hall and draw, with their creative process being projected over their heads onto a large screen. It's quite absorbing watching other artists as they do their thing.

Colin, Gary and I talking with Joel Meadows (Bleeding Cool News photo)

It was a slow day, but comics did sell, not as good as the last event but this show is always fun to be at and is really like no other show in the UK.
It was great to have Gary behind the table with us, talking to customers about WesterNoir and to meet readers of the first two issues as they picked up the third (and it was good to meet you Aaron, hope you enjoyed Issue 3). I also got to see an almost complete version of Issue 4 on Gary's iPAD).
It was also good to see Owen Johnson at his table selling Raygun Roads, with art by the incomparable Indio!
All in all a very enjoyable event, the number of customers were down a bit and consequently so were sales but we had a really good time.
Travelling home was a bit of an ordeal though.
The 8.10 pm out of Euston to Crewe was delayed by 20 minutes.
When if finally set off it had to stop outside Wembley somewhere for 'isolation', which was a little worrying but nobody turned up in hazmat suits and in another 20 mins or so we were off once again.
Approaching Rugby (our first official stop) the Train Manager asked that anybody with 'medical training' go to Coach D.
We then spent about 40 minutes in Rugby station and ultimately a man was stretchered off accompanied by paramedics (I hope he's OK now).
And so we finally arrived into Crewe at about 11.30pm.
These things can't be helped but it did make it a very long day.
Still, looking forward to the next one.

Accent UK will be at Saturday's Comiket.

Colin, myself and Gary Crutchley have a table at Saturday's Comiket festival in London. We're regulars of this great little Con now and always have a very enjoyable day, which starts as we discuss the future plans of Accent UK on the train down to London.
Do pop by the stall and say hello.
We'll have some sketches of WesterNoir by Gary to offer as well as our normal range of comics.

Comica Comiket

An very early start, a train journey, a little confusion finding the new venue, a little more confusion finding the room with our table in it and then we were good to go.
A new venue is always a worry, and one that moves the event further from busy streets of people even more so. We were therefore doubly worried as we looked at the large number of books we had lugged all the way from Euston Station. Would we sell enough to make the return trip less painful ?
As is always the case with pretty much every Con we've ever been to, it was a slow start.
We had three new books since the last show, WesterNoir 2, Missing - Have You Seen The Invisible Man? and Who On Earth Was Thaddeus Mist?, so we had brought more copies of those than the other books in the hope that we'd get some return customers. We also had some special WesterNoir packs which included a wonderful sketch from series artist Gary Crutchley.
We were ready.
We were still ready about 30 minutes later when we made our first sale and it was fairly constant after that. At the end of the Con we'd sold everything we'd taken except for 5 books.
We had plenty of returning customers and a number of new ones.
We chatted with fellow creators, old friends and new (you should check out Apes'n'Capes from Dead Universe Comics if you want to read something that'll make you think, want to look at again just to enjoy the art and want the next issue to be available tomorrow) and chatted to film directors (or friends of film directors... they're an enigmatic bunch so it's hard to tell).
The organisers worked tirelessly throughout the day to make the show so different to others. The Drawing Parade was a big hit again, allowing us to witness (on a big screen) the process that the different artists went through to produce their work.
We're already looking forward  to the next one, which'll be in October I believe.

Accent UK will be at the Comica Comiket this Saturday.

If you're in the London area on Saturday, then it'd be great to see you are the Comica event. Always a favourite event of ours and different to anything else in the UK.

Comica's Comiket and other news...

Accent UK have a table at the  Comica - Comiket Independent Comic fair! in London on April 20th.

We've always enjoyed these one day events run by Paul Gravett, Peter Stansbury and Megan Donnelly, and it's a Convention like no other in the UK. I think the closest we've ever been to is Copenhagen's Komiks.DK event.  This time sees a change of venue to the new Central Saint Martins College of Arts and Design just behind Kings Cross station which looks interesting.You can find out a lot more about the event over on Colin's blog.

Sadly we missed out on tables at Thought Bubble, which sold out in just 2 hours, we're on the cancellations list, so there's still a chance.

In other news, Darren Ellis, a contributor to numerous Accent UK anthologies, has started his own writer's blog, hmmm ... that's sound a little too close to writer's block for comfort, and also a new website (how does he find time to write ?). Follow the link from his name for the blog and the word website for his .... well ... website, and check them both out.

From an Accent UK publications perspective, a couple of books are on the home straight now. WesterNoir Book 3 continues to follow Josiah Black through his ever darkening world, you can watch this progress on Gary Crutchley's blog. Has Kane Mesmer Losst His Magic Touch ? sees Marleen Lowe's artwork grace another Blessed/Cursed one shot written by Dave West.

Comiket, Pearly Kings and Nosferatu.

It was a strange trip down to London on Saturday for the winter Comiket. After a typical train journey (in that it arrived 15 mins late) we encountered a Pearly King at the Underground Station (which made more sense when we found out that it was The Lord Mayor's Show), who appeared to be being stalked by Nosferatu, which was not so easy to explain. Colin and I decided to keep well out of it, it never ends well for bystanders when titans clash.

We arrived with time for a coffee before setting up the table and being ready for the customers to start to enter the building.
It was a very slow start, and although the doors had opened at 10am, by 2pm we had sold less than 10 books. I must confess to being a little concerned that my joints would have to undergo yet more damage as we lugged all of our stock back up north.
But things picked up, and by 5pm we had sold almost as many books as we did in the Spring event. My joints we safe... for a bit longer anyway.
There was a little incident concerning Robots, which you can read about over on my Strange Times blog...
It was great to meet up with Olivier & Anders of Cinebook, ’J-P’ of London Horror Comics, Camlia & Taylor from Orbital Comics, Dave O’Connell, Andy from Broken Frontier, and Becky Bagley who created Tick, and provided a pin-up for Robot Shorts.
The Comica guys had put a lot of effort into yet another great event. I think the number of customers were down a little and I know some stalls suffered due to this. Clashing with the Lord Mayor's Show didn't help, and a friend of Accent UK, Matt Boyce, had struggled across London by bus adding about an hour to his journey. I'm tempted to write to Boris Johnson to see if he can't move next year's Lord Mayor's Show, but may have better luck suggesting that the organisers move the Winter Comiket instead.
All in all it was hard work but rewarding and as Colin and I sat back on the train home and discussed the future of Accent UK, we both agreed that it certainly included more Comikets.
Thanks to Megan Donnolley, Paul Gravett and Peter Stanbury and all their helpers for another event like no other.

Accent UK will be at Comiket.

Colin and I will be returning for the latest Comiket Festival in London on Saturday.
We always enjoy this event as we get to meet so many new creators and manage to sell a good number of books to new and returning customers alike.
Pop in if you're passing...

Accent UK at Comiket next Saturday

We have a table at Comiket in London on Saturday. Am event that has grown over the years into something that is really special.
Paul Gravett has crafted an event that brings together a lot of independent creators from across the country. It has a great atmosphere and is one of our favourite events.
You can find out more on the blog.
Hope to see you there.

Comica Comiket: Independent Comics Fair

This event just keeps getting better.

We only make the Winter one, sadly, as the one each Spring always seems to clash with other things, but this is an event that we always enjoy, usually for the opportunity it provides to meet friends and talk comics.

This year however not only did it do this but it also allowed us to sell a whole heap of our comics. We didn't take a huge amount of stock down, to be fair, but we did only come back with three comics, which makes it our best Comiket ever, and probably our best London Convention as well.

We met Sean Azzopardi on the tube train which helped us reach the venue on time, but this new venue was much more accessible, being a stone's throw from Liverpool Street Station, and that paid dividends as the attendence figures must have been way up on last year.

Kev Sutherland had a table and was turning our free caricature sketches. His first two were of Colin...

and me...
I think I came off best...
As always there was a wealth of talent selling a whole range of interesting and attractive books. And as always a lot of it was new to us, even though we attend a good number of shows ...
New to this even, and any other I've been to, was a continuous line-up of artists drawing underneath a camera which captured their every stroke for all to see ... I can only imagine how nerve wracking that would be to do, but it was fabulous to watch.
Nick Wadley's stall, next to ours, had a great range of amusing cards...

and I bought this one as it's my kind of humour...

A really great day ... great venue, great organisation, great conversation and great sales... what more could you ask?

Accent UK to attend the Comiket event.

Colin and I have a table at the Comiket event in The Great Hall, Bishopsgate Institute in London on the 12th November.
We've done a few of these now and they really are different to any other event that we attend in the UK. Much smaller and more personal, with a lot of time available for both creators and punters to chill and chat about all manner of things.
You can find out more about the event over on their website at www.comicafestival.com,hope. Hope to see a few of you there, especially those living in or around London.

In other news, the ZUMBIS GN is moving ahead at pace, check this out http://twitpic.com/70asbx.