Robots review.

There's a great review of our Robots anthology over at http://ap2hyc.com/?p=8175#comment-192.

Glasgow, comics and policewomen on horseback.

This was our first comic event in Glasgow, and only our second in Scotland, and we were really looking forward to it.

The MCM events are certainly getting better and better with a wonderful mix of fans of TV, Film, Computer Games, Manga characters and Comics.
The drive up the night before had been tough, 5 hours or more driving through rain and spray from lorries meant that I arrived pretty tired out and even now I'm not sure what we had for tea that night or where we had it.
Saturday morning though and my batteries were recharged and I was ready for anything.
A quick breakfast with Colin, his son Adam (putting in a very rare Comic Con appearance) and my daughter Jemma was followed with us putting all the stock into the back of Adam's car and then a quick drive to the venue.
It didn't seem that busy outside but there were certainly enough strangely dressed people to let us know that we were in the right place.

And as we're old hands at this now, we were set up in a matter of minutes.

Which was good as there were already people wandering around on the Early Bird tickets and unusually these people were getting as far as the Comic Villlage, we had a few sales before the doors had even opened.

The Comic Village was a good size, although a number of the tables were empty, and we found ourselves between Jim Stewart (of Gangaman fame) and a lady with Blue Hair (Destiny Blue) who was selling some beautiful and quite thoughtful prints of her artwork.

As is typical with Cons there were quiet moments but there were also times when we found ourselves a little overrun with customers buying our books. At one point I think I signed about 8 comics one after the other for 3 different customers.
We had the usual MCM Madness discount on our older anthology titles and as a result Western, Predators and Robots all sold very well.

There have been reports that there were 20,000 people at the event which seems an incredibly high number. It was very very busy though whatever the number and enough people passed through the Comic Village to make this our second most successful one day event ever, by one comic. It was a good job that Colin's son Adam...

and my daughter Jemma...

were on hand to help out.We certainly left with far fewer comics than we came with, which is always a good sign, and met a lot of new customers who will hopefully enjoy what they bought enough to come back for more at the next event.
The 'policewomen on horseback' mentioned in the title of this post appeared either side of Adam's car on the way back to the hotel after the event. With Jemma and I sat in the back of Adam's speedy little vehicle we were very surprised when, whilst we were stopped at lights, we found ourselves being peered at through the slightly dark windows by firstly two horses and then two policewomen. They were of course very polite and were checking that we had our seatbelts on, but it was a very odd moment in this day and age.
A good meal at a local Italian restaurant, where my wife met us after doing the Charles Rennie Macintosh tour and a couple of pints saw the end of a great day.
We'll certainly be making the trip up north again for the next Con.
Thanks to everyone who stopped by the table.

Glasgow MCM here we come...

Accent UK have a table at the MCM show in Glasgow next Saturday.
It's our first show in Glasgow and we're looking forward to it, the MCM shows are getting bigger and better and are certainly getting a good 'comic' zone going.

Do pop over and say 'Hi' if you're at the Con.
In other news, Missing : Have You Seen The Invisible Man ? is listed in September's Previews catalogue. Pop over to Strange Times to find out more.

It rained all day... I think.

Just back from the Carlisle MegaCon.
Sales were down a little on last year as the Con seems to have taken a turn to Gaming more than Comic Books, but an enjoyable and profitable day none the less.
A great opportunity to chat with Dan Charnley, Matt Soffe and Jim Alexander and watch Matt working on a Thor commission, which looked awesome.
Also, I may have found out where to print some Accent UK sketch cards, which would be a nice addition to what we do at Cons.
Good sales and interest in our on going book, WesterNoir, which is very encouraging and also encouring are the reviews that you can find links to (and more) over at http://strangestoftimes.blogspot.co.uk/.

Accent UK will be at the MEGA-CON in Carlisle next Saturday.

We had a great time at last year's Mega-Con and have managed to fit it into what has been a very busy year Con-wise.
If you're in the area then pop in and have a look around.
It's a great little Con.

Manchester MCM Madness.

Wow.
How busy was that ?
We decided to try something new at yesterday's MCM in Manchester. We'd done pretty well at previous events but found that we weren't tempting the non-comic reading attendees. People who were there so that their sons or daughters could meet the Knights fom the Merlin TV Series. Whilst chatting to them last year we had the feeling that they might have been tempted by the Anthologies had the price been lower.
The other consideration hitting us at the moment is storage. We have a lot of the old anthologies still in boxes in lofts and need to make space for new titles.
Combining these we decided to try out MCM Madness, where everything on the table was £3 (except of course the WesterNoir three issue sketch packs).
A simple pricing structure that was easy to talk through with potential customers. It did mean however that we'd need to leave Zombies 2, Thaddeus Mist and my little hard cover books at home.
We decided to give it a go.
It worked.
We shifted a few boxes of the anthology titles, and a good number of the one shots during a very busy day.
This was a record breaking one day event for us in terms of books sold, but due to the prices was probably equal, or close to, other events in terms of cash taken.
It certainly tempted those people who liked robots (as an example) to part with £3 and pick up a great anthology packed with short stories and pinups.
The hope is, of course, that they'll come back for more, and maybe be tempted to pick up some of the one shots. Only time will tell.
All in all it was a great day. We met a lot of old friends and returning customers, many of whom are also Facebook Friends and members of the Accent UK Comics Facebook Group. WesterNoir #3 sold really well, and a number of customers picked up all three copies. It's great to have an ongoing story and character, and having artist Gary Crutchley at the table to sign and enthuse was great.
Highlight for me though was selling a copy of Whatever Happened To The World's Fastest Man ? to someone who'd heard the story outline from a friend some 4 years ago and failed to track down a copy over the years. When I explained to story to him as he looked at the table he was shocked that here it was. He'd stumbled across it after all that web surfing and forum posting.
Yep, Accent UK had a great day.
Thanks to everyone who came to the table.

Who On Earth Was Thaddeus Mist? reviewed...

Who On Earth Was Thaddeus Mist? gets a great review over on forbiddenplanet.co.uk.
Well done to all involved.