BICS 2009

Bristol this year marked something of a departure point for me as I was there promoting my own work, and I was much more active on the networking side of things, meeting old collaborators for the first time in person and making new friends.

BICS this year continued the latter notion– and then some.

On Friday, myself and the other half made our way to the Panama Bar for the launch party. After almost half an hour of standing at the side of the room, like the social misfits we are, we finally made contact!

A huge thanks to Adam Cadwell and Chris Doherty for speaking to us on the Friday night (they were manning the excellent Manchester Comix Collective table all weekend).

I didn’t have a table in an official capacity this year (I don’t know many writers who do) but a friend, Mike Bunt, did. This was ‘basecamp’ for pretty much the entire weekend. Highlights for Saturday include picking up ‘Alan’s War’, ‘High Moon’ and the latest Zarjaz (which is pretty much a con staple for me now). I also got to meet Valia Kapadia at the Insomnia table. I picked up a copy her mini-comic 100% Mushy which looks great (looking forward to Snow!)

And then? Then there was the Cosplay competition.

The judges in this instance were Dan Boultwood and Tony Lee. If you were a witness to the crime against humanity that was their panel at this years Bristol then you know what to expect. For those more fortunate souls, it involved a detachable codpiece, a slightly tubby gyrating Spider-Man and pedophile jokes.

The evening consisted of drinks at the Briar Rose (I think pretty much EVERYONE was there) where we bumped into Chris and Adam again. Conversations about ‘The Wire’, Paddy Considine, and hilarity ensued. My face hurt from laughing so much at one point. I was tempted to move onto Subside with the rest but that pre-con crud was starting to creep back in at this point.

Sunday was a more sedate affair, consisting of me abusing my wallet even more. I also toddled over to the Futurequake table and spoke to Dave and Rich, both top blokes. I’m really looking forward to the next Zarjaz now, there’s some cool stuff coming up. It was great to hear that the majority of the FQ stuff sold out over the weekend. Good stuff fellas!

I also managed to grab a quick chat with Colin Mathieson of Accent UK about submitting work to some of their forthcoming anthologies.

All in all it was a great con (bar that launch party). I spent too much, laughed too much and met a boatload of new people.

What did you do with your weekend?

Bristol Expo

Whew! What a weekend!

My con experiences up to this point have been limited to Birmingham, with Bristol being only the third con I have attended. The first two cons in hindsight were akin to one dipping their toe sheepishly in the water. The bar was heaving on Friday night and it was great making impromptu friends as the night wore on.

Come Saturday morning I was handing out ‘Iron Harvest’ leaflets to those waiting to get into the convention space proper. One of the strangest experiences I had was when I would hand people a leaflet and several minutes later get a ‘Thanks for the leaflet!’ tweet. Bizarre!

Despite the limited resources I had (and the small amount of time to prep something for the con) I feel ‘Iron Harvest’ had a presence at the con with a lot of leaflets handed out–though I imagine more than a few were discarded.

It was also nice to finally put faces to a few names, finally meeting the first artist I ever worked with, Brett Buckle. I also forged a few new contacts.

It was also nice for Chris Staros (Top Shelf) to take a few minutes out of manning the Top Shelf booth to give me some feedback on the structure and makeup of a pitch document I’d put together. As one of my weakest points it was nice to get some input that showed I was doing something right!

Plus points: 2000AD Panel and Al Ewing dressed as Tharg (amazing scenes), seeing the Futurequake guys (including meeting Brett), the coolness that is Twitter during a con.

Minus points: Was it me or did the air conditioning just NOT work in the convention space?, missing the Tony Lee/Dan Boultwood panel (I hear it was full of laughs and debauchery as expected), missing the chance to meet a few people, and finally being confined to my room on Saturday night with horrendous stomach cramps.

Overall I learned a few valuable lessons concerning promotion and pitching, made some new friends (both physical and on Twitter) and saw some great comics.