Birmingham 2007 report

Firstly, apologies for the lateness of this bit of Bloggage; things seem increasingly hectic here in Moore & Reppion towers (AKA the spare room) and the days seem to be getting shorter both literally and metaphorically.

Anyway, we arrived for our flying visit to Birmingham late Friday afternoon. Drawing on past convention experience, we found somewhere to eat immediately (Wagamamma: lovely but very, very spicy this time for some reason) in an effort to line our stomachs. After checking into our hotel and getting ourselves sorted we headed off to the party which was being held at Bennet's Bar as a joint launch for the con and Markosia's new book Hope Falls.

Hunt Emerson's band performing.

Yes, this really is a comics party. Who'd have thought, eh?

We had a grand time hobnobbing with the likes of Ben Dickson, Paul "the nicest man in comics, film, television and writing generally" Cornell, Leigh Gallagher & Niki Robinson, Bryan Talbot, Declan Shalvey, Lew Stringer and loads of other vastly interesting folks. And, of course, we drank...

Niki & Leigh.

Leah and Lew.

After a frankly crap night's sleep we were awoken on Saturday by someone playing the bagpipes outside our hotel window. No matter how hard we looked we couldn't see them but we could %$&*ing hear them! Leah was feeling a bit too delicate for the hotel breakfast so I opted for the "last night's cold pizza" option; breakfast of kings!

We arrived at the con at about 10:15 AM and were amazed at the size of the queue outside the entrance. Inside the place was already mad busy and, after saying a few hurried hellos and lining up to get a sketch and signature from Mike Mignola, we found ourselves sitting between Dave Gibbons and Mark Buckingham doing a bit of signing.

Leah and Dave.

We had to run and catch the coach back to Liverpool at 4 PM so spent most of our time trying to say hello and goodbye to as many people in as short an amount of time as was possible. We bumped into James Fletcher (who has done a fantastic job on the art for our contribution to the Nevermore anthology), had a quick gab with the Accent UK and Engine Comics chaps and generally went into a kind of comics related sensory overload.

Dave "Springheeled Jack" Hitchcock.

Mike from Asylum Books and Games in Aberdeen.

Daley Osiyemi.

Rich Johnston explaining the finer points of selling The Flying Friar.

The Futurequake team; always alert for the call to action.

All in all we had a great time, cheers to James Hodgkins and Shane Chebsey and everyone else involved in organising the con.

I think we'll try and stay for the full weekend next year though, as traveling home and then immediately going to a party might not have been the best course of action in hindsight.

J.