SubCon 2007 report

www.myspace.com/subcondublin

So, we arrived in Dublin late on Friday afternoon confident that we had our mobile phone fully charged, a list of phone numbers and that we had given our number to everyone who would need it. This was our third trip to the city and I'm completely at a loss when it comes to explaining why we hadn't remembered that our bloody phone does not work in Dublin. We can receive calls and texts (at a cost) but we can't call or text other people. Yes, I know that means we should switch networks or something but, to be perfectly honest, we never use the phone anyway. Getting back to the point, we were so disgusted when we realised that we'd been so stupid about the phone that we turned it off (thinking it was useless). Only to realise when we turned it back on again half an hour or so later that we had loads of texts and voicemails and that receiving them had now eaten all our credit. Rubbish!

Steve Niles, Brian J. Showers and Aly in the Central Hotel.

Anyway, after a bit of getting ever so slightly lost in Dublin we found our way to the Central Hotel and met up with Bryan Talbot, slovobooks and ephiriel who led the way to a very, very nice Indian restaurant. There we met the notable author and general gad about Brian J. Showers who was accompanied by the lovely Aly. We had a great meal and a good old gab and, after saying our goodnights to slovobooks and ephiriel, the rest of us headed back to the central for a pint or ten. There were lots of nice people there including Simon Furman and his very nice missus. I tried to stay off the Guinness for a change...

Leah and Bryan Talbot in the library with the Guinness.

We were up bright an early on Saturday (for comic writers anyway) and we're over the river at the Central Hotel (where the con was taking place) by a little after ten. After bumping into Steve Niles & Sarah Wilkinson, Al Nolan, Danielle Lavigne, Michael Carrol & Leonia and various other astoundingly interesting people (especially for that time of the morning) we were ensconced on a table next to Bryan Talbot who was already dealing with a queue of people all wanting their copies of Alice in Sunderland signed.

Bryan Talbot doing a sketch for us during a very brief period of quiet.

Steve and Sarah.

This was easily the best con we've ever attended in terms of the fans and interest we had during the day. We had so many people coming in looking for our work and bringing in copies of Albion (loads and loads of them!!!) for us to sign. Thanks very much to everyone who we spoke to on the day; you really made us feel welcome and like the stuff we write might actually get bought and read by people (scary thought).

Steve Niles finds himself at the wrong end of an Armstrong-Siddeley "Royal Albert" Vibro-Beamer.

Leah and Pia Guerra getting all feminist.

Leah and Y the Last Man artist Pia Guerra did a great "Women in Comics" panel (yeah, there's alway one of those isn't there?) in which they discussed the fact that neither of them really felt like their gender was particularly relevant to job they did. There were lots of questions from the audience and notably from Father Ted and It Crowd writer/director/creator Graham Linehan who was sat in the front row and is obviously a big fan of Y the Last Man.

The con ended at five. We all got drunk and went for Japanese food then headed back to the hotel and drank some more. It was grand and we'll certainty be back again next year if they'll have us.

Cheers to Rob Curley and all the SubCity/SubCon staff for making it such a great con.

J.