Thoughts on Bristol (long overdue)

Cast your collective minds back to the second week of May and the Bristol Comics Expo 2008. We were there and we had too much to drink but a grand time over all. What's more, as ususal, we promised a report of sorts that never really surfaced. Well, consider this a far too late, sorry excuse for said report.

First of all, we completely failed to take any pictures of the convention despite having our fully charged camera and several spare memory cards with us. We did however have an iMac in our hotel room with free internet connection (which we utilised only to listen to Last.fm really ;-/ ) and therefore can offer the following evidence of our visit.


Now obviously I can't really remember what happened very well now suffice it to say we met up with lots of lovely people including Oliver Redding, Matt Timson, James Fletcher, Paul Cornell, Caroline Symcox, Al Ewing, Misako Rocks, Sonia Leong, Emma Vieceli, Ian Whelan, Al Nolan, Bob Byrne, Colin Mathieson, Dave West, Andy Bloor, and seemingly millions of others. Thanks to everyone who bought stuff and got stuff signed by us and, of course, to everyone who set us on to new, exciting things and/or bought us a drink.

We did come home with a massive haul of stuff as ususal and this was due in no small part to Mr. Mike McLean of Asylum Books and Games (a very fine establishment) who pressed a big pile of (mostly zombie related) comics into our hands as soon as we ventured near his stall. Though we were very grateful to receive them, it has to be said that many of these books (without naming names) were, to be perfectly honest, awful. The standard of zombie series out there is, sadly, pretty uniformally dreadful with occasional blips of good stuff and the odd true gem. Why do people think they can get away with just putting a load of crap out? Anyway, enough of that. Mike also saw to it that we got our Elephantmen and Goon fix so we really couldn't fault him. Top chap!

Other noteworthy items which traveled home with us included...

The Art Of Cake Diving- by Cliodhna (www.ztoical.com)

Rock and Roll Love- by Misako Rocks! (www.misakorocks.com)

The Hookah Girl and other true stories Vol 1- by Marguerite Dabaie (www.hookah-girl.margoyle.net)

Robots- by various (including us) (http://www.accentukcomics.com/)

Mister Amperduke a story in pictures- by Bob Byrne (www.clamnuts.com)

Sancho the Life and Death of Jose Maria Garcia- by Alan Nolan and Ian Whelan (www.20000-leagues.com)

Duke Etrange's World of Weird One Step Beyond- by various (with us, again). (Nova X-press)

Omnivistascope Model 4- by paul scott and various (www.omnivistascope)

Marraquai The Forest and the city- by Ben Disckson and Joames McKay (www.scarcomics.com)

Other favorites included Finland Finland Finland- by Philip Barnett Bevis Musson and Tony Lee (http://mrtonylee.blogspot.com/) and Al Ewing presents- Iron Man noble defender of fascism in "hippy Trouble"- by Al Ewing (beatgirlcomics@gmail.com).

*PHEW* So then, there you go; we did go to Bristol and we had a great time and we loved meeting both new folk and old friends and the comics were better than ever.

Here's hoping we see you at the next one, or perhaps Leeds or Birmingham? Cool, see you there.