Bedford Comic Con was AWESOME!

I'm back from Bedford Comic Con (aka NICE) and what a fantastic weekend! Thanks to Jeff Chahal, Bub Chahal and family for organising such a great celebration of comics and for being a brilliant host, looking after all the guests. A truly nice convention. So good to catch up with friends Mike and Bernadette Collins, Aneke, DaNi, Pete Doherty, Alan Davis, David Hine, Dylan Teague, Dave Elliott, Ryan Brown, Sean Phillips, Mark Buckingham, Ben Cullis, and many more too numerous to list. 

 

NICE is a genuine comics celebration organised by genuine comics fans, focusing on comic art and the friendship and cameraderie within the comics community. Many thanks to those who bought comics, sketches, and art!

Wish I'd taken far more photos but here are those I do have....

 

Awesome artist Anya Morozova at her table.

Top class artists Dylan Teague and Ben Oliver.

From Athens, friend and fantastic artist DaNi.

Comics and storyboard artist Mike Collins, a friend for 40 years!

On a panel remembering the late Garry Leach.

Mike Collins, Alan Davis, me, David Hine, Chris Thompson, Dave Elliott.

The convention hall on Saturday morning.

Great to see artist Peter Doherty again.

On our way for a slap-up feed!

A multitide of comics creators having a slap-up feed.

(Above image is a screen grab from a video clip by Vikki Lee.)
 

Con sketch of The Pathetic Sharks!

 

 

COMBAT COLIN No.4 and PEDANTIC STAN - Back in print in time for NICE Comic Con!

New printings of Combat Colin No.4 and Pedantic Stan The Comic Fan will be available to buy from my table at Bedford Comic Con (NICE) this weekend! 

Originally published in 2019, Combat Colin No.4 won the Comic Scene Award for Best Small Press / Independent Comic that year. 

It has 32 pages (28 interior black and white plus four full colour cover pages) reprinting my Combat Colin strips from February 1990 to August 1990 that originally appeared in Marvel UK's Transformers comic. (Marvel returned the rights to the strip back to me in the Nineties.)

 

Pedantic Stan The Comic Fan is the creation of John Freeman and Lew Stringer and the strip ran in Speakeasy magazine in 1990/91. All of those strips are collected in this edition, a 16 page A5 size landscape comic, along with a special strip I did for the UKCAC 1990 convention book. This new edition has a different colour cover (gradient red instead of blue) and a new editorial. (The first printing appeared in 2018.)

Pedantic Stan reflects the comic fan of the 1990s, in that he's a superhero-obsessed fanboy with a bulging rucksack full of back issues and a wants list a mile long. (May be a slight exaggeration for comic effect.) Scripts were written by John Freeman and drawn by me, although I wrote some myself such as the Christmas episode and the UKCAC episode.

I'll be bringing copies along to Nice Comic Con in Bedford this weekend or you can buy them from my eBay page (including postage) at this link and I'll post them to you when I'm back next week:

https://www.ebay.co.uk/sch/i.html?item=203554298786&rt=nc&_trksid=p2047675.l2562&_ssn=graphite47

 

Link for NICE Comic Con: https://nicecon.co.uk/

Here are the comics I'm bringing along to NICE, including the last 5 remaining issues of Combat Colin No.2. I'll also bring some original art for sale from Doctor Who Magazine, Buster, etc.

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UK Comic Cons: It All Started 55 Years Ago...

This coming weekend will be the 55th anniversary of the very first Comic Convention in the UK! It took place at the Midland Hotel In New Street, Birmingham (since renamed the Britannia Hotel, now closed down) and was organised by Phil Clarke and the late Steve Moore. You think cosplay is new? Nah, back in 1968 Phil Clarke was dressed as the original Captain Marvel, Carl Brookes as The Black Terror, and Nick Landau (now publisher of Titan Books) as Captain Cold. 

It even had pre-publicity in Smash! and Fantastic comics at the time (thanks to Steve Moore being on staff back then). Several years ago Crikey! magazine ran a photo-feature on the con (shown here). Guests included Paul Neary and Mike Higgs. (I wasn't there. I was only 9.)

So... comics conventions began 55 years ago and that legacy continues this weekend with the nifty NICE Comic Con in Bedford! See you there!
https://nicecon.co.uk/

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Sketch Roulette cartoons for NICE Bedford Comic Con

Bedford Comic Con (AKA NICE) has an interesting offer where for a higher ticket price, attendees are entered into the Sketch Roulette and they'll receive a sketch by one of the guests. They won't know what it is until they get it, hence the 'Roulette' part of the name.

Here are the ones I've drawn for this year's Sketch Roulette. NICE Bedford Comic Con 2023 will take place in a few days time over the weekend of 2nd and 3rd September. I hope you can make it!

More info here...

https://nicecon.co.uk/ 

I'll have a table there on both days and will be doing sketches on request as well as selling my comics. See you there!

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Only a few weeks to go...

Time for another quick plug for NICE Bedford Comic Con, which takes place in three weeks' time over the weekend of 2nd and 3rd September. A few more guests have been added recently, with Pete Doherty and Liam Sharp now attending! Just look at that line up! This is going to be a great comic con!

Find out more info and book your tickets at this link:

https://nicecon.co.uk/

 

 

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NICE: Latest update

Here's the full guest list for NICE, the Bedford Comic Con that takes place in just a few weeks on September 2nd/3rd! Sadly, Alex Maleev can no longer make it but artist Pete Doherty has been added to the roster, which is a great addition. There'll also be exhibitors including Ben Cullis, editor of The77!

It's going to be a fantastic weekend and, yes, it's a proper comic con, dedicated to comics! Don't heditate to buy your tickets. Info at this web link...

https://nicecon.co.uk/

See you there!

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CONventional Thoughts

When is a Comic Con not a Comic Con? When it has absolutely no comics creators as guests but still calls itself a comic con. There are a few of those around across the UK and, annoyingly, some people are wrongly assuming all comics events are like that.

Thankfully that isn't the case. This year I've had the pleasure of being a guest at Comic Book Day in Liverpool, Sonic the Comic Con in York, Lawless Comic Con in Bristol, Macc-Pow! Comic Festival in Macclesfield, and the London Film and Comic Con in London; all of which featured a good number of comics creators and panel discussions about comics. (Yes, LFCC features actors too, but with nearly 80 comics guests and about the same number of actors it was a fair balance that no one could fault.)

The next event on my schedule is the Bedford Comic Con known as NICE on September 2nd and 3rd. This is completely dedicated to comics with guests from the UK, USA, Spain, Greece and more. Follow this link to find out more about it and buy tickets...

https://nicecon.co.uk/

After that, my next event (and final one for this year I think) will be the one-day Comic Expo Bristol on Saturday 7th October. Again, totally devoted to comics! To find out more, visit this link:
https://comicexpobristol.my-online.store/



 

I know that some of you have never attended a comic con, or may be cautious about doing so. If you have any questions or thoughts about it, please leave a comment below. I've been going to cons since 1979, and always enjoy them. There's never any pressure to "join in" if you just want to keep to yourself, but it you do want to mingle you'll find some like minds to talk to. 

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NICE is next!

Here's the next comics event where you'll find me. The NICE Comic Con in Bedford takes place over the weekend of September 2nd and 3rd. The fine people above are the guests, (click on the image to see it full size) and there'll be exhibitors selling comics too. Find out more info at this link:

https://nicecon.co.uk/ 

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NICE Comic Con returns!

I've scaled back on the number of comic cons I'm attending this year but I couldn't resist an invite to NICE Bedford Comic Con. I was there several years ago and had a great time. A well organised event with a strong line up of guests and pleasant attendees who enjoy comics! NICE is totally dedicated to comics. 

Above you'll see the impressive guest list so far. It's a two day show, on September 2nd and 3rd, and you can find out more info and book tickets at this link...

https://nicecon.co.uk/ 

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