Lawless Comic Con 2023

Big thanks to Su Haddrell and the team for their hard work in organising another brilliant Lawless Comic Con. A truly friendly and laid back event that was a pleasure to attend again last weekend. Lots of laughs and good company and great tro catch up with Laura Howell, Mike Allwood, Mike and Bernadette, Joanne Alexander, David Roach, Leonard Sultana, Joanne Alexander, Stacey Dutton-Whittle, Ben Cullis, Jo Heeley and The77 gang, Alexus Savage, Leonard Sultana, Shane Chebsey, Paul Goodenough, Anna Morozova, Phillip Vaughan, Michael Carroll, Sarah Lea, Stuart Lloyd Gould and many more I've no doubt forgotten due to tiredness. 

I'm sorry I didn't spend more time talking to Dan Cornwell and Becky, Ian Edginton, Matt Brooker, Patrick Goddard, John Charles, John Higgins, Sally Hurst, and John Wagner. Really enjoyed catching up with old friend Mick McMahon again after many, many years. Only regret was not getting to see other old friend Dave Gibbons before he left. All in all a fantastic weekend. Hope I came across OK in the interviews despite being bunged up with a cold! Last but certainly not least, thank you to everyone who stopped by my table for a sketch, comic, and chat.

Lawless is an excellent convention dedicated to British comics and has a friendly artmosphere. If you've never been please consider attending next year's show. 

I only took a few photos as I was busy so here's a handfull....

Strontium shenannigans with Joanne Alexander.

 

The convention programme was once again in the format of a 16 page A5 Lawless comic. Several of us contributed a page for free as part of an adventure scripted by Steve Bull. Here's my page (coloured by Darren Stephens) opposite a page by Andrw Sawyers. The pages will be sold off by The77 to raise money for charity.

Con booklet cover by Dan Cornwell.

 

For more photos of the event, check out the Lawless Facebook group at this link:

https://www.facebook.com/groups/1417073338554565

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Sonic the Comic Con 2023

It's 30 years since Egmont Fleetway launched Sonic the Comic way back in 1993. I came on board as a writer with issue 30 and had many happy years scripting the adventures of Tails, Amy, and sometimes Sonic himself plus my own creations Shortfise the Cybernik, Tekno, Commander Brutus and more. Last week Sonic the Comic Con celebrated the anniversary of the title with an event in York. I was a guest along with writer/artist Nigel Kitching, artists Richard Elson, Carl Flint, Ferran Rodriguez and editor Richard Burton.

The event was very well attended with an enthusuastic audience that were a pleasure to meet. The show was very busy throughout the day and I did lots of sketches plus sold out the comics and prints I'd taken along. 

It was clear that Sonic the Comic meant a lot to the readers and their ongoing passion for the stories and characters means a lot to us as creators too. I think under different editors, STC would have just been a standard licenced comic that wouldn't have lasted long, but editors Richard Burton and Deborah Tate turned it into something unique for the time. Comics that have their own identity, and a creative team that care about the product, tend to resonate more with the readers and that was true of STC. Thirty years later, the enthusuasm of those fans is still burning bright and it was a pleasure to be in their company. One of the great strengths of the comic is that didn't only appeal to one gender like most adventure comics of the time and that diversity was still represented by the attendance at the show.

 

My thanks to Michael Stiv Stephenson, Lola Muir, and the team for making us welcome and putting on a great event, and to all the attendees for coming along and making the day special. Such a great crowd! Thanks also for the special coin that was given to us to mark the comic's anniversary. A nice momento of a happy weekend.

You can see lots of photos from the event at this link coutesy of Oni Media...

https://www.flickr.com/photos/oni_photography/sets/72177720308607997/ 

Thanks to Zoe Davis for giving me this excellent drawing she did of my character Shortfuse the Cybernik! A really nice gift and much appreciated. See more of Zoe's art on her Twitter page https://twitter.com/MeanerHarker

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Convention lag

After two consecultive weekends of conventions plus a cold and other issues I'm totally burnt out today but they were both great and I'll be blogging about them soon! For now, I need more sleep and then crack on with work. Will blog again soon! 

See you at Lawless!

Feeling rough with a bug I picked up last week so it's an early night for me because I'm having an early start to get to Bristol tomorrow for Lawless Comic Con!

I'll be doing sketches on request (£15 each), bringing along a few copies of Combat Colin and Derek the Troll, plus a couple of original art pages (£50 each). Hope to see you there!

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Weekday sale

If you missed out on my recent auctions you might be interested in a couole of Buy It Now items I currently have on eBay. My original artwork of a Vampire Brats page from Buster (1989) and a Robo-Capers from Transformers (1987). 

 

This offer only runs until Friday evening (26th May) so I hope some of you snap them up. 

Here's the link:

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

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New Doctor Who Magazine - sneak peek!

There's a new issue of the official Doctor Who Magazine out tomorrow so here's an advance glimpse at part of a panel from my latest Daft Dimension strip. This time the focus is on the 6th Doctor.

The mag will be packed as usual with all new features and interviews, plus the latest chapter of the 14th Doctor's exclusive adventure by Alan Barnes and Lee Sullivan.

Plus... a brand new feature with the Memory Worm! Here's my pencil rough of the creature. 

See the finished version in Doctor Who Magazine No.591, on sale from Thursday 25th May. Here's the cover to look out for, featuring new character Rose who will appear in the 14th Doctor specials this Autumn...

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Frankendrac!

During my 16 years as a writer/artist on Toxic magazine I created a lot of villains and monsters for Team Toxic to deal with. One such was Frankendrac! Part reanimated corpse, part vampire, Frankendrac encountered Team Toxic numerous times. 

When I have time I'll dig out some Team Toxic strips and post them on this blog.