Tuesday 31 May 2016

MCM London Comic Con

This past weekend I was at the MCM London Comic Con at Royal Victoria Dock, sharing a table with my friend Inko and selling my comics. This was my first time with a table at this event and to say that it was quite intense would be an understatement! A record-breaking 133,156 people attended the event over Friday, Saturday and Sunday!


All set up and ready!


Inko's ready too!

Friday was a relatively quiet start to the weekend, and I had some time to leave my table and have a browse around the two massive halls housing the Convention.

On Saturday, Inko was away running a Manga workshop at the Greenwich Book Festival, so I was flying solo and needed to fill a whole table by myself.



Saturday was also the busiest day. I knew this was going to be the case, but I was taken aback by the sheer noise that emanated through the hall when the doors opened and the crowds entered at 9am! The few times I ventured out to pop to the loo, grab a coffee, or have a quick catch up with friends, I soon became overwhelmed with the amount of people milling around and rushed back to the relative solitude behind my table!

Thankfully, on Sunday Inko was back and it also wasn't quite so busy. But by that point I was fairly exhausted after two 10-hour days in a row and early starts all weekend, so again I spent the majority of the day behind my table, trying to look engaging but struggling to stay awake.

All in all though, it was a great weekend and I would definitely do it again! Thanks to everyone who stopped by my table to say hello, buy some comics, or provide me with snacks!

Monday 9 May 2016

Free Comic Book Day at Gosh! Comics

This past Saturday was Free Comic Book Day and Gosh! Comics in Soho had a host of events on to celebrate, including a Kids Drawing Workshop in the morning which I was asked to take part in. Here's the poster with an illustration by John Allison:



This was the first time that I'd done something like this, but it was a lot of fun. It was great to see so many kids into drawing and making comics and I enjoyed chatting with them, drawing alongside them and even given a few tips and advice.



Mauricio Molizane De Souza was hovering around all day taking some great photos, documenting the day's events.


I got a name badge (which I forgot to take off until about half an hour later when I was walking along Shaftsbury Avenue)!




Working on a jam-piece with Ramsey Hassan...



This was probably my favourite thing from the day! One kid asked me to draw a picture of Batman, which I did and then gave it to him to colour in. And after colouring in the cape, he went and gave his Batman yellow marigolds and drew him holding a sink plunger and added a bottle-cleaning sponge to his utility belt. Genius!





A bunch of drawings at the end of the Workshop, including my Spider-Man and a crocodile wearing a scarf.