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Bristol Comic Expo

Friday, 04 June 2010 17:56

The past is rubbish, and so is the future.

When I did the redesign of this site I wanted to incorporate cool new things, such as the Twitter feed. I wanted it to be all ‘out with the old, in with the new’ in a ‘web 2.0’ kind of way. Whatever.

Anyway, I promised readers that I would be tweeting from Bristol Comic Expo, which if you tuned in you will know did not happen.

This is because as I tried to text my family to say I had arrived safely in Bristol on the Friday night, I discovered that my mobile network was having difficulties with text messaging and internet. Great.

So that is why the future is rubbish. The present is pretty good, however. The comic expo was awesome fun – I met my favourite artist in the whole world, the brilliant Lew Stringer, who is not only responsible for some of the funniest and most influential humour comics strips ever but is also an absolutely top bloke.

This was my first comic convention ever. Within 5 minutes of arriving in the hotel bar I was asked by a grown man who I thought would win in a fight between Batman and Superman, which is exactly what I expected from a comic convention. It was quite an eye opener for me as a writer. The comic industry is something worth taking note of right now, with so many relatively small-time comics being optioned as movies. I took the time to get a feel for the whole thing. I have already formed several opinions about certain aspects and institutions of the industry, but I will keep those to myself for now! Save to say that some parts of it are still exciting and fresh while others are stagnating, or are desperately trying to keep up but have business strategies that would have made Woolworths seem like a force to be reckoned with in the modern world.

Hats off to everyone who ran stands in the neighbouring Small Press Expo. I imagined that this would cover smaller, independent but established publishing houses. In actual fact it was a bunch of people who had access to a photocopier. Nevertheless, I enjoyed this part of the weekend immensely, although some of the humour I derived from the event may possibly have been for the wrong reasons.

A table at the entrance to the small press expo also showcased three has-beens from the Star Wars movies. Queues were not a problem for anyone who wanted to pay £20 for an autograph from the guy who got strangled by Darth Vader; the guy inside Jabba The Hutt; or someone who once played a Wookie, but not Chewie. Their table was completely dead every time I passed it, but they did appear to be chatting amongst themselves, which must have been nice for them.

Which brings me to the past. Why is the past rubbish? Because people taint it. Last weekend I went to an outdoor market where the entertainment for the kids was – and I swear I am not making this up – a giant inflatable Titanic. It looked like the doomed ship was upended and sinking into the ground, and kids could slide down it for £1 a time.

Does this strike anyone else as being in slightly poor taste? The last Titanic survivor died very recently, but even so this was a disaster that killed hundreds of people – not the kind of thing normally turned into a fun day out for kids. If in 100 years time kids are jumping around between two inflatable twin towers there will be something very, very wrong with the world.

Hungry Parliament

Wednesday, 12 May 2010 12:25

Regular readers may remember that at the end of last year I tried an 11-day diet and lost a whopping 9lbs. This week I am back on it. I won’t go into the tedious details, save to say that I am very, very hungry. I thought it would be easier this time knowing that I got through it last time. In actual fact, knowing what is coming next on the menu makes it infinitely worse.

Everyone is talking about politics at the moment, with the UK elections just over and done with. Just to be clear, I am ‘apolitical’. I have opinions, and plenty of them; but I do not lend support to any political party. That said, I found it all very entertaining. Now it is over and my country has some kind of hybrid, fragmented government in place I don’t find it so fascinating. I think the whole hung-parliament situation has made entertaining viewing for the rest of the world. Yesterday I called my mobile phone provider and got through to one of those call centres abroad. The heavily-accented operator on the other end of the line (who I do not believe for a moment was really called Peter) filled the moments of silence by asking me if we had managed to choose a Prime Minister yet, and seemed genuinely horrified to hear that I didn’t know what was happening at that precise moment in time; as if any loyal citizen of the United Kingdom ought to have been calling to query why he was being charged for a “Deal Or No Deal” mobile phone game from the steps of Downing Street where he eagerly awaited news of his future leader.

Incidentally, do not buy “Deal Or No Deal” for your mobile phone. It is rubbish. Also when experimenting with a new phone try not to buy it accidentally, as this is very easy to do. Apparently.