Con-Sulted...

By Tony Lee

I know. It's late again. But there's a valid reason for that this time. You see, usually I write this column around the Friday before it goes online. Sometimes I might write it on the weekend, but usually Jason has a little time before it goes live to edit out all my random tourettes and insults. Sometimes I leave it until the last minute to ensure he can't, but only in the worst cases do I ever write it on the day it's supposed to come out. Which of course is what I'm doing today.

The reason? The Bristol Comic Expo was this weekend, and if I'd written the column when I usually would? It would have read 'I'm going to the Expo now, bye' and you'd never have heard how it was. Well, not by me, anyway. And so I delayed the column, just for you. Because I love you. All of you. Except you. Yeah, you right there.

Dan in the bar, Friday night...
So. The Bristol Expo. As usual, I shared my room with the Laird Boultwood and his manservant Skinner, and we perused the Ramada bar around 6 p.m. to see that the downsizing of the convention had actually made it a quieter, more sociable affair. Even DC visitors Bob Wayne and Dan Didio weren't being swamped by the fans – because there weren't that many there, all staying in other, nearby hotels. The Friday was spent mainly with Dan, Skinner, Nat Sandells and Rob – Bevis Musson, he of the wonderful Journal art also arrived and Lee 'Budgie' Barnett made a last minute and surprise appearance. Anyway, at a con like this the cream of British comics comes out, so suffice to say a lot of creators were there, we drank a lot of alcohol at extortionate Ramada prices until early in the morning – and then the unthinkable happened. At three am in the morning – they closed the bar.

That's right, the Ramada bar, the bar of plenty that never closed, closed.

We found out later that due to the amount of people who were drinking slowly / sneakily bringing their own drinks / unable to pay the extortionate cost of a beer, the bar wasn't getting much trade, and although the bar was still half full, the takings were so low, they decided to close. It was a sad day for British comics. We hadn't drunk the bar dry as we usually did – we had failed. And even worse, Simon Bisley told Dan at one point 'you scare me' – and left. Dan Boultwood scared off Simon Bisley. We were in some alternate world where Nero had killed Kirk's dad too early and changed all of – oh wait, that was Star Trek.

In the morning I found that Dan, although drinking like a trooper the night before, had woken up quite bright and breezy, so I killed that by forcing him to watch an episode of 'Charlie the Unicorn' until he started to twitch and then we went to breakfast. This was a busy day as we had a Markosia signing for Hope Falls – but with no trade until next week; we had to make do with selling copies of the single issues while Dan took sneaky drinks from his bottle of gin. And then at 2 p.m., we girded our loins for the Geek Syndicate panel where they interviewed Dan and I – 'Two Drunk Guys In a Panel' – a play on words of our Two Drunk Guys In A Bar Productions name. We had high hopes to be witty and erudite, but half a bottle of gin and another of Absinthe put paid to that. To be honest the entire hour was a blur, although I do remember the end, where Bob Wayne asked a question purely to stop Mark Buckingham singing. Yeah. And that was just the end. We also had hand puppets, made by Bevis Musson so we could hide behind a table, but they heard about this plan and removed the table. Damn them.

Puppets Tony and Dan...
Apparently the panel became the 'talk of the con' (and that talk was probably more along the lines of 'did you see the panel that killed Tony and Dan's career') and people throughout the weekend were telling us about it. It is always an interesting thing when people who weren't in the audience (and trust me, we saw all of the people who were, packed to the rafters and with people standing along the walls) are overheard telling people how it was 'the panel of Legend'. And apparently the Geek Syndicate guys have decided to put it up, unedited, from a link on their site, http://geeksyndicate.wordpress.com/ sometime this week. You too can hear Dave Montieth actually start to cry, live on stage. Dan was the star of the show though, and often held court like a mad, drunken king, a pied piper of the convention, leading us all off the cliff. It's well worth listening to, as long as a) you're not my Dad and b) you're not an editor I'm dealing with...

After that it was meetings and networking, food and a surprise realisation by Dan and myself, while walking around Bristol looking for snacks and an ATM that thirty yards behind the con bar entrance (the one we never use as everyone always leaves out the front) is a chip shop, Chinese takeaway and a general store / off license. For six years people have been walking over a mile on occasions to find these very things. We felt like Livingston as we told people of our discovery to find that they too never knew of these wonders.

Dan takes a bow, picture by Andi Ewington...
There were no Eagle awards this year, although we'll talk about that in a minute, and there were no Golden Champagne Glass awards either, mainly due to time constraints and a promise not to do them on Cassandra Conroy's first Eagles (having taken over the job from her father, Mike) – and not due to one particular British artist's loud and repeated demanding of 'Don't do the Golden Champagne Glass awards, they're shit, they're shit' or suchlike at Dan on the Friday night. Instead, Dan and Nat organised the first ever public 'Most Bladdered' drinking game where, in the Park suite (graciously provided by Mike Alwood) we watched two random episodes of Most Haunted and drank a lot of shots at certain times, when Derek was 'possessed', when Yvette kicked off at a spirit, etc.

After that we rejoined the convention which by this point was in full swing. Even the Ramada had got into it this year, with all the Bar staff in fancy dress, including two 'Iron Men' and a cowgirl who must have made half the bar bill in tips...

Sunday was a quiet day, as I'd gone to bed around 3am and Dan had stayed up until 6am, so after playing him another Charlie the Unicorn while he cried salty tears, I went to breakfast and then met up with Dan Didio and Mike Conroy for a morning coffee. Dan Didio had been keeping awake the night before by shotting Jack Daniels, and was surprisingly alert and peppy. I think he'd secretly been taking whatever elixir it is that Mike Collins drinks that allows him to drink until 7am every night and still be fresh and alert at 9 a.m. the following day.

Tony and Tharg, picture by Wakefield Carter...
Another signing, some shopping (I finally got my hands on a new, signed copy of David Lloyd's Kickback, with a sketch inside, and a copy of the third Criminal trade signed by Sean Phillips) and a few chats with people I'd spoken to on email but never met, I did the 2000 A.D. panel with Tharg the Mighty (where apparently I'm no longer known as the 'guy who had shit sent to him' but now 'the guy who wrote the Devil shagging the pig headed woman') and then the convention was pretty much over. Dan and Skinner left and I spent an incredibly relaxed evening with Bevis, Budgie, Al Ewing (who had missed the 2000 A.D. panel and returned the moment 'Tharg' left), Cassandra Conroy and Doug, one of the Expo guys I always chat to in passing, but never properly sit down with – and he told us about the new tattoo he had – he has a full HR Giger tattoo on his back and last year he managed to get Giger himself to sign him, which was then made into a tattoo as well – before I begged off the cider I had, sloping off to bed.

Dan shows his archery skills with 'Hawkeye's Bow'...
And of course today I woke up and came home. And I know I've missed mentioning tons of people, the Comics Rack guys, the FP guys, Claire from ImagineFX, the lovely Cheryl Morgan who allowed me to twitter on her feed about the convention, the list goes on. But it's a long list, and I really need to sleep.

On a final note though, while driving home, I had a call from the Ramada central booking line – apparently I was on their network as a 'No show', which was amusing as I was driving home from there.

So, if you hear any bad things about me, any career ending things, it obviously wasn't me. I wasn't there. Check with the Ramada, they'll back me up...

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And so we have the Eagles. On the Friday of the convention, it was announced that the Eagles are open for nominations. But this time there's no pull down box, you type in the names you want to win, and then they spend weeks verifying and auditing them.

Now, last year I had a lot of crap from the Eagles when Dan and I were accused of 'Ballot Stuffing' when we did no such thing and, even though Mike publicly apologised to us at the start of them, we still got dropped from several of the eleven categories we were legitimately nominated for, including the nomination for 'Favourite Penciller' for Dan.

So, this year I'm just going to do a tiny bit of electioneering instead. The awards are for the best nominations of 2008, nothing released in the last five months, so may I suggest, if you don't know what to pick, some thoughts for some of the nominations...

Favourite Artist, Favourite Artist: Pencils – Well, there is of course Dan Boultwood who, for 2008 drew both Hope Falls and The Prince Of Baghdad, as well as the DoppleGanger Chronicles. All of which deserve a nomination. Although there's also Pia Guerra, who drew the wonderful issues of Doctor Who: The Forgotten (and also Stefano Martino and Kelly Yates, both of which drew in 2008).

Favourite Writer – I'd be lying if I didn't say I wasn't worth nominating. But of course there's also Gary Russell, who wrote the Doctor Who: Agent Provocateur trade in 2008. And Al Ewing who wrote the best Hulk story I have ever read.

Favourite Letterer –Well, I'd always suggest Rich Starkings and Comicraft, who did Doctor Who: The Forgotten ...

Favourite Editor – Well, there's Ben Sharpe, editor of The DFC, or Denton Tipton, Doctor Who editor, or Chris Ryall, the other Doctor Who editor... Or Lee Barnett, Hope Falls editor... Matt Smith, 2000 A.D. editor...

Favourite Publisher – Again, there's IDW (Doctor Who), or Rebellion, or David Fickling Books (the DFC)... Or how about Markosia, for Hope Falls?

Favourite American Colour Comic Book – this is always a 'big two' category, but let's swish it up a little. Remember, that Doctor Who: The Forgotten was a colour comic book, from America...

Favourite British Colour Comic Book – Well, of course, Hope Falls did come out in 2008, as did The DFC, and 2000 A.D. - but it's totally your opinion...

Favourite New Comic Book – Bugger the pussyfooting around. If you don't honour the dead by voting for The DFC here, I'll hunt you down and hurt you. They tried, they failed, but they got so close. Honour them.

Favourite Continued Story Published During 2008 – Let's piss off some people – vote "Stalag #666" as best continued story. I want to see someone's head explode...

Also, for webcomic, there's a wealth of Zuda titles just screaming to be looked at...

To nominate, you can go to http://www.eagleawards.co.uk/Nomination.aspx - all nominations need to be made by the 22^nd, so hurry up and pass it around.

But no ballot stuffing, no matter what you think...

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Finally – this Saturday, remember to come to Orbital Comics, where Dan and I will be signing copies of the brand new Hope Falls trade.

And I'll also sign copies of Doctor Who: The Forgotten for anyone who brings them, the only non-convention opportunity to get this done this year...

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Discuss this column at the Only A Forum forum.
ฉ 2008, Tony Lee

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