By: Heidi MacDonald,
on 1/26/2016
Speaking of conventions and their spread, the MCM Comic Con brand is expanding to Germany and Belgium. Currently MCM holds shows in London, Telford, Birmingham Manchester, Belfast, DublinGlasgow, Stockholm and Malmo, so they already have quite a global reach. The MCM Expo Group will stage MCM Hannover Comic Con on June 4-5 at Hannover Messe […]
.jpg?picon=925)
By: Sarah McIntyre,
on 11/2/2010
Today I'm wearing my Simon's Cat t-shirt from Expo. Isn't it great? Gary and I have just been having a Team Simon fan moment here in the studio.
YouTube link
Here's a fab reworking of my Vern and Lettuce book cover by Hester!, one of Warwick Johnson Cadwell's 'nippers', as he calls them. Still don't know nipper's name, but a big thanks to you if you're reading this! Love the potted plant pattern on Lettuce's dress and the reimagining of the sousaphone (which Vern erroneously calls a 'tuba' in the story, but just so it will fit in speech bubbles, he's a considerate sheep).
And speaking of Warwick Johnson Cadwell, his poster now has pride of place over my desk. He's compiled drawings he made of passengers on the boat he captains on Chichester Harbour, and you can see loads of the individual sketches over on his blog.
I was hoping I'd be able to make more sketches in a similar vein from my table at Expo, but between battling Mo-Bots and table tending, I only had time to make these here. (I didn't get Lucy's feet in because even when I stood up, I couldn't see them over the table.)
And here's a card from the lovely Alex Milway, who's just reported seeing a first printed copy of his latest Mythical 9th Division yeti book. Hurrah! I still haven't got around to making a full post with the film footage I took at the recent Crystal Palace Children's Book Festival, but a massive thanks to Alex for his hard work in organising it... and meeting his book deadline! I am at once hugely grateful and deeply impressed.
Upcoming events!
Sat, 6 Nov: I'm speaking with my dear friend Layn Marlow, and the writers Mary Hoffman and Philip Pullman in Oxford for the open conference of the Federation of Children's Book Groups.
Oxford University Press, Great Clarendon Street, 9:15am - 3:45pm (Lunch included plus a tour of the University Press Museum 12:30 - 1:30, £35 for membrs, £40 for non-members.
Sat & Sun, Nov 13 & 14: Speaking on panels at the Winter Conference and book launch party with the Society of Children's Book Writers & Illustrators, details here. My panels include:
How to Sell your Book, with Lucy Coats, Nina Douglas & Jon Mayhew
Social Networking: a blessing or a curse?, with Candy Gourlay & Keren David
SCBWI is a great organisation; if you're trying to get into publishing, or are already publishing but want to meet other fab people in the industry and get insider industry info, this is the group to join. It's very friendly and approachable, so great if you're a bit shy.
Sat, Nov 20 Thought Bubble comics festival, Leeds
I've never been to this festival, but I've heard AMAZING things about it and had to get in on the action! The writer of You Can't Eat a Princess!, Gillian Rogerson, has never been to a comics festival and I'm l
By: Sarah McIntyre,
on 10/31/2010
Despite my appalling fan-girl faux pas yesterday, the marvelous Warwick Johnson Cadwell slipped me this handmade card just as Gary and I were packing up our stall. Happiness!
Lizz Lunney and Philippa Rice impressed us mightily with their knitted wizard beards.
Lizz Lunney, Philippa Rice
Lizz Lunney and Philippa Ricewith with Timothy Winchester
I snapped a couple photos of some of the Vern and Lettuce dedication drawings I made (oddly, on a piratical theme).
I was lucky enough to be seated near some of the genuinely nicest guys in comics: my studiomate Gary Northfield on my left and DFC Library colleague Neill Cameron on my right, then Robin Etherington one further along. It was fun watching Neill's new book, Mo-Bot High go down a storm; here are some very happy visitors.
You can see Neill walk you through his process of drawing Mo-Bot High on a recent entry here on the FPI blog. 
I minded Neill's table a few times and tried my hand at pretending to be him and drawing Mo-Bots on his sketchpad. Here's me in Neill cosplay gear. I think I might get a flat cap. (I was a bit too worn out from this month's events to get together a proper costume, a deficiency which rather pained me. Must do better next time.)
I was very pleased to meet Lisa Wood, one of the main organisers for the upcoming Thought Bubble comics convention in Leeds on Sat, 20 Nov. She's letting the Leeds-based writer of You Can't Eat a Princess! Gillian Rogerson and me set up a space-themed kids activity area. Everyone raved last year about Thought Bubble, so I'm really looking forward to it. 
Leeds Thought Bubble organiser Lisa Wood
Here are a few of the comics and mini comics I managed to nab at Expo. I still have yet to read most of them in any depth, but I'll let you catch a glimpse of what made me pick them up. 
'Kanj' by Warwick Johnson Cadwell
By: Sarah McIntyre,
on 10/30/2010
Long but excellent day at MCM Expo! Just Sunday to go now.
Hightlight: Vern waged combat on stage against one of Neill Cameron's Mo-Bots and came off rather well.
Lowlight: Having a fan girl moment in front of Warwick Johnson Cadwell, only to asphyxiate on a leftover sandwich breadcrumb and expire dramatically. (Why do these things always happen to me?)
Pud modeling with Vern (kitted for battle by the crowd); a bedecked Mo-Bot and Neill
Lorenzo and Robin Etherington (creators of Monkey Nuts)
Neill Cameron drawing in Mo-Bot High
Made-on-the-spot collage work by Philippa Rice
Adam Cadwell
Nikki Stuart and Will Kirkby
Writer Alex Keller
Ellie Campbell-Barr and Garen Ewing
By: Sarah McIntyre,
on 10/29/2010
Another weekend of costumed madness at London's MCM Expo! But this weekend it's THREE days instead of two. As we at the Fleece Station studio suspected, the crowds today were much lighter than we've seen on the usual Saturday starting day. I'm guessing we got about 8,000 visitors. (Last year more than 30,000 people visited the festival in the two days.) Come back Saturday and Sunday, and don't forget to bring your camera! Saturdays are always NUTS.
My Cardboard Life by Philippa Rice
Lauren, Gary and I weighed the pros and cons of the festival starting on Friday rather than Saturday.
Cons:
*Three days is an awful lot of working days to give to an event, even if Friday is more of a half day.
*Lighter visitor traffic meant less sales.
*Not all exhibitors (such as the Etherington Brothers, Neill Cameron and David O'Connell) could come on the Friday, so the empty tables looked a bit forlorn.
Pros:
*We didn't have to fight the usual epic morning rush-hour battle to get our heavy luggage to the Excel Centre in time to set up before an early start. And on Friday, there weren't the risks of weekend engineering works shutting down the Docklands Light Rail, which they love to do, and in the past has made the journey all that more fraught.
*The start was more chilled out, so the organisers Emma, Pud and Anna looked much less stressed out than usual. (And Emma hadn't even lost her voice!)
*Because we had a bit of space, we got some time to browse, take photos and talk with the other exhibitors. I even had time to get a coffee (whoa!).
*Even though the traffic was lighter, as usual, the other exhibitors are the most likely to buy each other's stuff. I didn't sell lots of Vern and Lettuce, but of the four people at the Simon's Cat table, three of them bought copies. (Whoo hoo!)
*Kids were on half-term break, so they were able to come along. Last year, costumed kids came along on the Friday anyway and hung around outside the venue, even though the festival didn't start until the next day. So perhaps we might as well get them in.
The Fleece Station had a much longer table this year!
The only book I've bought so far at Expo (and according to Emma Hayley, I'm the second person ever to buy it, it's so new!): At the Mountains of Madness by HP Lovecraft, adapted and drawn by Ian Culbard (injculbard on Twitter), published by SelfMadeHero.
SelfMadeHero Director Emma Hayley
I know this makes me sound like an old fart, but as always, we were hugely impressed by how well-behaved, tidy and considerate all the teenagers were. Every year, you'd think 30,000 unaccompanied teenagers could be a problem, particularly as some of them are half-naked. But they've put so much time into making their costumes, and are so interested in the storytelling of their comics/animé of choice that they bring together a really nic
By: Sarah McIntyre,
on 5/31/2010
By: Sarah McIntyre,
on 5/29/2010
Had a great time at London MCM Expo today, but totally knackered now, so here are just a few quick photos. More to come soon!
My lovely studio mates, The Fleece Station:
Neill Cameron at the DFC Library stand, drawing a Mo-bot:
Good Dog, Bad Dog's Dave Shelton, the Mad Hatter, John Aggs and Patrice Aggs. 
A lot of people got into the passport game, where they stopped by stands to collect stickers. (See if you can spot our sticker.)
Publisher David Fickling, excited but possibly slightly freaked out by all the costume madness, and Robin Etherington
Super baby!
And it's back again tomorrow! Hope to see you there.
By: Sarah McIntyre,
on 5/28/2010
This is nuts, but there are loads of dressed-up teenagers ALREADY at the ExCel Centre for MCM Expo and it doesn't even start until TOMORROW! Here's the DFC Library's Mezolith writer Ben Haggarty surveying the Japanese sweets starting to go up on the stands. And here's a sight that sort of sums up MCM, more Pocky than you can shake a stick at.
Don't miss it, Expo starts at 9am tomorrow! If you haven't bought tickets yet, get there early or you may be queuing for a long time. (See photos from previous years.)
By: Sarah McIntyre,
on 10/28/2009
I swear, I just go to Expo to see the costumes, they're amazing. (Have you seen David O'Connell's fab drawing of it?)
Stuart and I love Buzz Lightyear; Stuart went around pretending to be Buzz for at least a year after we saw Toy Story 2. He'd say the catch phrases with Buzz bravado, then shrink down a few inches and giggle at his own audacity, it was hilarious.
Last year I heard there were 30,000 people attending (mostly teenagers), but this year seemed much more crowded; people were queuing for two hours to get in the door.
We took lots of Very Mature photos, including Gary doing some tummy poking and Laura Howell squeezing Garen Ewing's head.
(If you click here, you can see photos from previous Expos.)
By: Sarah McIntyre,
on 10/27/2009
I have an insane amount of work on today, so I won't get around yet to posting reviews yet of the weekend. (I have SO many fab comic creator people to look up after the talks at the Cambridge conference, loads of links to come!) But here's one of the paintings Gary and I made to sell at MCM Expo (he drew Derek the Sheep, I drew Morris). We only sold them for a fiver, so they got snapped up pretty quickly.
Last night Alex Fitch came to interview us about the Fleece Station. Gary had to pop out (he's flat-hunting) but Viv and I talked with him and he'll broadcast it this Thursday at 5pm on Resonance 104.4 FM, streamed at www.resonancefm.com and podcast soon after at Panel Borders. We had a good laugh and talked about picture books and comics, including Viviane's amazing comic/picture book hybrid Shark and Lobster.
By: Sarah McIntyre,
on 5/24/2009
Here's me selling a few bits and bobs at Gary Northfield's table at London's MCM Expo, where he kindly let me crash for a few hours. Look, he drew a picture for me!
This one's from one of my favourite Little Cutie strips, with Sophie the cygnet and Dudley the squirrel (Sophie's short-term boyfriend who is not quite up to the task). (Read it here!)
Gary asked me to draw Derek the sheep and Vern in pirate costumes, so here it is:
We had some lovely small press favourites a few tables over: 
James Turner and John Aggs (both DFC mates), and London Underground Comic's Oliver Lamden. James spoke on a panel with Marc Ellerby (Ellerbisms), John Allison (Scary Go Round) and Paul Duffield (Freakangels, Manga Shakespeare).
Here's the loot I picked up:
Penelope's Far-out-mantic by Sarah Burgess; Harvest: the Collection by Asia Alfasi; The Island of Dr Moreau by Claude TC (![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small}
ryclaude), The Saga ofo the European King by Tom McNally, Curtis and Terrorist 2 by Oliver Lamden, The unfeasible adventures of Beaver & Steve, volume 2 1/2: the owl of regret by James Turner, The Adventures of Ninja Bunny by Philip Spence, and I stocked up big-time on Gary Northfield's stuff: The Magic Yellow Trousers, The Funny Plastic Skelenton, Hillmonster and Dave the Dinosaur, Freddy and the Little Goldfish, The Monster who Enjoyed his Dreams, and The Little Eyeball.
Even though I never managed to meet her (she was away from the table when I stopped by), I was chuffed to get a copy of Asia Alfasi's comic (look at that binding!). I heard her give a talk last November at Comica at the V&A and it was the first time I got to read some of her work. Really lovely linework and subtle colouring, and great to see a story told from a Muslim woman's perspective. (She'll be speaking at Caption in Oxford this August!)
I was on the hunt for small-press chick lit and very happy to discover Sarah Burgess, who turned out to be a big fan of Vern and Lettuce, so we had a mutual photo fandom moment. (Here's Sarah signing my comic.) We had some great people stop by; here's Kim (yunni: 'My first anime con where I cosplayed!!')
Will Kirkby chamonkee) with one of the marvelous drawings in his sketchbook.
I sat right next to Philip Spence, who drew me his Ninja Bunny eating a carrot sandwich. Yay!
The cutest hamster I have ever seen with Faye fayeyong) and fehed. I also got to see mondoagogo, Ilya, seanazz, Nick Abadzis, Andie Tong, Chris Bottoms, John Scrivens, Michael James Hatch, Dennis Morrison, Joel Meadows and a bunch of other great people but somehow managed to miss seeing Kate Brown (darn).
And, of course, the amazing Emma Vieceli (emmav), who took on the enormous task of planning this all for the expo's Comics Village, and managed to do it splendidly despite only having the use of one arm (which hopefully is feeling better). Thanks, Emma!! This trade fair had a great amosphere, really small-press friendly and the 20,000 or so unaccompanied kids and teenagers running around were boisterous but remarkably good-natured. I hope I'll get back there next year!
(You can see lots more photos of remarkable costumes in my last two posts here and here.)
By: Sarah McIntyre,
on 5/24/2009
Later I'll post pictures and links to the people I actually knew at the Expo, but here are a few more costumes:
I think this costume on the right is what I would wear if I decided to go as Extreme Audrey Niffenegger.
Disney's Enchanted costume and Pikachu
I saw loads of versions of this Watchmen guy; they must have got pretty hot. And some gothic lolita Heathers (although I'm not too good on pinning down names to exact styles, you might have to fill me in).
Huh?
Okay, that last one is me, unintentionally but perfectly colour-coordinated with Gary's Derek the Sheep book. Lamely, I didn't have any costume in mind, but I'd recently bought some go-go boots off Ebay that turned out to be WAY more plasticky than I was expecting, so I thought, if I coudln't wear them there, I couldn't wear them anywhere. I felt a bit silly walking to the Tube station wearing them, but once I got to Expo, I looked rather drab. But I got about five people who 'recognised' my costume; I wish I'd written down the names they gave me. The only one I can remember was Mad Men so yeah, I'll go with that.
By: Sarah McIntyre,
on 5/23/2009
I'll post some more tomorrow, but here are a choice few from today...
This is my favourite one, what a fabulous cheeky face.
This one of the two girls makes me laugh/weep, seeing the face of the guy behind them with the can of Stella.
Cosplayer Bingo, thanks to our table neighbour Philip Spence of Ninja Bunny
