Above: Artwork for the event by Andrew Wildman and Simon Williams.
The Transformers convention Auto Assembly went well yesterday, and is in fact still going on as I type these words. (I was only there for the Saturday afternoon.) Organizer Simon Plumbe said that 498 tickets had been sold prior to the event and no doubt more were sold on the door putting the attendance at over 500, the highest for a Transformers Con in Europe. Not a bad figure at all, as some tv/movie cult shows attract far less for their events.
It was good to finally attend one of these Transformers fan events after having to decline for various reasons in previous years. I was pleasantly surprised that a fair number of attendees did know my work, even though it's been nearly 20 years since I'd contributed to a Transformers comic (Combat Colin). Thanks to all those who dropped by the signing table for a sketch and a chat.
It was also great to meet up again with my fellow artists from the Marvel UK Transformers days, and to meet the new generation of artists who freelance for the modern Transformers comic.
Here's a few photos from Saturday...
1: Event organizer Simon Plumbe (near stage in white T-shirt) and his colleagues as the attendees gather for the day's events.
2: A view of the audience for our panel, "The Marvel Era".
3: A wide selection of Transformers toys and original artwork from the comics on display.
4: Artist's Alley: Left to right behind the table; Simon Williams, Jason Cardy, Kat Nicholson, Lee Bradley, Mike Collins, Andrew Wildman (standing in background), and, just about visible to Andrew's left, Staz Johnson.
5: Fans line up for sketches of their favourite characters.
Thanks to Simon Plumbe and his colleagues for organizing the event. For more info see their website at: http://www.autoassembly.org.uk/
I'll be a guest at the Auto Assembly convention tomorrow (Saturday 15th August) at the Holiday Inn in Birmingham.
It's an event to celebrate those giant morphing robots The Transformers and, although I've never had any involvement with that franchise, 20 years ago I produced regular back up strips Robo-Capers and Combat Colin for Marvel UK's Transformers comics.
Auto Assembly actually runs for two days, Saturday and Sunday, but I'll only be there for the Saturday events. I'm appearing on a panel interview with some of my old comics pals Mike Collins, Andrew Wildman, Lee Sullivan, and Staz Johnson at 1.00pm where we'll be talking about our days freelancing for Marvel UK, amongst other stuff I'm sure.
There are loads of other guests there too of course, and the full guest list and other info about the event can be seen here: http://www.autoassembly.org.uk/
The 2008 Birmingham International Comics Show launch party saw the emergence of Giant Sized Band-Thing; four UK comic creators teaming up to perform for their peers. Behold! Liam Sharp on vocals! Phil Winslade on lead guitar! Paul H. Birch on bass! and Charlie Adlard on drums!
The next BICS event (now re-named the British International Comic Show) will take place on October 3rd - 4th at Millenium Point, Birmingham. More details here soon, but for now check out the website here: http://www.thecomicsshow.co.uk/
The latest issue of Egmont's top boy's comic-mag Toxic comes bagged with a free gift that's a step above the usual plastic toy that most comics have these days. It's a hand-held electronic game!
Admittedly it's only a mono screen and graphics are limited to the sort of basic animation of a digital watch (and batteries are not included) but nevertheless this is a freebie of higher quality than has been seen in comics of late. The hand-held can be adjusted to feature several different games of the Tetris / Space Invader type, with various speeds/settings. A far cry from the days of a cardboard "Thunder Bang" or "Team Tabs" (although over-40's will no doubt have preferred the latter).
A blog on comic free gifts of the past will appear here soon.
On to the comic itself, and Toxic No.145 has more pages this issue with a bunch of comic strips. Jamie Smart's new strip Count Von Poo is back again, and also included is Rex by John Short and Alex Paterson, Robin Hoodie by John Short and Laura Howell, and two helpings of Team Toxic by me (one of which is reprint). Plus a new pull-out Team Toxic poster by Jon Rushby, and all the usual features on game cheats, new movies, as well as a host of puzzles and jokes for the holidays and an additional free gift of Ice Age stickers. 40 full colour pages. £2.99
Steve Holland's Bear Alley Books have just announced the third title in their new line of albums reprinting classic British comic strips. It's to be two volumes of Johnny Future, which originally appeared in Odhams' Fantastic weekly in 1967-68.
The first volume will also include The Missing Link, the original name for the strip before it, and the title character, evolved into the superhero Johnny Future. Overall, the strip ran through Fantastic issues 1 to 51 with episodes of various page lengths in black and white, plus a 14 page full colour complete story in the Fantastic Annual 1969. All strips were drawn by Louis Berjemo, whose beautiful and dynamic artwork gave the scripts a considerable lift.
Johnny Future was the only British strip in Fantastic, with the rest of the 40 page weekly taken up with reprints from U.S. Marvel Comics.
The Missing Link/Johnny Future is a fondly remembered strip by many readers who grew up with comics in the Sixties, including Alan Moore, who was inspired enough to name one of his characters Jonni Future when he created the anthology Tomorrow Stories for Wildstorm Comics.
Both volumes of Johnny Future are scheduled for October, and will include an foreword by veteran comics writer Steve Moore (who was actually on the staff of Odhams back then), an info-packed introduction by Steve Holland, and new covers by Garry Leach with Una Fricker.
Meanwhile, the first two books from Bear Alley, Cursitor Doom and The Phantom Patrol are coming this month, and can now be ordered from the Bear Alley Books blog at http://bearalleybooks.blogspot.com/
