Festival Fun

A full-size TARDIS made entirely of Lego!

I had a terrific day at the Doctor Who Festival in London on Saturday. My thanks to Tom, Peter, and the Panini guys for letting me have a share of the table space to do some sketching for the readers. I arrived around 9.30am as it was starting to fill up and after a quiet start the rest of the day was extremely busy indeed. Doctor Who Magazine, Doctor Who Adventures and Doctor Who: The Complete Collection gained a bunch of new readers and the variant cover Festival Edition of DWM sold like hot cakes. 

I'm grateful to everyone who dropped by to commission a sketch. It really is a pleasure to meet people who enjoy my strips and it makes the job worthwhile. People of all ages were there, from wide-eyed kids amazed to see a drawing take place as they watched, to long-time Doctor Who fans who seemed more excited that I was the artist who drew their childhood favourite Combat Colin. It was the busiest I've been at an event this year and my only regret was that I had to turn a couple of people away at the end because I'd run out of paper! 

It's not always easy to express this in print (or rather, pixels) without seeming insincere or over they top but it genuinely boosted my spirits to hear the nice comments from people and was very touching. 

In fact the whole atmosphere of the event was great. Since it returned in 2005, Doctor Who has clearly attracted a wide fanbase and appeals to people of all ages and backgrounds. The enthusiasm at the event was terrific.

Here's a few photos I took early on in the day before it got too packed. I didn't see any actors from the show unfortunately as they were in another part of the huge ExCel building for their interviews and suchlike, but here are shots of the exhibitor's hall...

The crowds begin to arrive.

The Panini UK stand.

The Big Finish stand.

Forbidden Planet's stand.

Titan Comics' stand.

The Lego TARDIS attracted a lot of attention.

Drama School Daleks!

Dalek voice-artist Nick Briggs and writer Cavan Scott.

Front and back variant covers for DWM 493's limited edition.

This was my last convention for this year so it was great to go out on a high. Good to see artist Russ Leach again (check out his work in Doctor Who Adventures) and (all too briefly) meet artist Brian Williamson (see his work in Titan's Doctor Who Comic). Also good to finally meet DWM Deputy Editor Peter Ware at last, and to once again share a table with DWM Editor Tom Spilsbury, DWA Editor Jason Quinn, and Complete Collection editor John Ainsworth. The brilliant writer / researcher Marcus Hearn (editor of The Essential Doctor Who) also briefly dropped by but by the time I realized who it was I was too busy sketching to go over and chat. Sorry Marcus! Hope to see you all again for another adventure in space and time in 2016!