I'm talking at Eastercon :)

Eastercon is the British National Science Fiction Convention, and it's happening over the Easter bank holiday weekend, at the Radisson hotel at Heathrow.

I volunteered to be on a panel discussing 'Comics outside the mainstream'.  There was a twitter conversation about the lack of women on convention panels, and I butted in exclaiming how terrible it was, and then one of the folk involved with the con looked at New readers... and well at that point I felt like I couldn't say no.  I really hope I don't make a twat out of myself or embarrass the the organisers or anyone.

Apparently we shall be discussing these questions:
What good comics are published outside the big two?
What is published on the web and outside mainstream publishing entirely?
Are comic creators increasingly moving to the freedom of publishing outside the major distributors?

George R R Martin and Paul Cornell will be there (not on my panel, well as far as I know they won't be on my panel, I can't imagine why they would be on the panel).

So, this thing is happening on the Sunday (8th April) at midday..

Is anyone in blog land attending?  If you are then come and listen to me gabble on!

More photos from the London con!

These are some photos that my friend took at the London Super comic con.  (I think that if I don't put that exact phrase in this post won't show up in search items.  So, let's add some more in.   Cosplay. superheroes.  Comic Convention. Flash. Jay Garrick. Supergirl. awesomesauce.)

Now to the Marvel ones first.
Glacatus, the vulture and spiderman:

Galactus had a bit of paper on his back saying 'ultimate nullify me'.  Lols.
The Scarlet Witch and Valkyrie:

One of many Ms Marvels:

Now for the DC costumes.
That is one impressive Catwoman suit.

 

DC new universe Supergirl!

This costume was amazing!  She'd even got the right contacts in to change her eye colour.  And she was an absolute sweetie.

And here's where I can't believe I'm actually putting these online because my gods, I am such a dork.

But of course I needed a picture of me and Kara.  How could I not?

This is the only pose I did.  It's not very good.  And I am such a dork.

London Super Comic Con!!

Sooo yesterday I went to London for the first London Super Comic Con.  Ohhh it was SO much fun!

Let me tell you about my day.....

I get up at 6am.  I realise I have time to have breakfast. I am shocked.  I get in the taxi at 6.30 am, I get on the train at 6.45.  I go oh grife it's really fucking early.

Due to a basic miscalculation about the times of London transport, I arrive at the venue, the Excel centre, an hour before I expected at 9am.  No matter, my friend arrives shortly after and we start queueing.  I am dressed like Jay Garrick, but being British still feel faintly embarrassed about being in public all dressed up.  After half an hour of queueing I get over this and put my hat on.  I blush a bit and then I calm down and get used to it.

We finally get in, the fella giving us our passes compliments me on the hat, and I feel better.  What does it look like?  Well I'll show you!

(Photo taken by this fella)

I'm really pleased by the outfit.  I should have moved the pass out of the way though cos you can't see the belt buckle.  I'd glued a lightning bolt charm to the buckle for extra authenticity.  I'll put a post up about how I made the helmet later.

For those non comic-y people, this is Jay Garrick as drawn by Alex Ross:

So, once in, my friend dived off to the Stan Lee queue and I went a wandering.  I had a hitlist of Jamal Igle, Paul Cornell, Phili Jiminez, Jock and Bill Sienkiewicz.  off I trotted, aware that although each had a signing session lined up, I was anxious not to miss anyone.

I found Jamal Igle first.  He recognised me, because on twitter I had mentioned I'd be dressed as Jay.  So when he shook me hand and said Saranga! I was bowled over.  He was lovely!  I apologised spamming him on twitter the other day - this was a result of a 3 way conversation between me, Sterling Gates, Anj from Supergirl Comic Box Commentary and him, which degenerated into me and Sterling chatting about silly fannish encounters.  So, sorry Anj as well.  I asked him to sign War of the Superman #1 and explained that I brought it because I find it such a great piece of storytelling through art, no dialogue, and it gets me really emotional every time.  He said he was gutted when he had to draw it.  I asked him what he was doing now and he said a Kiss comic set in 1912 (I think) and that something very cool will be announced June/July time.  Then I headed away as other people wanted to chat and I don't feel right monopolising folk.  Oh, I bought one of his sketch books too.

Then I went to the other side of the table and introduced myself to Paul Cornell, as I had been tweeting him about things recently.  (Apparently Demon Knights is set in France, not England).  He said I looked very different in person, I said yes, my twitter icon is doodle that makes me prettier and thinner, he said he couldn't comment.  Now, recently Paul Cornell has decided that in an effort to redress the gender imbalance at comic con panels, he will step off any panel where there isn't a 50/50 gender split, and invite a woman from the audience to take his place.  he was talking about this on twitter, so I chimed in on the conversation saying that women should be better represented at con panels, and, well, the upshot is that I've now volunteered myself for a panel at Eastercon in London on 6th April, to talk about 'comics outside the mainstream'.

Eek.

Anyway, I told Paul Cornell this and he was really pleased about it.  I hope I don't gabble like a fool at the con.  Paul was also giving away his free DC comics, that he gets sent by DC, so I picked up I, Vampire.

Again, someone else wanted to talk to him so I headed off. Oh, I got Demon Knights #6 signed by him.

Next I tried queueing for Bill Sienkiewicz but got bored (I hate queueing) and noticed a twitter friend, AlexanderLyons, behind me, so said hello and we chatted.  Alex is lovely! We queued for Phil Jiminez, I got Wonder Woman:Paradise Lost signed by him (Phil), he liked my hat.  Then Alex was up next and him and Phil had a reallllly long conversation.

By this point my friend Simon had come back, had met Stan Lee, got his signature and got his hand shook by Mr Stan!  This made Simon's day.

Me and Simon headed off to find other cosplayers, specifically a new 52 Supergirl, who quite frankly looked amazing!  She'd got everything absolutely perfect.  I'll upload photos when I've got a hold of them.  We also saw another Jay!   So me and him posed in the running pose and had photos taken.  Man, there were so many amazing costumes there.  This Flickr photo stream has lots of good examples, as does the facebook group I linked to above.  I think my favourite was the Vulture, DCnU Supergirl and She-Ra.  Nearly all of them were throwing poses when asked to be photographed.  Now, quite a few folk wanted my picture, which was cool, but apart from the one with the other Jay, I didn't pose.  Because I'm not an actor and I do fancy dress for the fun of it.  I also noticed that the women in more traditional superhero costumes got asked for tons more photos than I did, which narked me.  I don't like the fact that it annoyed me, and I fully understand why they would get more photos taken, but I still couldn't help feeling narked.  Which I don't like about myself. Oh well.

We stopped at Simon Furman's stand, him who wrote the 80s Thundercats and most Transformers comics.  I met him at Norcon last year, he said I looked a bit familiar.  I bought a couple of his Shulkie comics.

So, after this, me and Simon wandered round each and every stall, had a little sit outside, got some lunch, enjoyed the sun, wandered round the stalls again.  I noticed about 1 o'clock that the soles of one of my boots was coming off, (they were cheap), and got concerned I'd have to buy replacements later.  I didn't have to and they lasted till i got home at 2.45am.

I never managed to get anything signed by Jock or Bill Sienkiewicz because the queues were too long.  Alex got a Wonder Woman issue signed by George Perez.  Me and Simon went to the Stan Lee panel at 4pm which was far better than I expected.  Stan Lee is just like my Dad, when my Dad is in full storytelling mode with a few drinks in him. This made me warm to him so much.

One bad point of the day - while I was at the orbital comics stall 2 of the staff were in costume.  I was rifling through back issues, minding my own business when I overheard a conversation from a couple of fellows behind me.  They were criticising one of the cosplayers - they said she was too flat chested.  To costume as who she was costumed as.  I was flabberghasted and considered turning round and lamping them, or at least telling them they were being dicks.

But apart from that the day was great. It was wonderful to meet older and younger Jay Garrick-specific and Flash-general fans.  It was great to have people like my outfit and ask how I did the hat.  The other Jay made his wings out of balsar wood.  I think he may have done a better finish on the spray paint, as his hat looked much more heard wearing than mine.  Mine now has tons of fingerprints and is also missing a wing, as one cam eoff in the bag on the way home.  I shall replace it.

After the con i went to meet a couple of friend's for dinner, then to meet some other friends for a 30th birthday drinks.  I got in at 2.45am, knackered, but I had a fabulous day!

I think I've reported on everything.  I definitely want to go back next year.

Norcon 2011

It was fab!  Organised by the Norwich sci-fi club, Norcon is a celebration of all things geeky.  The emphasis was on Dr Who and Red Dwarf but there was also comics nerdiness there, including Barry Kitson who pencilled JLA Year One (I didn't get a sketch, he was very busy and I didn't understand the queueing system, meaning that I inadvertently pushed right in to the front and then got very very embarassed).
There was also a writing fella named Simon Furman there who I didn't know, but we got chatting, and it turns out he wrote the 80s Thundercats comics.  Now that was the series that got me into comics, so you can imagine my glee at finding this out!   Anyway I told him this and also bought some signed transformers issues that he wrote as a gift for the boyfriend.

I of course bought some comics for myself too - Lobo and Black Orchid ones, and a Captain Britain one, on the recc of Anj from Supergirl Comic Box Commentary.  Captain Britain was surprisingly good, I haven't read the others yet.

I was at Norcon cos I was helping out on the Reynard City stand - we got lots of people interested in the project and even met a few fans! Some who remembered us from last year and some who met us for the first time.  Near enoguh everyone who came to the stand was postive about the comic, I got to chat comics and superheroes (DC, Marvel and webcomics) with so many people, young and older, my colleagues on the stall were brilliant.  We even made some links with industry people so the future is looking bright for Reynard City!  Professionally, it was a really successful day :D  I loved it!
Below the cut is lots of photos of Con wonderfulness.

London MCM Expo

So I went along to London MCM Expo last week - it was good and bad.

We arrived about 12.30, got lunch then went to buy tickets. We queued for about 2 hours.  Next time, I'll be buying my tickets in advance.  I'd forgotten how much I get frustrated by queuing.  And this was a relatively fast moving queue!

Lots of people were in costume, most of them being anime/manga/videogame costumes.  The only other DC characters I saw were 2 other (teenage) Supergirls (both in a store bought modern version of the costume) and one Batgirl who had a very casual costume on - black jeans, yellow bat logo t shirt and an eye mask.  I saw one or two Wonder Woman t-shirts being worn, and 2 Wolverines, 1 Iron Man, 1 Spiderman, a Rorschach and various doctors.  The lack of DC love made me a bit sad.  The crowd was very young - mostly teenagers - who were obviously there for the manga aspects of the show.  Many girls (and a few boys) had free hugs signs, which I found more than a little bizarre.  I declined the offers of free hugs.

Once inside the venue, I realised it was going to be almost exactly like work conferences I'd been to, except with comics and games instead.  It felt like a big shop, selling all the crap you could want, and mostly crap you could get on the internet anyway.  The yaoi/yuri stand could have been interesting but the books being sold weren't really books like I understand them - there was no back blurb, they were all in plastic, all had horrible generic looking covers and there was no way to have a look inside.  If i'm gonna buy porn I want to see what I'm getting.

The independent aisles were mostly selling cutesy, crafty, generic things.  Not really what me and the boyfriend had in mind.

But I did get to meet Bernard Chang!  Which made my day and made the whole trip worthwhile. :)
First I watched him sketch a Sabretooth and Nightcrawler for another lady - that was really interesting, particularly when he added the inks.  He made it look so simple.  Then I asked him to sign my Supergirl issue (#57 that he drew), and we had a chat as I asked him various questions.

First I asked why he wanted to draw Supergirl  - he said he she's fun to draw, he likes what Sterling Gates and Jamal Igle have done with the character, he likes drawing single characters (as opposed to team up books) and he thought he'd enjoy the job.  He wants to continue and build upon what Jamal and Sterling have done.

He doesn't know why the S shield is pink for number 60 or how long it will remain pink for - I get the impression that the artists/writers aren't privy to these decisions.   He did say he has no plans to change the costumer - and he showed me a splash page from number 60 - very nice, and Kara's still got shorts (whew!).  He also had a sketchbook there which had the pencils from #57 and Bizarro JLA in it.  I asked why Arsenal had the cats and he explained, which was nice.  He said it was Sterling's idea to include the cats to homage the Arsenal series and he (Sterling) kept changing his mind about whether to keep them in or not.

I mumbled that I'd facebooked him and he did remember and said that I'd mentioned I'd has some questions.  At which I went even redder and felt like an inquisitor.  I don't like that feeling - I don't want to be all fan entitlement-y at creators.  They're just doing their job, I don't have to like it.
I then said that some net friends wanted to ask if Kara would become a supertorso again (which isn't quite how folks put it, but I don't like and refuse to use slut, so I made boob/hippy shapes with my hands.  I wish more people signed).
He said the Supergirl cover he did (can anyone tell me what number this is?) before was meant to echo Ian Churchill's art inside the book.  He believes the cover should be linked to and represent the art inside the book.

Chang made clear that he is very aware of Supergirl fans' passion for the character.  I mentioned the Supergirl Comic Box Commentary but he hadn't heard of it/been on it.  Sorry Anj.  But I think he's well aware of the internet's reactions to Gates and Igle leaving and I imagine he's probably feeling  a bit apprehensive of fan's reactions to his work.

He also said Nick Spencer might be there at Expo but I couldn't hang around and stalk for him.  Also, I don't know what Spencer looks like, so it could have been very embarrassing.  Last thing I asked was if Kara would stay on the JlA or rejoin the Teen Titans - I then followed this question by saying but I don't suppose you can tell me that.  He can't.

Overall he came over very well, his art was good, he was friendly, respectful and courteous.  I just hope I was too.  Part of the reason int he delay for writing this up is cos I facebooked him again to ask if he minded if I blogged our conversation, to which he said of course he doesn't mind.

Unfortunately we left before I got to meet Andy Diggle or Jock, but to be honest, I was happy enough meeting Chang, having a chat and getting my comic signed.

Waiting for Godot

So, I saw Waiting for Godot on Good Friday. It was surprisingly enjoyable. I mean I knew that I’d adore Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellan but I also ended up enjoyed the play for the play. I was quite surprised when it wasn’t just the two of them in it – Simon Callow was playing a character named Pozzo and a guy named Ronald Pickup was playing Lucky, plus a local kid with just a few lines. I found the sections with Pozzo and Lucky the dullest parts but that may been in contrast to the other two’s performance. Now please forgive me readers, I don’t feel I have the tools or the knowledge to properly review the show. I’m not a thespian and it’s not a world I’m particularly comfortable in. But here goes.

Stewart and McKellen had such warmth to them – I felt it as soon as they walked on stage, and I was pretty far back, in the circle (and unable to focus on their faces properly, but that’s mostly because I’m a short sighted mole). It was obvious that they’ve both worked together several times before, they had such chemistry and it really helped their particular portrayal of the two old tramps, Gogo and Didi. I really felt that I was watching to old mates on stage, as in, it felt very real and not like I was watching a performance.

The last thing I saw at the theatre was Osage County back in January – that felt very constructed, like I was watching people act. My sister informed me that that is a specific type of acting, and involves a particular style of directing. If so, it’s not something I get on with. Waiting for Godot involved acknowledgement of the audience, but felt very natural.

It was a very funny, loose performance. There was dancing and singing and hat raising. It was good. I believe they are now off to London after having toured the UK and I bet they’ll go down a storm there too.

I still have a big crush on Patrick Stewart. I didn’t hang around and stalk either of them after the show.

Anyone else seen it? Thoughts?

I've been a bit delayed with blog posts recently, I have a few written up but am slow to post. Over the next few days I intend to post reviews of last weeks comics, some manga recommendations and I've still got a huge pile of JLA stuff to write up about. I think I'd liked to be cloned now please. But probably not in a dirty Booster kind of way.