24 Hour Comics at the Tyneside Cinema (Delayed Response 2)

As is my  way, I neglected to mention the EPIC 24 Hour Comic Challenge!

 

On March 13th and 14th, I attended the P.R.E.S.S. / Learning Revolution 24 Hour Comic Challenge at the Tyneside Cinema with fellow Paper Jam Comics Collective members Lily, Martin, Jack, Chris and fellow Tyneside Cinema screenwriting folks Melanie Holmes and Steven J. Smith.

We emerged victorious. Of particular note is Martin Newman's Beep and Evolution, which is available from Travelling man on Grainger Street in Newcastle. Martin hit on a sustainable plan from the get go, and is oddly enthusiastic about doing this more often...

My own effort makes not one ounce of sense, but it entertains me. and I'm pleased that some of the story works well enough without dialogue. I'm considering printing it up at A6.  

Photos of the event can be found here and more reliably documentary proof of proceedings can be found on the Paper Jams blog courtesy of Mike Ducket and Martin's photo's here. Thanks to Ian Mayor, Oscillating Brow, Daniel Clifford and Terry Wiley for showing up with the moral support, sweets, wasabi peas and paracetamol.

Terry (front and centre in the above pic) and Oscillating Brow also took part in the 'Drink and Draw' phase of the event. Mister Brow produced his own 24 hour comic in under three hours: Cat. Cat has been selling exceedingly well and enabled Mr Brow to obtain a pint of beer from profit alone. You cannot argue with success.

I also enjoyed the Cinema staff's attempts to use the buildings many fire exits and corridors to terrify the girls making a documentary and make them wonder that they were not actually making the next Blair Witch Project.

The event featured hammers, mountains, fists, a war between leeks and carrots on a Lovecraftian allotment, the entire history and future of Human Evolution, diagrams and marriage, cheating death, really, really good coffee and that, and as the sleep deprived must surely assert:

Tru' Dat Yo.

Hi Ex (Delayed Response)

Ok, so i'm not very good at keeping this blog up to date. I'll write a few posts about some of the comics related stuffs that I've been up to.


Hi Ex. Obviously. 

Who in their right mind wouldn't?

The third Hi-Ex (Highland Expo) took place in Inverness on the 27th and 28th of March, making it the least freezing, or to put it more accurately, warmest Hi-Ex so far.

Once again Vicky and Rich put on a fantastic party, creating an entirely level playing field for fans, aspiring and professional writers and artists, small press and national publishers to get to know each other. Having sixty plus of the above crammed into a Chinese buffet and subsequently outnumbering a 'comics curious' hen party in the hotel bar was excellent. The resulting jam comics were predictably filthy in tone, and Al Ewing and Oscillating Brow never fail to crack me up.

Hi-Ex is very much a celebration of British and European comics for all ages - a lot of focus on The Beano and 2000AD, past and present was very welcome and has persuaded me that I should start buying it again. Dredd, Zombo and Damnation Station are currently excellent. Speaking of Mr Ewing, I wrote a bit about the Horror Panel separately.

Here's Charlie Adlard and Al Ewing in the hotel bar sporting Ben Clark Spine Chillers masks:

I won. Specifically, I won the Star Wars page from Dark Empire by Cam Kennedy in the Charity Auction. You are right to be jealous my friends. It's lovely. It tells a story on its own without the dialogue, and it's currently in the process of being framed.

Cam Kennedy is a fine chap, and everyone enjoyed his interview by Colin MacNeil, who had apparently had no sleep whatsoever, but held it all together admirably.

Anyway, this was my first Hi-Ex in an exhibitor capacity, representing the Paper Jam Comics Collective and OmniVistaScope with Oscillating Brow. Our table sold a few comics, and I think the tactic of taking a smaller selection of comics paid off as it made it easier to talk about them to folks.

Anyway, Hi-Ex continues to make this comics malarky seem like a worthwhile endeavour and introduce me to excellent people. Everyone is lovely. I'll be there at the next one, and you should too.

Stacey Whittle, Lynsey Hutchinson, Me

Good Crack

Paper Jam's most recent anthology Space Monkey has been reviewed in the latest issue of The Crack - the North East listings magazine.

My own strip 'Cheese before Bedtime' gets a slightly ambivalent mention :-) and singled out for praise are Gary Bainbridge and Andy Waugh's silent six panel gags, and in particular, Martin and Sophie Newman's 'Alan The Confused Tortoise'. 

You can read the whole review here...

For the record, we're not on acid, but I did have to tone down the sheer terror of Cheese before Bedtime, as it was looking a bit freudian in places. Here's an extract: