Following up on his preview piece last week, Mark Johnson gives us his nerds’-eye-view of Thought Bubble 2010, as seen from behind the OK Comics table.
5:15am: Surely this isn’t a time for humans to be awake. Surely that isn’t my alarm? (It’s my alarm).
6:10am: Nearly miss my taxi into town.
6:29am: Town is cold, miserable and dark at 6:29am. There are 65 boxes of comics to be moved. Jared, OK Comics’ manager, is upsettingly chipper about it.
7:10am: We’re already outside the Royal Armouries’ Saville Hall, 20 minutes before it’s due to open. I resolve not to moan about the fact it’s cold.
7:22am: The hall opens early. It’s on! A look around the empty hall shows that there’s no curtained-off area for panel discussions this year, either (they’re happening elsewhere). That means TB2010 has the event’s biggest ever space for stalls and signings.
8:30am: Our tables (eight of them!) are starting to take shape. Matt has turned up (with home-made cookies!). 16m of tables covered in stock demanding sales attention doesn’t look like quite such a retail mountain with three of you looking at it.
9:08am: I start to remove the lids from some of our 50p back issue boxes. Jared hastily tells me to put them back. Other dealers will just come and start buying up stock, he says.
9:26am: Judge Dredd walks in! And another Judge Dredd!
9:45am: The doors haven’t opened properly yet (although the queue is already suitably mammoth) but one way or another there are enough people milling about that we decide to open the back issue boxes.
9:46am: A dealer buys up several Ultimate Spider-Man issues numbered under 10 for 50p a pop. They’ll almost certainly be on sale at his table for upwards of £10 in a few minutes. Vindication!
9:52am: Jared’s had a mooch around and I decide I’ve got a couple of minutes spare before we’re engulfed by the growing horde outside, so I go do something I’ve never really done before – meet someone I know from the Internet in real 3D life! @Comics_Daniel (‘Daniel Clifford’, as I keep reminding myself) is manning a table with @GB_Comics (Gary Bainbridge) and @PaulXThompson (Paul Thompson, who I met two months prior at the Leeds Alternative Comics Fair) to sell some of their comics from the frozen further North. While previous Thought Bubbles have been opportunities to catch up with comics types I know from around Leeds and the odd creator, this is the first time I’ve had acquaintances from the wider UK comics community. Thanks to Twitter, TB2010 feels more about connections than previous events have.
In any case, I make my first purchase of the day – Sugar Glider! It’s Daniel and Gary’s brand-spanking-new self-published series about a Newcastle-based super-heroine. You can tell it’s from Newcastle, because Mums are referred to as ‘me Mam’.
9:58am: Second purchase of the day! The new Paper Science from We are Words + Pictures, a small press comics collective. It’s a thin anthology of comics and art in newspaper format sold for a modest £1 a pop. I like Paper Science – serious time and thought has been put into its presentation and format and it shows. It’s something that wouldn’t work as well on your screen, it’s got high-quality content and it’s really affordable. A lot of small press comics makers forget that they are actually up against the larger indie publishers and, because making your own comic/zine ain’t cheap, end up with really uncompetitive products price-wise. I know they probably don’t think of their comics as ‘products’, but if you want them to get into as many hands as possible that’s how you have to look at them. (Lecture ends).
9:59am: I REALLY need to stop being such a consumer and get back to the OK Comics table.
10:02am: Doors open. THE NERDS ARE COMING!!!*
11:34am: It’s 11:34am already!!! I know, I said something very similar to that in my last Thought Bubble diary, but this is what happens when you’re working a busy table at a busy comics convention. The bulk of the day, when you try to talk about it, seems to have had nothing going on, when really everything is going on. You’re selling comics, and that’s what you’re there for, and you’re doing it so fast that time dissolves. You’re a machine designed to take money, point people to stock and make rubbish jokes about obscure ’90s Justice League comics that nobody but the people around you could possibly find funny. That said…
11:50am: Chris, one of our customers, turns up. He’s wearing a tweed suit with a bow tie. Sometimes, you don’t even bother trying to guess what someone’s cosplaying at. This isn’t because you’ve tried to guess and failed – it’s because you’ve already seen so many cosplayers that day that you’ve had to figure out a new number just to quantify them and the part of your brain that processes such things feels like it’s been chewed by a wookie. Nonetheless, Chris tells me that he is dressed as John Smith (an alter-ego of David Tennant’s Doctor Who with no memory of his extra terrestrial origins) and that he has a replica of the notebook Mr Smith used in the two episodes he appeared in to scribble down his strange dreams of a funny blue box. Further to this, Chris has just had the notebook signed by Paul Cornell, the man who wrote those two episodes and invented the character John Smith. That, right there, is what makes being a fan at a convention so great – getting the opportunity to show the rest of fandom exactly how much time, effort and thought you put into loving the thing you love. It’s where you get to express your Inner Fan.
1:13pm: We sell the big crazy history of DC Comics book that can stop bullets for £100! Yes, people spend that on books about comics. So there.
3:35pm: Lunchtime! Well, not really, but it’s my turn for a break. Which means small press shopping! And, just like last year, there’s some impressive stuff on show. In the absence of Chloe Noonan 3 I buy a Chloe print from Marc Ellerby, I end up getting a self-assembly paper Steam Rider (which I know I’ll never actually assemble) from Alexander Gwynne, I resist the urge to buy more strange, pretty things from Krystina Baczynski (I spent a few bob on her stall at the Leeds Alternative Comics Fair, and she tells me that producing the prints now on display at Hyde Park Picture House has meant little time for new stuff), I leap into The Big Bang by Jack Fallows and pick up some gob-smackingly cool-looking stuff from Luke Pearson. Then my money runs out and I start telling people they should definitely talk to Jared about getting their stuff stocked at OK Comics, where I can easily get at it…
5:00pm: Kicking out time! Comics and books get piled into boxes, but not nearly as many as came to the show this morning. That’s a WIN.
8:03pm: It’s not quite over yet: after-party. Beer! Dancing! Sitting down!
9:48pm: Discover Brian Talbot, one of the most thoughtful, intellectual men in comics, having a cigarette. Make him talk to me for four minutes while I tell him that I haven’t read Luther Arkwright yet but certainly intend to. Inform him about the essay that made want to read Luther Arkwright by Matt Fraction, one of the most popular writers in comics right now. Brian Talbot doesn’t seem to know who I’m on about, but I think he plans to look it up…
10:30pm: Spot John Romita Jr, described by Marvel’s Editor in Chief as the greatest artist in comics, stood at the bar. I have been reading his comics since I’ve been reading. He’s comics royalty. Nearly let the fact that I have absolutely nothing constructive to say to him stop me from saying hi. Realise I don’t want this to be the day I almost met John Romita Jr and brusquely shove my friend Jack out of the way mid-sentence to go introduce myself. For the entire two minutes we talk he grips my hand like he could turn it into a calcium supplement. He’s very gracious about the fact I barely understand syllables right now. The only other three people in the world I would get like this with are Michael J. Fox, Stan Lee and Harrison Ford.
12:02am – 2:30am: Dance my face off to sets from various comics creators.
2:30am: Stagger in the direction of home.
3:03am: See bed. Fall down.
*(I am allowed to use the word ‘nerd’ on account of being one. It’s like any form of minority comedy, but probably less funny).
Mark Johnson is a Leeds-based video games journalist and occasional freelance writer on the subject of comics. As you might have gathered, he’s also been known to work for OK Comics in Leeds. He can be found on his blog, Twitter and Tumblr.
I wish to show my love for your kind-heartedness in support of men who really need help on this important situation. Your personal commitment to getting the solution around had become rather significant and has regularly encouraged regular people like me to arrive at their ambitions. Your personal informative advice implies a whole lot a person like me and especially to my office workers. Thanks a ton; from everyone of us.