Moments of Adventure: 2015 Comic Reflections!

Thursday, 14 January 2016

2015 Comic Reflections!

Accent UK's impressive two table spread in Copenhagen, June 2015

Plans are already well underway for this year's comic convention season so while the Accent UK tour bus receives it's annual service I can briefly reflect on what a cracking year 2015 was.

Accent UK attended 12 shows in all, a new record for us, throughout England, Scotland, Northern Ireland and our usual bi-annual visit to Denmark. A few of these were new to us including one of my personal highlights, a trip to Aberdeen (just North of my native Stonehaven!) where we and the organiser's were blown away by the Granite Cty's overwhelming response to it's first ever comic show, virtually selling out of the stock we brought.

Adam & Colin in Aberdeen's Extreme Indoor Climbing Centre!

In fact most of the shows we attended were top performers meaning we intend to return to them all, if possible, this year which makes for an even fuller schedule than normal. Disappointingly at the time of writing, we don't know if the successful (in terms of sales at least) shows in Blackpool and Warrington will return but this does free up space to accommodate new locations in Edinburgh, Liverpool and Oxford. While some of these are still to be confirmed - see full list on the right - it potentially makes 2016 even busier than 2015's record. Whether it proves to be as successful remains to be seen and no doubt depends on what new books we can release this year, more of which to be revealed later!

Accent UK's 2015 releases - did you catch them all?

We released 5 titles in 2015 which, alongside cracking reviews helped to propel us to our best ever sales performance. These included the ongoing WesterNoir series which is really building a solid audience keen for Josiah Black's latest exploits as creators Dave West and Gary Crutchley put him through the wringer with surprise, intrigue and danger around every corner!

WesterNoir spread at London MCM May 2015

We were also delighted to publish a new book from the talented Martin Flink with The Troll which like his earlier Man of Glass was well received both in reviews and with a healthy advance sales order through Diamond distributors.

Martin Flink, Dave & Colin at The Troll's Copenhagen launch

It seems that finally after all these years the audiences are there for quality independent comics and graphic novels. Most cities we attend on the convention scene have at least one well stocked comic shop which helps promote the industry but people genuinely enjoying stepping out to local shows and making new discoveries as we, and many other indie creators, have seen our readerships grow.

It's a great time to be involved in the creation of comics and we are grateful for sticking it out these long years to now be able to enjoy this particular purple patch, hopefully this will continue into 2016 and beyond, if so we best get cracking on our new releases - watch this space!

In the meantime, here's a few snaps from some of our 2015 shows;