Spooky Sale!

Last Saturday's Spooky Con in Sale was good fun, comfortably my most local event of the year, so nice easy logistics and lots of familiar faces around. Thanks again to John Webster and his Wow Events crew for inviting me and keeping everything ticking over with a fun Halloween theme.

Here's a few snaps of the day :)

A strong superhero (and Army Cadet) presence on the day!

Reports of brain hungry Zombies around!

Still the locals were friendly enough anyway!

Did my best to not look 'spooked'!

Hulk was pretty relaxed too!

Even with this chap flying around :)

BOO in Sale!!

BOO! Not forgetting next week's Halloween appearance at Sale's Spooky Con! (G)hosted by our pals at WOW Events at the central Stanley Square shopping precinct in the heart of Sale!

A lovely local event for me and chance to catch up with some familiar faces after missing their comic con earlier this year as it clashed with our special Copenhagen trip. Should be a few surprises around with a few other artists - including Rick Eades who designed the fab new logo above, writers, actors, gift traders, attractions and much more included rumoured 'surprise' Zombies! (If you can be surprised by slow moving Zombies of course!)

See the poster above and Wow's event page for more details and I should have a few surprises myself! 

WAR COMICS!

My latest release is an affectionate exploration of the evolution of British war comics portrayal of military subjects from the 'gung ho' heroism of Victorian story papers, through World War patriotism and eventually the so called 'golden age' of 1970's action and adventure comics.    

The journey is framed from the viewpoint of a news vendor's family experiencing those historical and industry changes first hand and illustrated in the art style appropriate to the publications of the time.

Initially inspired by a commission from the National Army Museum, this was a fun and thought provoking project to pull together and I was delighted to again work with Matt Soffe who did a great job of colouring according to each period's industry practices and available technology.

It's both a nostalgic look at bygone eras but also a reflection on the potential power and influence the comics medium may have on its readers. While war comics may have all but disappeared from British newsagents (hang in there Commando!), there are plenty of graphic novels dealing with the subject of both historic and contemporary conflicts which I highlight and included in my talk at the recent Battles Through History event.  

I had a few advance comics of this at Ardingly which I'll also bring to Wow Comix's 'Spooky-Con' in Sale on Saturday 1st November followed by its official launch at the Thought Bubble Comic Art Festival where I'll be in the 2000AD Hall, table B46!