When you work as a volunteer at an event, you have two choices if you want to get any loot. The first is to rope in a willing family member. For me, this is easy as my wife is as big a comic fan as I am. However, it does comes with its’ own set of problems before all those with less than understanding partners begin to envy me.
The second choice is to sacrifice any free time to go and hunt down those goodies. Over the weekend of 2nd and 3rd of April 2016, I used both methods. My wife spent the money and I went on the hunt every time I got a break. My wife did well amongst the independent press tables and got some awesome sketches and goodies. First up are the goodies she found.
I have read Bust 2 and enjoyed the story thoroughly. And I look forward to seeing issue 3. For those that don’t know, this is the story of a man trying to survive in a post apocalyptic America. If you think Mad Max but without the petrolheads, then you will not be far off. Copies can be bought from Card Shark Comics.
O’Death is the story of a soul-hunter contracted to work for Lucifer, but the job is taking it’s toll on our hero. If you want to get a copy, then contact Devolution Comics.
The next three are horror comics and I still haven’t read them, so I can’t give you an opinion on them, but my wife cannot wait for me to read the Dave McCluskey comics from Dammaged Comics. So I would put money on them being good fare for the Horror fans amongst you
Depending on how you read it, you either have Wayward Sons by Cypii or Wayward Daughters by Yuri Ookino to carry on reading. This is a fan fiction based on the TV series Supernatural where the Winchester brothers can be read as either guys or gals. And it is not too shabby a production. I had not met Yuri before this event, but on the basis of the art in this book, I would be inclined to think that Yuri could go far if she gets the right breaks. And Cypii’s work isn’t too bad either.
Karen was not slow while she was buying these books, as she also collected another three sketches for our Project Sketchbook and here they are.
And I was impressed with my wife for getting these sketches and the books. I can now let Dave Cook know that he does not need to keep a copy of Bust 2 back for me. And I was not too slow in picking some bits and pieces up myself.
The first comic I found pandered to one of my comic loves and that is my love of origin stories. I can’t help myself. I see an origin story and I just have to buy it. And in this case, it was issue 2 of the 1973 DC Secret Origins series. I had bought issue 1 at an event in 2014, but as it is an American series, I am happy to pick these up as I find them rather than go all out to track them down. I asked Martin of Howgate comics to hold that one for me and he knew that I would be back for it.
However, my first purchase of the convention was true to my first love of comics and that was two adventure comics published by D C Thomson. While there are few traders that will bring British comics to any event, it makes tracking any British comic down at a convention or a mart that little bit sweeter for the dedicated collector.
So thanks for bringing at least one box for me to drool over Hugh.
So on my next visit to the convention floor (I was working as one of the Front of House volunteers so I saw most people, but rarely got to see the convention itself), I picked up the Secret Origins from Martin and thought it seemed a shame that he had brought the bargain boxes and I was ignoring them, so I had a good root through them and found these little beauties.
Stripperella is one of those comics that I have frequently heard of and the thought of it always makes me smile. And I knew that one day, I would track down a copy and that day was the weekend of the 2016 Edinburgh Comic Con. It is a fun wee comic and it is aimed squarely at the adolescent in most of us. Growing up on such fare as Bless This House and On The Buses, this is as about as racy as the seaside postcards and the humour is about the same level.
Next up we have Butcher, Baker, Candlestick Maker which is part of Garth Ennis‘ The Boys series. Of the deconstructing superhero books, The Boys is my favourite by a large margin. In fact if I am honest, I don’t think that there is much of Garth’s writing that I have not enjoyed. I also picked up Cross Roads which is a Science Fiction comic featuring a cross-over of the three characters of Grimjack, Dreadstar and Nexus. And of the randoms that I picked out of the bargain boxes, my favourite has to be book 4 of My Name is Chaos. But when you see that Tom Veitch is the writer and John Ridgway is the artist, then you know you are in for a treat.
The final two comics from the bargain box are not my usual fare, but I am growing to like J. Michael Straczynski‘s Rising Stars series and I am slowly but surely picking up this comic in all its’ various series. And the Wizard comic featured a Superman story and as I am not adverse to the odd Superman story, it rounded out the eclectic selection nicely.
I also picked up this series from Nick Pitarra and look forward to reading The Manhattan Projects.We also got a few prints and a couple more comics, but I am beggared if I can figure out where they are at this moment in time, but they were worth picking up such as Janine Van Moosel‘s Ripley print and I picked up the original Top Guin from The Penned Guin‘s artist Alan Henderson.
And I finished off with getting a few more sketches. On Saturday, I got a sketch from Rutvig Vaid which turned out rather nicely and is the Fueler character from Star Wars: The Force Awakens. The picture does not do it justice.
And on Sunday, I got a few more sketches which I will put here for your delectation.
While I was watching Brad drawing this, I looked through the pages he had brought to sell and they were lush. And one thing that I noticed was that Brad is one of the few American artists that does not hyper-sexualise the female form. His drawings of the female form all have these strange thing called internal organs and look like real women. Also, none of them seem to need a 34HH bra as his proportions are realistic and in line with someone who works out. Go check it out and enjoy the art.
If you look at Nick Pitarra‘s art, it is obvious that he is a big fan of Frank Quitely and it was a pleasure to chat with him about our mutual admiration for Frank’s work. And then Nick showed me the pages he bought from Frank and that was it. Cue the loss of another 15 minutes as we both pored over the art.
And the last sketch that I picked up was this lovely speed sketch by Tom Raney.
I have not written about the convention in this article as I have already given my review over on Down The Tubes. And I have not even mentioned the epic swapsie that I did with fellow comic fan Chris Allport.
Keep giving dem positive waves. 😉
nothingbutafan 