Swag 2

Not much this weekend, picked up this weird old handheld on Saturday for £2. Baikin-Kun 1982 Bandai. It seems the game is to look after baby bacteria(?!). It's intact and working, but a bit yellowed. I bought it with the intention to sell, but now I got it home, I'll probably just chuck it in the box with my other Game & Watches.

 The Car boot sale was pretty rainy by the time I got there on Sunday, there was virtually nothing there, but I did spot a bag of Batman related tat on a table. The lady wanted a quid but I knocked her down to 50p. Most of it was junk (Joker keyring is OK) but I only bought it for this rather awesome Batman badge.

London Comic & Small Press Expo

I made it to London Comic & Small Press Expo on Saturday, I was a bit late but it seemed the event was still in full swing.

I had a tight budget so tried to make the most of it. I bumped into Mike Leader on the way in, and he recommended Hildafolk by Luke Pearson. As soon as I saw it I knew I had to have it. What a beautiful book. It immediately evoked the work of Tove Jansson, and upon reading did have a flavour of that sort of East European folk tale. Absolutely lovely. I thought it was a little pricey at £8, but glad I bought it. It even smells nice.

Next I had the good fortune to purchase Freakleap from Joe List. Some amusing stories, hit and miss, but when it's funny it's damn funny. His work reminded me a little of Otto Seibold, but creepier.

 

My good friends the Goodman Brothers were present, selling the Square Eyed Stories comics (I really need to finish another strip for that comic) and Dave gave me the latest issue of his own comic Bahala Na which is always a reliable source of entertainment.

Post-event, we had a little gathering, Mike Leader, Nevs Coleman, Nell and the Mighty Dave French turned up (we had a nice long discussion about which acronym we preferred for S.H.I.E.L.D.).

Ultimately after attending the show (and watching one of the discussion panels) I left feeling inspired, and promising myself I would be selling my own work at a table this time next year. There's always such a wide variety of comics, and work there that makes me think I could do this! Alas, I always say this, and I just never seem to get my shit together. We'll see anyway, I'm already working on a few bits and pieces, and have a couple of ideas that might just work. Wish me luck!

Paris and Swag!

Just got back from a lovely time in Paris (apart from getting my MP3 player nicked). As soon as we got off the Eurostar I saw this advertisement for a Moebius exhibition, so it was pretty much set in stone we were going.

It was great to see a load of original paintings of work I'd seen in print for years. His show filled the whole gallery, and it took quite a while to get round. Recommended! 

We went to a vast market at St Ouen, where Nell bought a nice Brian Froud art book and the Taschen Betty Page, along with some jewellery and a handbag. There was a guy selling English language comics, and had some decent alternative stuff from the 70s and 80s including some Corben and the like, but we settled on a couple of old film posters.

When I got back to England I went up North to visit my ma in her new place, pick up my large backlog of comics from Planet Eater and hopefully score some decent swag at the car boot sale. Sadly for whatever reason Planet Eater had managed to miss a couple of issues from my Amazing Spider-man run. Coincidentally, one of them was 649 which is currently going for 15 quid on ebay. Hmmm.

The car boot sale was a good size considering the season hasn't really kicked off yet, but the only swag I acquired was a Mego Human Torch without his 'fire' costume, and from the same guy a Mego Spidey outfit. He took a quid for both so not bad at all. He had a Mego Frankenstein's Monster, but he was in such bad shape I couldn't bring myself to buy it. Wish I had now.