You gotta roll with it

Ted and Dan bravely cope with the crowds in my absence

I went down to London last Sunday with Dan and Ted to man the NWSAD stall at the Comiket Independent Comics event in Battersea Park. I would have loved to complain about having to get up at 6:15am for a 6:30am start, but Dan had already had his sleep interrupted by an invading hen party the previous night and then covered forty miles to pick us up. Hell on earth. Anyhow, we made it down to London in good time, remembered to laugh at all his ‘jokes’ (a course requirement) and laid out our wares ready for the impending arrival of the hordes.

Our ‘wares’ on this occasion consisted of issue three of the now legendary ‘DAWNS’ comic anthology, the remaining copies of issues one and two and various other self-published works by the students. Dan had the stall next to ours for the sale of his own creations, including two brand new comics: ‘Onion Soup’ – a transcription (with added art) of an evening’s Twittered cookery and ‘Silky Wilson’ – a whimsical tale of name theft and falcons. I believe both proved popular (and they are rather entertaining). Check out http://www.thingsbydan.co.uk/ to peruse and perchance purchase a copy…

I was personally excited about the event because I was launching a new product: Writers’ Blocks. These are a set of six dice, each face depicting a different image. The idea is to roll the dice and make up a story using the upturned faces as inspiration. The pictures were designed to be as open to interpretation as possible, to act as a springboard to creativity rather than be a constraint. After the many hours spent sourcing the materials and the many more hours spent using vector graphics to draw the images, deciding which picture went on which face, sticking them all on and designing and printing the packaging literature, I was rather hoping they’d go down well. They did, thankfully, and as I’ve given them their own site you can read more about them here: http://blocksblog.wordpress.com

Other than that, DAWNS was well received and we met loads of nice people who wanted to talk about comics and the course and stuff. It was great to see some familiar faces and catch up – Matt Sheret of We Are Words + Pictures ( http://wearewordsandpictures.com/ ) being a prime example. He always has time for a word (and a picture – hahaha) and is on a mission to increase recognition for independent comics. After a year of attending such events, it’s good to begin feeling like a part of the community, rather than hovering on the edge of the party.

All in all a great day, but a long one – I think I snored on the way home, but at least Dan didn’t. Thanks to him for the marathon driving effort and for organising the trip and to Ted for putting me up (putting up with me?) the previous night. See you all at the next one…

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