Friday
I arrive to my third Bristol. After checking in a few of us retreat to a local pub for sustenance before returning to the Convention bar. No sooner have I sat down than Tony Lee pops over to show me the new print of Starship Troopers which he has made the publishers emblazon with “The Bugs are Back!” Might be overcompensating there Tony, nice try though.
Shortly after a manic Matt Boyce delivers a copy of his new work More Humilation into my lap. Over the course of the weekend I find out I got him into some trouble at his employers because of a review I did of the Brighton Convention last year. It occurs to me that people do actually read what I write about. I toy with the idea of seeing if I can get Matt a job writing Captain America. It seemed like a good idea at the time.
Friday is usually low-key, this year there were meant to be a series of films being shown during the course of the evening, but the lure of the bar proved too strong for most people and apparently a couple of the films went by with no-one there to watch them.
Once Liam Sharp of Mamtor realised this, he set about making sure that the Mamtor short film What did Elvis do for the Vikings? would be seen by someone, and proceeded to gather anyone in the bar who would go. Boy was it worth it, although not the finished article, the film is a riot with Zombie Elvis being resurrected in Derby – much to the bemusement of a watching historian.
After the film finishes a Star Wars fan film starts up. The well lubricated audience rip into it mercilessly, but the film has the last laugh by running for a whole hour. Our witty comments are exhausted after 20 minutes and I lost the will to live after about 30 minutes. A trot back to the bar and then some Guitar Hero antics in a friend’s room rounds the evening off. My liver breathes a sigh of relief.
Saturday
Feeling slightly the worse for wear, breakfast was attempted before the convention opened up at 10am. Having already got a ticket, I took great delight in skipping the huge queue that formed outside the main hall. Upon entrance I got a goody bag full of free comics and adverts for things I don’t want. A nice surprise is a free copy of Sin City: That Yellow Bastard doubly so as my girlfriend collects a bag as well, that means we can give the extra copy to one of our friends who can’t make the convention.
A very quick circuit of the hall follows, I don’t have long before the first panel starts back at the hotel. I manage to pick up some goodies such as Just One Page which is football themed this year; how apt. I vow to return to purchase lots of lovely comics, little did I know the hectic scheduling of panels and the onset of one of the greatest FA Cup finals ever would thwart me.
My first panel of the convention was the Mamtor guys, all looking a little worse for wear, Ali Pow3rs sits on the table by himself until Liam Sharp and Matt Boyce arrive. Without an Event Horizon to plug this year because they didn’t get enough pre-orders to justify the printing costs, the panel descends into chaos. Matt Boyce regales us with a rendition of Nude for Satan and claims to be sweating beef, he then mercilessly accuses Ali Pow3rs of having a “ladyfinger” for the rest of the panel. Running out of things to discuss, Liam puts the Zombie Elvis film on again much to the delight of everyone.
The more serious side of the panel included the addition to the Mamtor stable of a business manager to take some of the pressure off main man Liam Sharp. In order to make Event Horizon viable again there have been some discussions within the group as to whether to let Image publish it, or maybe compromise their ethos and include superhero tales and maybe advertising in order to shift more units. Liam also discussed the possibility of making sections of the work to be available for a $2 download. The ideas are certainly still there, and the group still appear to be fully committed to the project.
The DC Panel is headed up by Bob Wayne, who was joined by Dave Gibbons, Howard Chaykin and Geoff Johns. Geoff looks a little out of it, having flown over from Australia. Chaykin more than makes up for it though and becomes my favourite person of the convention, with his acerbic wit and killer putdowns. A variety of subjects are touched upon over the hour, most are surprisingly restrained seeing as everyone had read Infinite Crisis #7, the only attempt being someone who asked why would a red sun affect Superboy Prime. Johns refused to answer the question, telling the questioner to meet him later.
A lot of the discussion was about how 52 is being written, and who gets what pages? Geoff stated that each of the four writers have favourite characters but they do try to switch things around, Geoff’s favourites being Black Adam and Booster gold whilst Greg Rucka writes a “mean Question”.
A couple of questions revolved around continuity errors and whether they can be avoided. One person asked how Pariah could be killed by a bullet when previously he couldn’t be killed by entire universes being destroyed. Taking it in his stride, Johns stated that Pariah couldn’t be killed whilst the multiverse existed, once one earth was formed at the end of Crisis on Infinite Earths he effectively became mortal. When the panel was asked if DC needed to employ someone full time as a continuity editor, Chaykin quipped “ They’d be dead in a fucking week…”
The panel were also asked which books they would like to work on if they could choose any. Gibbons is happy on Green Lantern Corps as an ongoing, but would like to have a go at Superman. Chaykin would like to do pre-war heroes, and Johns expressed an interest at doing a Rogues ongoing series with Scott Kolins at some point when he isn’t writing everything else in the DCU, although it should be stressed this is not very likely.
Immediately following the DC panel was the Vertigo Panel chaired by Bob Wayne and Vertigo Editor Shelley Bond. On the panel was Liam Sharp, Howard Chaykin, Mike Carey, Jock, Andy Diggle and Mark Buckingham. The panel was essentially a giant plug for all Vertigo titles as Bob Wayne ran through a slideshow of upcoming projects. Of noticeable interest was Absolute Sandman, a Fables OGN called 1001 Nights of Snowfall, The Other Side with Cameron Stewart art. An OGN by Brian K. Vaughn called Pride of Bagdad about an escaped pride of lions in the streets of the war torn capital, and Faker - Carey and Jock’s miniseries, whilst Diggle announced a plot to steal Jock for his next project, something editor Shelley Bond was not happy with as Jock appears to running a little behind on the mini.
Possibly the highlight of the panel was Rich Johnson’s PDA going off and interrupting the discussions, Rich was unable to stop it from ringing incessantly and attempted to dive out of the room, but encountered a locked door to the amusement of all.
The evening consisted of more bar-propping and a delightful chat with Doctor Who writer Paul Cornell. I then crashed the Eagle awards ceremony and managed to come away with 3 Eagle awards on behalf of The Ultimates creative team. Rumours of a hotel room with a bath full of beer later in the evening have yet to be substantiated.
Sunday
Sunday is usually the quiet day at Bristol, everyone is usually too hung-over to actually do anything meaningful, and the convention timetable usually reflects that. Not so this year, as the day’s events number as many as the Saturdays. I take the opportunity to run over to the main hall and buy far more comics than I should do, remembering to pick up all three trades of Owly to placate the girlfriend.
The Comics 2 TV 2 Film Panel is first up for me after taking onboard a lot of water. Panellists include Geoff Johns, Howard Chaykin, Tommy Lee Edwards, David Lloyd and Roger Dicken – who worked on the models for Thunderbirds. Most of the discussions here revolved around the differences between working on big budget films and cash-strapped TV series.
Chaykin worked on The Flash TV series as a writer with no budget, and shared his understanding of using the “build and release” technique of storytelling ala the Hulk TV series, and the original Superman cartoon series. In those, the heroes only show up for a minute or two at tops, the rest of the programme is the build up to the point when the characters become necessary to the plot. Geoff Johns is working on the Blade TV series and has come to learn about the limitations of budget. He told us about a scene that involved fighting 50 vampires, when it was actually filmed there were 3 vampires.
There then followed a debate about whether comics have a shrinking audience because people don’t know how to read them (I feel like that with some of Bendis’ comics, to be fair, and let’s not mention David Mack…). Howard Chaykin was of the opinion that comics are hard to read, whilst David Lloyd argued that wasn’t the case, and no-one needs instructions on how to read a comic. Lloyd also stated that he thought comics are ghettoised and too insular, whilst Chaykin noted that a lot of comics fans would like it too stay that way. Geoff Johns was more disappointed that he could no longer pick up comics at his local 7-11.
A last sweep of the panel concerned which films were their favourite comic book showings. Johns went for the classic Donner Superman, Chaykin likes Mystery Men and The Fifth Element (a French comic-book on the big screen), Edwards opted for Diabolique whilst Lloyd went for the obvious V for Vendetta and Dick Tracy.
I did attend the Writers Panel but was so engrossed by the discussions I neglected to remember any of it. Needless to say that Alan Davis, David Hines, Tony Lee and Geoff Johns were very entertaining and enlightening.
My final panel of the weekend was Paul Cornell doing a live commentary of his Doctor Who episode, the excellent Father’s Day. Paul’s comments over the episode were a delight, showing just how much effort goes into making every episode of the programme. My girlfriend’s only complaint was that Paul kept talking over the episode whilst she was trying to watch it…
The commentary was followed by a brief Q&A session with Mr. Cornell and Simon Spencer one of the Torchwood writers. The title Torchwood is actually an anagram of Doctor Who and was originally used to mark the films being sent from Cardiff back to London to stop them getting stolen. Concerning Torchwood we also learnt that the Doctor will not be in it, and it will largely be based in Cardiff, using the space/time rift established in the first series of the new Doctor Who as its premise. Four of the episodes will be written by Russell T Davies, there will be no mention of UNIT, it will be scary, sexy and have a bit of swearing.
As an aside, Paul is working on scripts for the new BBC Robin Hood series, and has also pitched a Saturday night superhero series to the BBC. Stephan Moffat has his Jekyll & Hyde programme coming soon which is meant to be very scary, and Simon Moorhead has been asked to work with Neil Gaiman on a project.
After all this, it was time to head back to lovely London to try and recover. Another enjoyable year over with, I can’t wait until the next one. My liver disagrees.
James Dodsworth - Born and raised in Yorkshire, residing in London since 2000, James has a Law Degree and works for the Fraud Prevention Office of a high-street UK Bank, where he has experience in combatting financial crime and working with the police and legal institutions. He is a writer and editor for FractalMatter.com.
But his main claim to fame is living next to the pub where Shaun of the Dead was conceived.