Friday night fun
Didn't manage to leave work as early as I'd've liked (surprise -- things have been busy recently) but got to the bus stop at about 7:30 trying to get to London for not much past 9. If the bus had been on time, it would have gotten me to the ICA at about 9:10, but I had to wait just over half an hour (bus is meant to be every 20 minutes at that time of day). Bum. Still, got there before 10, and had the opportunity to see lots of girlies and boys wandering the streets of Oxford in ballgowns, kilts, sporrans, and so forth -- v. fetching. Always odd to see such brightly coloured plumage during the day and in the boring ordinary streets (St Clements definitely counts) but fun too. The wearers have to try and be pretty insouciant about walking around in off-the-shoulder red taffetta, and they mostly manage it, but I can just imagine how much they have to work at it -- then when they get to the ball, and it's all people dressed equally poshly, they can relax...
Anyway, getting to London and the ICA -- as always, arriving alone at a pretty full do, it's a bit nerve-racking -- where are people I know, what will I do first, where can I leave my bag. The answer always is to lug the bag to the bar, buy a beer, and see who you bump into. I spent quite a bit of teh evening chatting to Corinne Pearlman about what she's up to (two days a week with her educational comics publishing, the rest of the week on web work in Brighton). Caught up with what's happening with Pete Pavement (also web designing, getting over the death of the new baby that him and his partner went through recently) and saw Lorna Miller briefly. Also Craig Conlan, who has been doing illustration work more than comics (the curse of the market situation meaning that people can't do what they love best to do, because it becomes financially prohibitive). However, he's in the middle of doing a gothy-zombie comic about Thumbelina (Zombelina) for Slave Labor, which should be great -- am looking forward to it! Hope that becomes an ongoing gig luring him back to comics.
Spotted in the melée: Jonathan Edwards, Tim Pilcher, Faz Choudhry, Paul Peart, Pete Ashton (away from the farm: unfortunately not able to stay for the rest of the weekend's events), Woodrow Phoenix at the decks with hip-hop (or possibly soul -- my ear is not sufficiently attuned and my attention was elsewhere), Harley Richardson, Marc Baines, and best of all because I hadn't seen him for so long, Ed Pinsent. He's hopefully coming to CAPTION this year as Marc has a new book out and they'll bring it along.
Ed's another one who is hopefully coming back to comics after some time away doing other things (mostly the online music magazine The Sound Projector. It will be great to see him back in the swing of comic things; as a starter, he (amongst others) will be on the Escape panel this afternoon at the ICA.
Oh, and I got gazumped at the bar by Glenn Dakin, but that was ok because we chatted about it, he offered to buy me a drink in compensation (but as I was buying for Corinne I said thanks but no thanks) and hopefully we'll bump into each other another time. I took the opportunity to tell him we remember Paris the Man of Plaster which he was pleased by.
All too soon it was 11:15 and I'd made plans to meet mzdt at Waterloo at 11:30, so I fled across the footbridge and made it just in time to hurry up and wait for the delayed 11:48 to Staines via Brentford. It was jolly though -- turns out that Roger Langridge lives in Chiswick, only a couple of stops before Brentford, so the evening was elongated in that way and Simon got to meet yet more cartoonist friends of mine. Yay!
Anyway, getting to London and the ICA -- as always, arriving alone at a pretty full do, it's a bit nerve-racking -- where are people I know, what will I do first, where can I leave my bag. The answer always is to lug the bag to the bar, buy a beer, and see who you bump into. I spent quite a bit of teh evening chatting to Corinne Pearlman about what she's up to (two days a week with her educational comics publishing, the rest of the week on web work in Brighton). Caught up with what's happening with Pete Pavement (also web designing, getting over the death of the new baby that him and his partner went through recently) and saw Lorna Miller briefly. Also Craig Conlan, who has been doing illustration work more than comics (the curse of the market situation meaning that people can't do what they love best to do, because it becomes financially prohibitive). However, he's in the middle of doing a gothy-zombie comic about Thumbelina (Zombelina) for Slave Labor, which should be great -- am looking forward to it! Hope that becomes an ongoing gig luring him back to comics.
Spotted in the melée: Jonathan Edwards, Tim Pilcher, Faz Choudhry, Paul Peart, Pete Ashton (away from the farm: unfortunately not able to stay for the rest of the weekend's events), Woodrow Phoenix at the decks with hip-hop (or possibly soul -- my ear is not sufficiently attuned and my attention was elsewhere), Harley Richardson, Marc Baines, and best of all because I hadn't seen him for so long, Ed Pinsent. He's hopefully coming to CAPTION this year as Marc has a new book out and they'll bring it along.
Ed's another one who is hopefully coming back to comics after some time away doing other things (mostly the online music magazine The Sound Projector. It will be great to see him back in the swing of comic things; as a starter, he (amongst others) will be on the Escape panel this afternoon at the ICA.
Oh, and I got gazumped at the bar by Glenn Dakin, but that was ok because we chatted about it, he offered to buy me a drink in compensation (but as I was buying for Corinne I said thanks but no thanks) and hopefully we'll bump into each other another time. I took the opportunity to tell him we remember Paris the Man of Plaster which he was pleased by.
All too soon it was 11:15 and I'd made plans to meet mzdt at Waterloo at 11:30, so I fled across the footbridge and made it just in time to hurry up and wait for the delayed 11:48 to Staines via Brentford. It was jolly though -- turns out that Roger Langridge lives in Chiswick, only a couple of stops before Brentford, so the evening was elongated in that way and Simon got to meet yet more cartoonist friends of mine. Yay!