CAPTION2003 (2): Saturday morning and daytime
Saturday started quite early, with Debra aka badasstronaut arriving early as promised (9:30 ish) to help with transporting stuff to the venue. S and I were up and dressed already, and CSM and M were wandering around at about that time; but the injection of a new person in the mix meant the strong temptation was to talk about stuff (different countries, the UK vs US vs NZ, for instance). Debra gave me a couple of belated birthday presents -- a large bar of kiwi chocolate and a lovely lovely pendant made of pewter inlaid with paua shell -- and showed me her gifty for cleanskies -- a doll with moving legs which she'd covered with more paua shell on top, and a Louise Brooks bob haircut (apparently synthetic hair is difficult to cut so good on you cos it was a great haircut).
Unfortunately I'd misunderstood an important part of the planning for the morning -- I'd understood Jrmy to say that gophers would be arriving at my place at 10:00 to help pack the car with computers, and at 10:20 when I rang to see when they would be arriving, she was at the venue and not best pleased at being asked for gophers out of the blue. Hasty backing out; and turns out that S reckoned all along that 10:00 was when we were meant to be arriving at the venue, not that gophers would be arriving here... duh... Anyway, in the car, packed up, on the road with Mike in the front with me again and S helping Debra navigate through Oxford following me, and CSM no doubt keeping things going in the badasstronaut-mobile. I reflexively drove up Cowley Road and got to the turning into Longwall Street before realizing that coming from the East was not where it was at at all and I should have taken the southern route that gets you through all the little twisty roads that don't look like they're going to get you there but eventually do. Things got fixed (and CSM and M had a nice view of bits of Oxford) but cursing and swearing took place before we got there... but then hey, we were there, and the trusty gophers jumped to attention (greengolux and coalescent being two that particularly spring to mind as lounging outside waiting for us and then impressively coming to life as we turned up).
The venue problems had been resolved by sorting out the Northgate Hall for the first part of the morning (10 till 12:30 or so); and just as well, cos apparently people piled in right at the very beginning of the day. (I never see that part of the CAPTION convention, given that I'm usually busy shepherding guests or other latercomers to the venue. Yeah right. Anyway, it's a gopher's job to get there that early. Ahem. Or at least, even when I was an organizer, it's a different organizer's job to get there at that point. Oh yeah.) We piled out the old macs and Debra and I went back to my house to drop the cars and back over to the venue by bus -- about an hour's worth of journey all told (not helped by the dreadful traffic work on the Abingdon Road, but hey.) And then just time for the first panel event...
The first official event was the Bryan Talbot 'Tale of One Bad Rat' panel. Simon came along to this, and given that he's not a big comics fan, I'm really glad that this is what started off the convention for him (well, yes, apart from lugging around and connecting loads of old macintoshes together). Bryan's talk (for which I had the honour of pressing the 'advance' button on the slide projector, and hence had to pay really quite close attention to his facial expressions and mostly-silent cues) covered pretty much the whole of his development as an artist, from the very very early days of Chester P Hackenbush through The Adventures of Luther Arkwright & Heart of Empire (aka Luther vol 2) and onwards to One Bad Rat.
Bryan is the sort of person who plots and plans his comics in an almost ridiculously detailed fashion -- he told us stories of casting all the individuals in One Bad Rat, and of photographing all sorts of details that appear in just single panels of the graphic novel (even at noticeable risk to his own convenience, as when he confronted the Thames Valley River Police to get a picture of the underside of one of the bridges in London). He gives chapter and verse on how he works the construction of his comics, from overall layout of a page (with discourse on the Golden Section and on terminal blacks, which is a cool phrase if nothing else) to 'themes' of colours (Helen in One Bad Rat has her colours she always wears, and the colour red that always symbolizes danger in the storyline). It's a great convention event -- if you're a creator, catch it in order to educate yourself in possible ways of enhancing your readers' experiences, and if you're a reader, then catch it to enhance your reading of Talbot's work if nothing else...
I was needing a drink and a sit outside after all that, and consequently missed the Pixels vs Paper panel, which Paul Gravett was chairing and badasstronaut amongst others was attending as a panellist. What can anyone who was there say about it? Please let me know, I'd be interested.
I certainly made it along to the Carla Speed McNeil talk about what she does and who she is. Just as well, as I was interviewing her for the damn thing. Will Morgan (Howard Stangroom as was; you could see people adjusting to the recent change as they talked to him) asked me to tape it for Comics Focus, which I was glad to do and CSM also was happy to agree to. It went on for an hour, outside (just as well we never got round to scanning piccies of Finder for displaying on some kind of projector, then -- nothing to project it on, outside). The black helicopters disturbed us somewhat as they buzzed overhead, but CSM told us about the reason for her footnotes in Finder (there's stuff she doesn't even know is the case until she sits down and writes the notes six months later to help sell the back issues) and the reality behind stuff in the comic (National Geographic, random books at the Borders unpacking bay, and true life incidents). People were keen and flocked to the talk, which was most gratifying all round, and always lovely to see plenty of familiar faces (anw in the front row, jackfirecat further back, andypop of course, I've already mentioned mzdt a few times under his alias of Simon, and many many others).
Carla's an easy person to interview in many ways; I last interviewed Sophie Crumb (as mentioned in these pages), and she's on the quiet side, although rousing herself when questions are asked. I remember interviewing Donna Barr some years ago at UKCAC in London, and they way she was just able to talk on and on, based on some specific question, drawing it out into a general lesson about life and art and creativity; that was Carla. Mind, I had some specific things in mind that I wanted to get her to talk about, particularly to do with how she works through things in a very business-like fashion to promote her book (a proper business plan, a dedication to going to comic shops in every town she's visiting and making sure to leave some books, the selling point of the extra added value embodied in her footnotes...). Yes, I love her comic, and stuff was talked about to do with her creative ideas -- but I'll leave that for the super-extended-commentary in Comics Focus, sorry...
Following that, I was of course thirsty, and Carla was surrounded by interested people. I sidled off and sat in the sun with a drink until past the start of the charity auction, until I heard something about a Top Trump card drawn by Carla with a Hello Kitty vibrator prominently featured... had to bid, didn't I, and ended up with a never-ending group of cards as a result... great result. Worth outbidding old acquaintance Mark Buckingham for that -- sorry, Mark!
Couple more piccies while I get the rest of the stuff ready for more writing tomorrow...
