Convention dictates I should blog this
A great many people interested in comics will know that last weekend heralded the Thought Bubble 2010 comic convention in Leeds. For the past few weeks I've been growing more and more excited about this for a number of reasons; it would be a chance to finally obtain Dan Abnett's signature – I've loved his writing for years and yet he and his army of clones have always avoided me. Alas, the same was true with Thought Bubble. At the last moment his signing was cancelled due to work commitments (probably, although by no means certainly, related to Games Workshop's upcoming feature length film). Beyond this though, Thought Bubble was exciting for two slightly more personal reasons. November 20th, the date of the expo, marked the release of Twictions, my second book. In addition to this – and thanks to the guys at Deadstar Publishing for taking me – Thought Bubble was also my first chance to stand behind a table at a convention instead of being part of the crowd.
From the top then: the coach trip up on Friday was fairly uneventful. It gave me a chance to read most of Alastair Reynolds' Revelation Space (a review for that will be up in a few days' time) and to watch the scenery between Cardiff and Leeds. Very pretty, not overly engrossing. Once in Leeds I checked into the hotel with David from Deadstar then began the hunt. Wifi. Leeds seems not to know what it is. We spent the better part of three hours going from pub to pub, café to café searching for something that offers free wifi. Starting with the hotel (£5 for an hours' connection), Yates, Starbucks, Costa Nostra, and many others we finally found our way to a Wetherspoons where we were at last able to go online. Why is this important? Well, if you haven't followed me on Twitter then you might not know that for the past 200+ days I've posted a twiction each and every day. In order to maintain that… I need a web connection.
Lack of internet really hampered that first night; by this time Danny J Weston, the other member of Deadstar who would be attending the expo, had arrived and we tried to arrange a meet-up with other convention goers. Unfortunately we spent so long trying to find a connection that by the time we managed that, it was too late to meet with others. So back to the hotel for an early night before the big day.
Saturday started at an obscenely early time – we arrived at Saviles Hall (named, as we later found out, after Sir Jimmy Savile) at 7am in order to set up our table; a mistake on our part. Apparently the instructions said "exhibitors may set up from 7am" which we read as "must set up at 7am". By the time we were finished laying out the table we still had two and a half hours before the expo opened to the public – so we spent the time taking photos and wandering around looking at the other stalls while their (slightly more sensible) staff set them out.
10am came and my god, did the hall fill up quickly! Before I knew it our table was surrounded by people wanting to know who we were, what we sold, how much it cost and whether we were giving away anything for free. The day became a bit of a blur at that point; signing books, taking cash, signing more books, answering questions about how I wrote Twictions and Jaque's Magic Beans, offering snippets of advice to would-be writers and so on. That continued for over 7 hours! I've performed quite a few book readings and signings before but never one that's been quite that exhausting!
Before the event we looked into holding a raffle in order to give away some free books – apparently the gambling commission frowns on that – so instead we had a game of guess the marshmallows in the penguin. That raised a few eyebrows… and more than one person wanted to buy the penguin off us when we were done with it. I'm told that Deadstar will contact the winner via email this week although I can tell you that the winning number was 479… a surprisingly large amount of marshmallows to fit into such a tiny penguin!
I really do need to mention the cosplayers at the event – they are almost obligatory at any con or expo but those at Leeds really went the extra mile; from a near complete cast of Batman bad guys to zombie roller derby girls, Pokémon to Mario characters, every element of geekdom was covered.
After the doors closed at 5pm we took stock of the damage, counted the money (a very pleasing result) and packed away the remaining stock. From there it was on to the afterparty. This was held at the casino around the corner where we danced the night away, got to chat with other exhibitors and a few of the lucky pre-booked ticket holders who were allowed to join us. There were quite a few people there that I've met either from past cons or as friends and acquaintances – I'm sorry that I couldn't spend more time with you all, but by midnight I was asleep on my feet and decided to call it a night.
The following day I commenced on a six hour coach ride to return home… and there ends the tale of my first con. If you want to see some of the pictures from Thought Bubble, take a look at their official website or stop by on the Deadstar Facebook page.
