Over the weekend of June 2nd and 3rd, the Stripdagen in Haarlem, Holland, is where it’s at. This year the main theme is comics from the Arab world, from Morocco to Qatar, with lectures, interviews and exhibitions. Other exhibitions focus on the work of Peter van Dongen, Lamelos, Rudolf Valster and Stripdagen VIP par excellence, Joost Swarte (never a bad thing to have a helping of Swarte, we think). And lots more, of course!

At the same time, the 17th edition of the Rendez-vous de la BD in Amiens, France takes place, with lots of, mostly French creators (unsurprisingly), exhibitions on the series Aquablue and Okko and on venerable satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo (still going despite the firebombing of their offices a few months ago), and on American short stories in comics format.

One week later (7th to 10th June), there’s the Internationaler Comic Salon in Erlangen, Germany. With more than 400 artists present from all over the world and an expo with no less than 150 German and international publishers, this is a great opportunity to meet all of comics in one venue. Information on exhibitions and events has not been published as yet, although you can see the shortlist for the pretigious Max und Moritz awards here on the blog.

From June 4th to 10th, the Sismics Festival d’Images in Sierre, Switzerland, has people as varied as Italian cartoonist Guido Volpi, graphic artist Terhi Ekebom, the Swish Remake collective and American-Swiss illustrator Randy DuBurke.

Finally, 16th and 17th of June are the dates for the Strasbulles festival in Strasbourg, France. Guest of Honour is Korean comic artist Kim Jung-Gi, who is as yet not really well-known beyond the world of Manwha, but hopefully this exhibition of some of his sketchwork will change that. In addition to this, this year’s guest country is Germany, with exhibitions of work by and interviews with (as yet unnamed) German authors.

Next week/weekend it’s ….

And to end the month we have…

Hmmm… what was it Tim Pilcher was saying about too many cons?

Jimi Gherkin sends news of the next Alternative Press Festival – lots of notice – happpening in August…

“We are SUPER EXCITED to announce the 2nd International Alternative Press Festival (#iapf2) on 4th & 5th August 2012! So far we have exhibitions planned for Orbital Comics, Gosh! London and TEN (yes, TEN!) venues in the weeks leading up to the main fair at London’s Conway Hall. At the main Fair, we’ll have three rooms filled with exhibitors from all over the world showing comix, zines, book arts, screen printing and self published art work. We are programming workshops, talks, a spoken word festival-within-the-festival and lots more, so stay tuned for more!”

Flyer by David Ziggy Greene:

Writer, artist, good chum of the blog and seasoned comic con goer Sean Azzopardi returned to Canada recently to be a part of the parcel of comics delights that is TCAF; he even managed to fit in some more days off in Toronto and took in some related comics culture events taking part in the city in the wake of TCAF, and he’s very kindly sent us in a report, the view of this year’s TCAF from a self published comics creator manning his own table; Sean has also uploaded a bunch of photos to his Flickr so you can have a look around the con. Over to Sean:

TCAF 2012 was my second visit to the city of Toronto and to the festival. As I blogged last year, this is an amazing event and this time round topped that experience. There was an excellent programme of events for the duration of the festival that gave people the opportunity to experience far more than just visiting the main exhibitors spaces, situated in the library. As an exhibitor this is one part of any festival that I generally miss out on.

(pics here borrowed from Sean’s TCAF 2012 set on his Flickr, by and (c) Sean Azzopardi)

Thursday was a gentle start, an exhibition of cartoonists and gamers at Magic Pony. I love the way that beer and pizza was in plentiful supply. Good pizza as well. There were a lot of events that I would have loved to have attended, say How to Pitch, or Jeff Smith’s inking demonstration. It was Jeff Smith along with Gabriel Ba and Fabio Moon who opened the festival on Friday night, taking part in a relaxed interview. This is a cool way to start a festival. Chris Butcher starts with a brief outline of the events and introduces the interview. As an exhibitor or attendee it feels as though you are about to take part in something that is welcoming. Gabriel and Fabio have video from the Toronto Libraries up on their blog from the event:

Afterwards there was a meet up at The Cockpit one of the bar/ talk venue, but I hung around to set up my own table. I was interested to see the setting up process and saw Chris organizing the volunteers. Ask anyone who attends this event – they are the real stars, decked out in tangerine and super helpful.

There is not a lot I can say about the Saturday other than it was so busy I never left my table. It was so busy that one ‘comfort’ break was all I could manage away from my table. After a quiet start I sold steadily. But for me it’s less about the sales and more about the opportunity to engage with people about my work. It was nice to have people return after last year to chat and look at my new work. Sunday was a quite start again, but was still busy throughout the day. I did manage to get to go around the downstairs section and buy some stuff. There was so much choice; so many excellent comics on offer.

TCAF is an amazingly-curated and well thought out event. There are sections for children’s comics, Zines, local self publishers and much more. Isn’t it thoughtful to have these spotlight areas within the event, rather than a lumped-together row of tables with no theme or reason? Having a free entry policy to the main event and extensive promotion meant a really large attendance. I think it was up on last year, certainly felt that way. The mix was brilliant all ages, a good male/female ratio of exhibitors and audience.

I found myself smiling a lot at this event. A feeling of genuine joy that I was part of something special. This feeling was extended to the Sunday after-party. Chris gave a closing speech assisted by Peter and Miles. I was looking forward to this, to seeing the reaction of the first timers like Ian Williams and Simon Moreton. They were part of a strong group of UK cartoonists who made the trip to Canada, deep breath: Joe Decie, Lizz Lunney, Darryl Cunningham, Martin Steenton from Blank Slate, Doug and Emma from SelfMadeHero, Joe List, Luke Pearson, Philippa Rice, Clark, Joe (Nobrow), Tom Gauld and Matt Sherret.

The closing speech is a really important moment as it cements the feeling that you have all been involved together, a lovely way to close an event. Post-weekend there were a couple of talks that I attended as well, Gabriella Giandelli at the Italian Institute, and Arne Bellstorf at the Goethe Institut. A very nice coda to the main festival. In summary it was one of the best events I’ve attended. Full of fun and inspiration it’s my idea of a near perfect comic event. I would like to thank everyone who took part for making it a wonderful time.

More please.

“The fact is, with so many shows, creators are suffering from “convention fatigue”. Cons take up a lot of work time, for professionals. Very few have their expenses covered, unless they are guests of honour, and so it’s a double hit for them, in terms of time away from the writing desk/drawing board and earning money, while having to lay out cash just to appear at the show. Hence, many try and recoup their losses by charging for sketches, selling original artwork and comics, and sleeping with fans for cash (one of those is a lie). Consequently, many stayed away from Bristol this year in favour of the more lucrative London-based Kapow, due the following weekend.”

Tim goes on to note that a lack of ‘star’ guests – Denny O’Neill sadly couldn’t make his appearance – and equal lack of presence from the major US publishers didn’t help, neither did less punters and he also damns organisers for not even organising much in the way of local publicity after he talked to one local journalist who told him there hadn’t really been anything to drive locals along to the event on their doorstep. With the growth in the number of conventions, Tim wonders, does it mean that some, like Bristol, may find themselves marginalised or even relegated to history? I don’t think any of us would like to see that happen. Certainly there has been a large growth in cons of late in the UK and Tim isn’t the first to wonder if the new cons, including the mixed media events like the MCM Expos that draw in film, television and gaming industry figures as well as comics, are going to simply be bigger draws, draining the older, established comic cons?

I suspect this could happen with some cons – the more Indy press events like Caption, Thought Bubble and Hi-Ex I can see managing since they work to a different audience, but a more mainstream event needs bigger names and more footfall. If what Tim and others have been saying over the last few days is true then it is worrying – what about you? Any of you have good or bad experiences of Bristol this year? I know some were tweeting positive messages out of Bristol as well, both as comics pros meeting punters and selling items as well as punters enjoying the weekend, so clearly it wasn’t all one way or the other. If you are a creator or publisher are you having to be careful which cons you can attend now with so many to choose from? And if so how do you decided which ones suits best? Let us know in the comments.

Now here is some news that I know will brighten the day of Sean Azzopardi, who has been quite a supporter of the event: the Malta Comic-con organisers have announced dates for the 2012 gig. Again it will take place during the winter, which as Sean observed in his special guest report on the 2011 con he was kind enough to send us, is no bad thing as it means comics creators and fans travelling there get to enjoy a bit of winter sun at the same time as taking in the con! This year the convention will take place from the 8th to the 9th of December at the St James Cavalier in Valletta.No guests yet, but we are promised “Fans can expect another impressive roster of foreign creators, more locally created comics, cosplay events and competitions, gaming events and competitions, movies and animations showing during the whole duration of the convention and a healthy number of talks, workshops and discussion panels. For the first time ever, MCC 2012 will also host leading German cosplayer and winner of several international cosplaying awards Calssara.”

Organisers Wicked Comics tell us that the 2011 was their best year for the con so far in terms of visitors and exhibitors, so it seems that, as Sean noted in his report, this a a young con that is rapidly growing, establishing a rep, drawing in more folks to come and try it. I know Sean certainly thinks more fans and creators should be making the trip over to the island for the con, so I will leave you with some of his comments on the 2011 Malta Comic Con to whet your appetite:

“In conclusion this was the best of the three events I’ve been to in Malta; the organisation was good and the audience had grown on the previous years, I’m pleased to report. The exciting part was to see the growth of the artists from previous years. Having an annual convention has given an impetus to being creative and it’s showing in the enthusiasm and development of the comics. I would urge anyone thinking of attending this friendly convention next year to do so. The next stage is for more audience to travel abroad to attend and support it. It’s comics in winter with sunshine.“

Demoncon 3 poster by Dave Stokes.

Happening tomorrow – DEMONCON3, put on by The Grinning Demon, Maidstone, Demoncon is a one day convention at The Exchange Studio, Maidstone.

Guests include Kieron Gillen, Dan Abnett, Andy Lanning, Ian Churchill, Laurence Campbell, Marc Laming, Garen Ewing, Cy Dethan, Andrew Cheverton, Tim Keable, and more.

Comica Comiket moves to a twice yearly schedule with a spring event at Bishopsgate Institute featuring a one day comics and art fair, with a veritable who’s who of British comic publishing and many familiar artist names.

A big feature of the day will be the Comica Drawing Parade, with John Allison, Darryl Cunningham, Tom Gauld, Simone Lia, Maarten Vande Wiele and Andi Watson among the artists doing a little live art on stage.

Co-organiser Vicky Stonebridge lost her voice after much over-use directing events; fortunately she keeps a spare in her backpack. Such preparatory skills are one of the reasons she is a mighty organiser of the con.

Maura McHugh is tall and this makes her very popular with librarians wherever she goes because she is perfectly happy to reach the top shelves for them without using those wee kick-step things that always make such a horrid scraping sound when they move.

Paddy Brown, as well as being a cool Irish comics creator, should be used more for voice-overs, he has a cracking accent and should be used to replace James Nesbitt on adverts and documentaries.

Co-organiser Richmond Clements’ famous white con suit relies not only on four layers of ScotchGuard to maintain its pristine appearance, he has it laminated once a year too, just to be on the safe side, in a process similar to that used to ensure the purity of stainlessness of the Pope’s robes.

Gary Erskine really, really wants to be a Roller Derby girl.

Rumours that Colin MacNeill was thinking on quitting comics to open his own hat shop are untrue. I’d just end up buying my own stock to wear myself, he explained of his vanished millinery dreams.

Checking in and donning my badge I meet Richmond Clements, fan , writer and co-founder and organiser of Hi-Ex, in his trademark con rig-out of a pristine white three-piece suit. Debate still continues in geek circles if this suit signifies he is the modern incarnation of Colonel Sanders or if he is cosplaying as Marty Hopkirk (Deceased). Naturally Rich prefers the Hopkirk option. He is harassed but happy on the first day of Hi-Ex’s weekend, already a busy morning of events, talks and workshops gone by before I arrive on the iron horse (on top of months and months of preparation and organisation, all done by the team while trying to hold down their day jobs – big hand to con organisers here and everywhere for all the work they put in to make events happen so we enjoy them without ever seeing the effort put in behind the scenes). Before embarking on my con going proper it seems to be my humanitarian duty to relieve some of his stress with a quick drink while I look over the programme and, as luck would have, it as we relax for a few minutes we meet comic creator Andy Luke, over from Northern Ireland, and he joins us, the first time I’ve gotten to meet Andy in person for a change, so my visit is off to a nice start right away.

(Richmond Clements in his famous white suit grabs a rare few moments of peace inbetween making sure Hi-Ex runs smoothly for the fans and the creators present; pics from my Flickr)

In fact there is a bit of an Irish-Scottish, cross-Celtic comics theme to this year’s Hi-Ex, as other guests include Paddy Brown and one of our own guest bloggers, Maura McHugh, among others. Suitably refreshed I am thinking about entering the main hall as a number of young women in padding, helmets and rollerskates scoot past frequently (the roller derby girls are in town, a fun female dominated sport that artist Gary Erskine is a big fan of, noting that their appearance reminds him simultaneously of the movie Rollerball (and old Brit boy’s comic knock-off Spinball) and Tank Girl, and he’s right), but on realising I have arrived just in time to take in one of the panels, a discussion about British and Irish comics, I decide to hit that first and head into the theatre.

Several guests are on the stage as I take one of the very comfortable seats, including long time Brit comics editor and the man behind the fine Brit comics blog Down The Tubes John Freeman, Dave Shelton, Patrick Brown and Maura McHugh. The hour-long discussion proves pretty interesting, taking in both the established mainstream in Brit comics, such as 2000 AD, the new, with the Freeman-edited Strip Magazine and Phoenix comic (very new but already established as a firm favourite with our own daddy-daughter team of Richard and Molly, as regular readers will know) and the vibrant small press and self published scene in the UK. There was some discussion about the rich and talented pool of creators who earned their first spurs in the UK small press scene, such as in anthologies like FutureQuake, although debate as to whether the mainstream was taking advantage of that pool by encouraging it and drawing on it, giving its creators some chances to hone their craft more in a professionally edited publication, was less certain.

(panel discussion on British and Irish comics)

The requirement of creative talent to publicise their work was touched upon, with various members of the panel, notably Maura McHugh, pointing out that even if a writer or artist is shy they have to realise that promoting their work, be it self published or professional, is now very much part of their job description, something I agree with, having had similar discussions with authors even before the days of social media concerning the importance of book tours, talks and signing sessions – some authors take to that aspect of publishing well, others loathe having to stand up in front of readers to do a reading and signing, I know, but it is indeed part of the publishing process. And today it is inescapable with social media – a writer or artist needs, as Maura noted, a Facebook page at the very bare minimum. But ideally Twitter and a blog to share news of new work, upcoming signing tours and basically have a web presence where their readers can find out more and preferably interact with them a little too.

The importance of third party web coverage was covered too – as John Freeman noted his Down The Tubes, Steve Holland’s Bear Alley and Lew Stringer’s Blimey It’s Another Blog About Comics have been trying to cover specifically British comics news for some years (all sites you should have bookmarked), Maura and Paddy pointed out that the recent Irish Comics News has rapidly become something of a nexus point for bringing together news and links to Irish events, new releases and creators. As John said though, most of these sites were run by their editors on the side of a full time job and couldn’t give the levels of coverage sites like CBR, for instance, give in the US, but for predominantly American comics, and how the UK scene perhaps needs something a bit more like that large site. I was also rather cheered when Maura was kind enough to give our own FP blog a glowing mention as one not just looking at Brit comics but with a solid rep for covering that beat, notably the Indy creators (take a bow here, most especially, out reviewing powerhouse Richard for all his reviews coverage of the Brit small press scene).

After the panel I head into the main auditorium where the creators and the sellers have their tables, spotting Scotty, screenwriter from the excellent independent Scottish comics-themed movie Electric Man (reviewed here last year). The guys are still working on trying to secure distribution for the film (a separate battle after the usual battle to get funding for an Indy movie) and meantime are pretty much doing it themselves, with Mark Millar giving them a slot in his comics movie strand at the recent Glasgow Film Festival last month, a screening in Edinburgh’s lovely Art Deco Cameo Cinema next month and a couple of screenings in Eden Court itself over the weekend of Hi-Ex.

(above:the main auditorium with the creators and the dealer’s tables, below: Scotty, screen writer of the excellent Electric Man indy Scottish comics film)

Circulating round I am, like my last visit, finding that moving most of the comics folks through to this large auditorium and leaving the adjoining Bishop’s Palace for the gamer folk is working pretty well, affording everyone plenty of space and light but keeping them all together and handily adjacent for the theatre where the events take place and, equally, if not even more importantly, the cafe-bar (where again kudos to Eden Court’s good wifi). Continuing round I find a whole bunch of other creators, including Gary Erskine, Graeme Neil Reid (complete with some cracking sketches on offer and a new Sketchbook), Dave Shelton returned from panel duties to his table, Will Pickering returned once more, Alex Moore, John Higgins and Colin MacNeil among others, all busy with sketching and with their own work on offer; Gary has cornered the sideline in portraits of the Roller Derby girls. There’s an impressive Predator walking around, and several more cosplayers, including a terrific Harley Quinn.

(above: Graeme Neil Reid sketching, below: a fine selection of French comics at the Cinebook stand)

Bumping into John Freeman and Maura McHugh we head for caffeine stimulation; although I have known John for years, remarkably this is only the first time we have met in person, also the first time I have had the pleasure of meeting Maura in the flesh, always one of the nicer aspects of cons, getting to spend some time with folks in person. John shows us a very cool app on his smartphone with some comics work from Strip, enhanced so that you can have the speech bubbles read out – in a variety of languages, he adds, which is pretty cool, especially if you are trying to also sell your comics work to other language markets, or indeed also quite handy if you are learning a language. Time also for a quick log in on the notebook to post up a couple of photos and do a bit of Hi-Ex tweeting, before Maura has to attend another panel – this one is on Scots and Irish culture and language and their possible place in comics, so I decide to delay a second tour around the artists and dealer’s table to listen to the panel.

(above: quick break with Maura McHugh and John Freeman, who was showing us a very cool digital comics app, below, comics get academic with Dundee’s Dr Chris Murray in his splendid shirt: )

Despite Jim’s problems with the microphone (unconvinced it is carrying his voice as he can’t hear it as we can in the audience he keeps leaning into it causing ‘pops’, a pretty minor problem though), this panel with Jim Alexander, Maura, Paddy Brown, Lynsey and Colin MacNeil proves to be quite interesting, discussing the shared Celtic culture and how comics have contributed to it and how they could possibly be used in promoting, for instance, the languages such as the Gaelic, or BroadScots. Lynsey has worked in animation and comics with a Scots Gaelic theme and Paddy and Maura bring up good examples of work from Ireland either in Irish Gaelic or drawing on the rich heritage of myth and folklore and the general Scots-Irish love of storytelling in our culture. The use of the medium to support and encourage the Gaelic and Scots languages was discussed, as well as whether they were suitable only for discussing older, mythological or historical topics or if they were appropriate to use for contemporary subjects too (I pointed out afterwards that actually Matthew Fitt had written an entire contemporary science fiction novel in BroadScots, so yes, you can use our older words and tongue to apply to modern stories as well). The incredibly rich Celtic heritage of storytelling was also discussed (let’s be honest, a very ancient tradition and even in book terms the cross Scots-Irish tradition of words and pictures goes back to the magnificent Book of Kells, one of the literary treasures of the world). As someone who loves not only comics but the deep store of folklore and myth all cultures are heir to I found it rather pleasing to have creators contemplating how the comics medium could and did interact with that, especially in relation to Scotland and Ireland.

That final panel over-ran somewhat after the preceding one finished late and sadly by the time it ended I found myself too late for a second turn around the main auditorium, so missed out on the chance to pick up some mini comics I had my eye on before as everyone was packing up for the evening (although they still had the evening’s screening of Electric Man to look forward to after dinner). But that’s a problem with convention going, be it comics, science fiction or any other type, you simply can’t be everywhere all the time so you’re going to miss something. The last couple of visits I spent more time in the main hall but missed some panels, this time round I took in more panels but that meant less time to spend in the hall going round folk as much as I would have liked, but that’s how it goes. Last time around I did more live blogging, tweeting and photo posting than this time, but again as I spent half my time in panels that wasn’t feasible and I decided to settle for a few on the day and then let myself just concentrate on taking in the actual con rather than trying to mediate it onto the web in real time (bit of live tweeting is fine, but note to self, raise nose from keyboard to take in those folks around you that you only see every so often and enjoy it!).

(Above: Team Girl Comic with some fan small press anthologies, below: Gary Erskine at work)

(above: artist John Higgins starts a new work; more pics on my Flickr here)

My third Hi-Ex visit and another absolute pleasure – busy though it is the smaller scale than some events further south makes it very accessible, very friendly and personal, again it drew a lot of kids – my first impressions of the very first Hi-Ex four years ago remained, that it was a very family friendly event, with grinning kids in face make-up, cosplay costumes or happy after drawing classes trotting around. The creators and the host all very friendly and welcoming and again, as before, I was left with the feeling that the event was a good cultural one for the Highlands, not just for comics geeks, but in general, drawing in more than just the die-hard fans to check out the events. Yes, it may be a long haul for some, especially those down in the south (although to be fair no longer a haul than those of us in the north go through to reach Bristol’s comic expo!), but it is worth it for what has now established itself as a solid fixture on the calendar, the northernmost comics con in our sceptred isles, taking its place alongside other regular and much loved events like Thought Bubble, and hey, long trip up or not, it also takes you through some of the most magnificent scenery the United Kingdom has to offer. I saw pheasant and deer by the side of the rails, snow still dappled spring-time hills and mountains as we entered the Cairngorms National Park, while the trip back home offered a spectacular sunset as our local star dipped behind the western mountains of the Scottish Highlands, casting them into shadow while the sky above glowed a deep blue, splashed with vermilion. Even the trip to and from Hi-Ex can be terrific. Here’s to next year!