Friday, October 31, 2003

In 2001, I put together Just One Page an art contribution-driven charity comic book, where each page began with the same three panels: an alien comes to earth looking for a hero and mistakenly ends up at a comic convention. More of that later (or earlier ?), but this is the story of the second Just One Page.

I missed the final UKCAC, which used to be the top comics event in the UK, where Vertigo would hunt and trap British writers and comics artists from far and wide would supplicate themselves at the feet of Tharg.

But a few years later, Kev F Sutherland came on the scene with his Comics Festival near the beautiful spa waters of Avon, in Bristol. Having a passing interest, I took a day trip to the event, where I met Marcia Allass of Sequential Tart and Lee "Budgie" Barnett (named after the Adam Faith character ?). Each year since, I have made a weekend of it, and highlights have included Bryan Talbot's talk on One Bad Rat (so good I've seen it twice since), Al Davison's autobiographical talk (coming to Caption this year), meeting lots of Norwegians, and the annual chance to meet up with friends and new comics folks alike.

Last year, there was a second "annual" comics festival in London, which was JUST SO CONVENIENT !
This got me thinking again. If I could just collect the sketches at London and compile another Just 1 Page at Bristol ...

Well, that was the original plan.