Bristol International Comic and Small Press Expo - Part 1

This past weekend was spent at the annual Bristol International Comic and Small Press Expo - as I've said previously it was the first time I'd attending both days and, for me, this years Expo was one of the most enjoyable I've attended.

The event, which is staged across two neighbouring hotels, had just about everything any comic book fan could look for: loads of writers and artists chatting, signing and sketching; numerous dealers with longbox after longbox of bargain back issues (I managed to fill a big whole in my Daredevil collection); table upon table of generously discounted collected editions; a full programme of panels and screenings; some fantastic and unique items of apparel (particularly from the lovely folks at Genki Gear); new title launches; Cosplay; Expo Exclusives and not forgetting, at the Ramada Hotel, the now legendary 'Expo lunch pack'.

['... Move along ... move along' - car parking couldn't have been easier at BICSPE 2011!]
This week I'm looking forward to posting a number of short features about my visit to the Expo - some of the people I met; details of some of the [indie] books I picked up and I'll post a couple of the fantastic sketches that I came away with.

I think maybe one of the reasons I enjoyed this years event so much was that, for the first time, I had a 'base' for the weekend - somewhere to leave my bags; take a rest when my legs were feeling like I'd walked for miles and watch the crowds go by ...

Back in February or March of this year I received a very generous invitation from friend of Escape from Tomorrow Simon Breeze to accompany him to the Bristol Expo where he was launching the first collected edition of his comic JessieKane.

As you'd expect I was delighted to accept Simon's invitation and I really enjoyed the book launch and chatting with public and comic-professionals alike. At one point, with Simon busy chatting with one of the independent-publishers in attendance, I even managed to sell a couple of limited-edition prints on Simon's behalf with the buyer mistaking me for the writer/artist - I'm still not sure what I'd have done had he asked me to sign them!

We were based for the weekend at the Small Press Expo which was held at the Mercure Holland House Hotel in Bristol, just a short 4 or 5 minute walk from the Ramada City Hotel which hosted the 'mainstream' Expo. From the moment the doors opened in the morning to pretty much the end of the day around 5pm there was a wave of people coming and going through the two venues and, I was pleased to see for all the exhibitors in attendance, people were doing more than just 'window shopping'.

Congratualtions and thanks for another hugely successful Bristol Expo have to go to Mike at Fantasy Events UK and his fantastic team - I'm already looking forward to next year!

JessieKane - New 'Retro-Punk' Webcomic Starts Today with Zero Issue

Good friend and frequent contributor to Escape from Tomorrow Simon Breeze, science fiction and fantasy writer & artist, today launches his latest project - a weekly webcomic called JessieKane.

Simon first revealed details of the project to Escape from Tomorrow a few weeks ago and we've had to keep it under wraps until this point. Now Simon explains who Jessie and Kane are, what's brought them together, where their story has come from and where it might - just might! - be heading.

Over to you Simon ...

"JessieKane is a new webcomic I have found myself working on. I had no plans at all to even start anything other than scribbling down a few ideas and sketches over the course of the year and then maybe starting to pull it all together for publishing next year. Life has an odd way of throwing you a curve ball sometimes, which is exactly what has happened with JessieKane. Suddenly all of these ideas started popping into my head, and before I knew it, I had the main characters sketched out and the first year’s worth of stories done. It did not take long either to turn these stories into scripts and the sketches into concepts."

"I now find myself, just a few weeks after coming up with the idea, only a few days from the first page going live and having the following year almost written too. It has not been an easy few weeks, I think it has been the hardest I have worked on a project like this for a long time, and now I have the ball rolling, I need to keep it going!"

"JessieKane is set in an alternate reality where the world has fallen apart following the Cold War, society is in ruins, countries have turned into gang-ruled wastelands, and the only thing keeping humanity going is the remnants of the all-powerful, Western Alliance. It is an odd mix of the 80’s dystopian near future and modern-action sci-fi. I have created a word for it: ‘Retro-Punk’ - everything seems to be a ‘something punk’ and Retro-Punk seemed to sum it up nicely. You read it here first folks."

"Jessie is a young woman who has spent her life living in the No Go Zones of England working for gangs, scavenging, and anything else she can do to get by. She also has a strange love of her roller boots and is rarely seen without them on her feet! Kane on the other hand is a seven foot tall, genetically-engineered solider who doesn’t like killing anymore, and is presented with the dilemma of being ‘put to sleep’ or going AWOL. Being a bit smarter than your average gorilla, he opts for AWOL, which is when he meets Jessie and they form an odd friendship and embark on many a strange adventure together. "

"This webcomic is going to be bonkers, being put on the spot, I would say it is a female Han Solo with her sort of wookiee sidekick, scamming and fighting their way through the road warrior world of Mad Max with a good dollop of Resident Evil cream and a Steel Dawn cherry on the top. The art is my usual digital and as real-looking as I dare go. It is going to be fun, action packed, thought provoking, and a little bit ‘M’ for mature at times, but don’t let that put you off."

"The webcomic will be updated once a week, every Wednesday, I would do more than that, but the art is not the fastest to produce. The first week - the zero issue if you will - is the title page, and is therefore just a single splash page. I thought this would introduce the first story and give people a chance to have a look about the webcomic’s site. There is loads on there, wallpapers, cube-ecrafts, character and world information, etc."

There we have it - issue #0 is out NOW - click here to view - to be followed by issue #1 next Wednesday, and every Wednesday subsequently.