Cardiff International Comic Expo 2013

Last weekend saw the Lou Scannon team participating in the 3rd annual Spring time Cardiff Comic Expo. The event was once again being held in the Mercure Holland Hotel on Newport Road over the Saturday and Sunday and it was even bigger this time than the last time we attended!

We decided to make it a big weekend out and Jim, Kris and myself were kindly being put up by our good friend Kirsty, who just so happened to have moved into a house in Canton, Cardiff the week before the convention.
I managed to get out of work slightly earlier than normal so I made my way straight to Cardiff by train and was picked up and given a lift by our hostess back to her house (Which coincidentally enough is spitting distance from a house I used to live in there).
Jim joined us soon enough and from there we headed to City Road on the other side of town to meet Kris and the rest of our usual Small Press crew for a meal at an Indian restaurant. Dinner followed by beers, followed by DVD's til 2 in the morning, followed by a 7am rise.

L-R: Jim, Kris and Me

The Saturday morning started off so busy that we were pleasantly surprised! Comics sold like hotcakes. Our table was towards the back of a rather large hall and in an area devoid of any natural light due to a giant partition wall that had been erected since the con early last year. I initially thought that this might hinder our sales somewhat, but I couldn't have been more wrong!
We launched Lou Scannon issue 5 there and by the end of the weekend, half of our stock of it was either sold or spoken for.
Folk who have already managed to read it cover to cover have thus far given us great feedback. Some going so far as to say that it is their favourite issue yet! So we were chuffed to say the least.

Dylan Shipley on the left there with the boys and holding a copy of issue 5. Dylan is the original "Keith Bowen" who has thus far appeared in each issue of LS as graffiti under the name "Keef Bo-Wing"

We tried out an offer of buy issues one to five and get a free keyring. That seemed to go down really well. A very close friend of ours (Dylan Shipley - co-owner of Sun and Moon Animation studios based out of Bristol) was kind enough to commit himself to doing a Scannon picture for the graph - maybe even the cover - and was then talked into putting us up for the weekend at the Bristol convention in May.

A while back, another old friend of mine had offered to do a cover for Lou Scannon. This would be the immensely talented Rob Jackson. Now I have always been a fan of and loved Robs work so when he offered, I of course jumped at the chance but had to figure out what cover he would be doing. We decided that the variant for issue 5 would be best and that gave Rob plenty of time to work his magic. Boy did he work some magic! His poster blew me away! He turned up on the Saturday with a few prints of the cover as you can see in the picture below. If you want to see it in full though, click the link on the first mention of his name above and it will take you to his deviantart page which is filled with lovely, pretty works.

Rob on the far left

Rob has his own Science Fiction character himself. I would love for him to self publish a comic of that. Even if it's only as a one shot initially as I would love to work his character "Jobe" into Scannon at some point as maybe a reoccuring supporting character.

The remainder of the print run for the first print of Issue 4 sold out at the Cardiff convention too. Made me wish we had gotten the second print done in advance as we definitely would have sold more... That said though, none of us could have predicted we would sell as well as we did. Nor as quickly as we did. It means that in time for Bristol we will have the new variant cover for issue 4 for sale which was provided by another old friend of the team, fan of the comic and incredibly talented artist Neil Alexander. Keep an eye out for this:

Lou Scannon Issue 4 2nd cover: Predator

Any geek in the know will be able to tell that it's based somewhat on the famous image of Sigourney Weaver from Alien 3.

With this weekend, we got to catch up with a lot of our small press friends as I mentioned earlier. Now though, I get to pimp their wares.

First up I would like to mention the brand new small press comic "Razarhawk" by my good friends and everyones favourite couple, Dani Abram and Ian Matthews. The comic seemed to go down a storm and it was great to see them do so well. Particularly as I know how Dani has stressed herself and pushed herself with the comic. Ian on the other hand is just one suave ass mother fucker who everyone loves. It's impossible not to, the charming sod. He pinched my bum. Definitely check the comic out as they have it priced incredibly reasonably.

Next i want to mention one of my favourite comics of the moment, "Moon" by Dan Thompson and Steve Penfold. Seriously guys, this comics is so... Clever and yet bonkers at the same time. It really is a bloody cracking read and Steve was at the Cardiff Expo minus Dan who had to attend to his wife on her birthday. We talked over many a beer and Steve is going to be doing a pinup for the Scannon graph which I am totally stoked to see.

Of course there is the usual crew of misfits and reprobates in the form of the Stiffs and Pride guys!
This was us once again getting to spend some quality time with our dear friends from these titles: PJ, Drew, Joe and of course, my bromosexual life partner, Gavin "Loves Dan" Mitchell.
Always a pleasure to see these guys. Never a chore.

All in all, I think a fun weekend was had by all.

Which leads me to the usual con post of the Monkey Island-off (Gav we really need to come up with a better name for it than this) where normally Gav and I would draw a specific character or scene from the game and then compare them with each other to see who wins. This time though we both picked a random character and drew it. Neither of us picked a winner this time though. we were both just happy with each others work.
Here they are!:

You can still buy Issues 1-5 from our website which I linked to earlier but just in case, here's the actual purchase page with a 5-6 page preview of each issue if you're still on the fence! Til next time, don't say "Goodbye", say "Safe Journey".