Comic Cuts — 18 October 2024

Photo: Andy Yates

The big event this week was the Colchester Comic Swap Meet that took place on Saturday. I had been preparing for this for some while, but there were still some last minute bumps in the road to deal with.

The first was solved by Swap Meet organiser Karl Kennedy, who, knowing of the over-stretched tendons in my shoulder, offered to pick up a couple of boxes of books from Wivenhoe and drop them off at the venue, the Baptist Chuch in Eld Lane, in Colchester. I packed up most of the copies that I carry as stock... which is where the second bump occurred. Karl picked up the books on Thursday evening, and on Friday morning, I had three book orders which immediately cleared me out of three titles.

I'd tried to avoid shutting down my shops, but there was no option but to pause both Amazon and eBay sales until after the show.

There was a second question as to whether I would have enough copies of THE PHANTOM PATROL to hand as I had two orders in with the printer and the first had only just arrived. It looked like the second might not turn up until Monday, but, thankfully, it turned up on Friday. Rather than lug twenty copies in on the bus, it was agreed that Mel would bring them in later as she was getting a lift into town by car.

Saturday started with me hopping on the bus and arriving in the city (yes, Colchester is a city!) just as the shops were opening up. First port of call was a shoe shop to buy some new shoes, which I wore out of the shop, carrying the other pair to Timpson's in the hope that they could be sole and heeled—at the very least made waterproof so that they could be used as "gardening shoes", which is the fate of two earlier pairs of shoes.

Things were already busy at the venue when I walked in. I was to have one of the tables nearest the door and I could see the three boxes I'd packed up two days earlier. It didn't take long to lay out the books in a sensible order, with the new books and other comic strips as a first row nearest the customer, then indexes as a second row and then everything else. I'd taken a few examples of other things I've produced, including THE TRIALS OF HANK JANSON, so that people could see the range.

I think I had over twenty books available, but the comic strip reprints were the ones I expected to sell on the day, and THE PHANTOM PATROL especially. Which proved true. Almost immediately, I sold two, three, and then four copies. Over the next half hour a handful of others were sold, and I was on the phone to Mel asking whether it would be possible for her to bring ALL of the copies we had in the house.

Like last year, it's a fairly quiet, but steady show, but people are there to buy. I sold more books this time than last, but it's almost impossible to predict what people will want. I sold out of one book last year so I made sure I had copies to hand this time... didn't sell a single one. But that was made up for by sales of other books that I almost hadn't brought because there seemed to be no interest last time.

I ended the day £480 better off.  OK, that might not be all profit, because of the cost of printing and getting the books to me, but it was a very satisfying amount, and more than paid for my new shoes, which was my target for the day. I celebrated quietly with myself by buying a book and a sausage bap.

The book—a copy of DAN DARE ON MARS in a nice dust jacket—was one I'd only ever seen in the collection of John Allen-Clark, my late Eagle-collecting pal, who had most of the Eagle novels and from whom I bought a collection of the girls' titles (Susan of St. Bride's, etc.) thirty years ago. I've always wanted to read Basil Dawson's novel, although I gather it's not the greatest SF novel of the era (1956). It is, however, one of the few Dan Dare stories I've never read, so the chance to pick it up at what I thought a very reasonable price was too good to miss.

The art show by Stuart and Ed was a highlight, as was getting to meet Keith Burns, Commando and Johnny Red artist extraordinaire. I also met Andy Sawyers, an exceptional artist from The 77. Stephen Hume, who writes for Commando, was also selling comics, as was my swap meet neighbour, Vic Whittle, who runs the British Picture Libraries website. It was good to chat to people I met at the last Meet, such as James Bacon and Andy Yates; although it was a steady day rather than frenetic, there was still never enough time to chat to everyone at length.

I spent Sunday doing a stock take, reordering books, catching up on sleep, lazing around and moaning about how my new shoes had torn my heels up. That's new shoes for you.

Monday: good day of work on the new book, which is called DREAMING OF UTOPIA; Tuesday, was spent writing one of the last two essays for the book and cleaning up artwork to illustrate it; unfortunately, Wednesday was a write-off as large parts of the day were taken up shopping and attending an eye test at an inconvenient clinic two miles from the bus route. For that I put on an old pair of shoes that I knew would be more comfortable than the new ones. Thursday has also been a write-off as I spent the morning shuffling files around various external drives to create some space on my laptop and the afternoon... well, I'm writing this and sorting out pictures for you as we're heading out this evening to see Kiri Pritchard-McLean at the local Arts Centre.

Hopefully I can get back onto the book tomorrow...