Saturday's Colchester Comic Mart began on a bright note—Storm Amy had blown through on Friday and it had rained most of the day, but, fortunately, she cleared off into the North Sea overnight and the morning sun broke through the clouds as I was waiting for the bus.
I arrived at the show's home, the Presbyterian Church in Eld Lane around 8:45 and wandered in to find most of the tables already stacked with comics (I think the venue opened at 7:30) and organisers Karl Kennedy and Andy Yates (Stephen Hume having been unavoidably detained in Glasgow) had sorted out a table for me, generously paid for by Bear Alley Books... oh. hang on...
Karl had picked up some boxes of books from me on Monday, along with some artwork for the art show. (I don't drive, never have, as I've always worked close to home—close to the train station when I worked on London—or at home.) These I unpacked and spread out and, learning that one of the guests had fallen ill, managed to spread my wares onto the spare table. Then a new guest was announced and I had to unspread everything. But then we found a smaller table that wasn't being used, so I lugged that over to where I was stationed and once again spread out, as can be seen in the photo at the head of this column. Thankfully, nobody thought to charge me or I'd have had to try and recoup the costs from the publisher.
Doors opened at 10:00 and we were busy for the next couple of hours. I had a chance to chat to other guests, to my right, author Jim Swallow, and to my left, author Roy Rivett, both on the select list of people who have written for Commando. Jim is shortly to begin writing a new Commando based on an old Warlord strip from the early 1980s. I'd better not say what, as I don't think it has been announced. Roy had some of his old issues on sale along with the original scripts, which are always fun to compare, and see how an artist has interpreted a description of a scene.
Keith Burns has been a regular at these shows for at least the past three years. He always has some gorgeous art and prints to show off. There might even be a book cover for Bear Alley in the future... I'm saying nothing!
Other guests included Christian Hauth (who has posted some photos of the event on Facebook), and actors Chris Bunn and Ross Sambridge, who were signing photos.
Always fascinating, Stuart and Ed set up a fantastic gallery with a little help from Karl Seaman and me. I said this on the day, but it's a shame the gallery was in a back room, where we used to have it at the back of the hall. I understand there were space considerations, but that doesn't alter the basic fact that some might have missed the chance to see an amazing selection of original artwork.
There were 62 people through the door, which might not sound like many, but they were came with full wallets and were prepared to spend. I'm never sure what to take. I think I took some of everything on my first show and sold only the comic strip collections; last year was exceptional as it was launch day for THE PHANTOM PATROL so that book sold especially well. Thanks to Karl's van, I decided to take a wider selection this year compared to last year, and thank goodness I did, because the indexes sold well... a couple of them actually sold out. I mean, I only had three copies of each on the table, but they sold as well as some of the comic collections.
With no new book to flog, and many of the regulars having already bought MYTEK VOLUME 3, I think the day went very well. I was about £100 down on last year, but still took a respectable amount. Costs are minimal (the table was £15) and I even won something in the raffle.
All told, a very good day for sales and an even better day for just chatting to people.
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