Unicon 2010 Uncovered

Saturday 24th April saw the Massacre bandwagon roll into Hatfield for Unicon:



The venue was, as you can see, pretty amazing. Not actually Nuremberg circa 1934 but in fact the de Havilland campus of the University of Hertfordshire.

Steve and I set our alarms for stupid o'clock, travelled by train then taxi and were all setup by the start of play at 10am:



We weren't based in the Atrium itself, but in a huge foyer next door. Still we were two tables up from Gary Erskine so in good company.

Excellent company, in fact. To our right there was Derek, owner of St Alban's comic shop Chaos City Comics and to our left we had George of Jambo fame. Derek stocked an array of marvellous graphic novels, and we were grateful he purchased Walking Wounded and then read it straight away:



He seemed to like it and that was the main thing! In fact, fingers crossed that Walking Wounded issues may be on the shelves at Chaos City soon...

My old university housemate Danny Graydon was one of the show organisers and it was great to see him there:



I was gutted to miss Danny's evening interview with Dave Gibbons, Pat Mills and Kevin O'Neil but transport timing basically made it impossible to attend :(

Along with the Massacre For Boys publications we usually hawk, Steve and I were also offering Futurequake, Zarjaz! and Dogbreath from our stall. This was no trouble at all as as the FQP team have been great to us and it was nice to be able to do something in return. Also, it gave our table an extra hook, causing visitors to pause a bit longer than maybe they usually would. Indeed, Zarjaz! in particular attracted the attention of one distinguished attendee:



So, in conclusion, it was a great show and I am very much hoping it does become an annual event and that we stay very much part of it!

Election 2010

The Eagle Awards seem to be back.

Nominations are now being sought, but as this only covers comics published in 2009 we are a bit screwed. Our 2009 publication was Massacre For Boys In Colour, and the "In Colour" suffix puts us up against the big British boys, such as 2000AD.

In my wildest dreams I don't anticipate us beating 2000AD.

Therefore this year I am not actively seeking nominations for Massacre For Boys, but instead backing Futurequake. It really is high time Futurequake won the British black and white category so please make full use of your democratic rights and Vote Futurequake.

Meanwhile, Unicon is just 6 days away.

On the Massacre table, as well as Eagle award nominated Walking Wounded and not Eagle award nominated Massacre For Boys in Colour we'll be carrying Zarjaz! and Dogbreath too. There's a pretty good case for Eagle awarding nominating these two as well, think of them as the Lib Dems of British black & white comics.

Massacre In Stereo

If Steve and I have one thing in common it's that we do like talking about our comics to anyone who will listen. This tends to happen primarily (but not exclusively) at comic shows.



This is the first time we've talked about our comics with a microphone pointed at us.

The Massacre For Boys section is 4:28 - 6:35, but listen to the whole podcast, it's ace.

One small issue: actually I speak first, not Steve. Still, I'm not sure we should really worry about that too much. Just so long as no one tries to get me to do any drawing...