Hi-Ex 2012
I spent last weekend at the fourth Highland Comics Expo, which was reasonably brilliant.
It takes place at Eden Court Theatre, and you can always tell when it's on, because the doors are suddenly guarded by Imperial Stormtroopers. There were also a lot of anime characters wandering around.
The first panel I went to was about John Higgins's Razorjack. I'll be honest, Razorjack seems a bit too blood-and-gore to interest me, but it was fascinating seeing a group of creators trying to create a multimedia character from the ground up, with novels, animation, and even original music. The goal, according to ... either Michael Carroll or Al Ewing, one of the guys doing the novels, anyway ... is to reach the point where people have "the same awareness of Razorjack as they have of Superman or Batman. Or water."
To be honest I found my mind wandering a bit during the British And Irish Comics You Should Read panel, which mostly seemed to be bemoaning either the lack of B&ICYSR, or the fact no-one was reading them. Sometimes both at the same time. I'm afraid I honestly can't recall any actual recommendations, but that's probably my memory.
The charity auction was fun. I bidded on a couple of peices of Doctor Who art, but didn't get them. (The very nice one of Eleventh, Amy and River, in the traditional "heads floating in space" style, sold for just over my self-imposed bid limit, leaving me thinking "Should've kept going.")
I didn't bid on anything else, but it was entertaining, especially the guy who kept insisting on examining every peice of artwork, and John Vaughan's comedy exasperation with having to carry them up to him. He was also the guy who bid against Al Ewing for a peice of Dredd artwork based on one of Ewing's own scripts, and then said "If you really want it, Al, I'll give it to you." Ewing responded by bidding again. The other guy bid higher. An increasingly baffled Vaughan asked if they understood how auctions worked. They both seemed to take the view that "hey, it's for charity".
Final bid was for Ewing to name a block in Mega City One after you. This started above my limit, and rapidly skyrocketed under the encouragement of Vaughan, who assured us -- as "recurring character Senior Judge Vaughan" -- that this was buying immortality.
After that it was 3:00, and I decided I could skip the art panel and get some lunch. After that, I went to the dealer's room, and decided that since I hadn't bought anything in the auction I could justify spending 15 quid on Superman: Earth One. As yet-another-Superman-origin goes, it's actually pretty good. Also picked up a few back issues from the "Oh god, I've got to sell my collection to make space!" stalls. (One day I'm going to be running one of those stalls, probably 8-(.)
Last panel on the first day was Celtic comics. This was fascinating stuff, with a mix of Scottish and Irish creators discussing whether comics were a way of preserving traditional stories. Patrick Brown (who's writing a comic based on the Ulster Cycle) commented that academics preserved traditional stories "in jars, once they're dead. I want to keep them alive, and that means they change." He also added that the Ulster Cycle was a way for Northern Irish people to identify themselves as Irish without it being a political decision. "All countries are weird in different ways. You need to keep your own weirdness alive."
There was an interesting diversion into Incredible Hulk as Doctor Jekyll, where Maura McHugh pointed out that he's arguable closer to Cú Chulainn's "warp spasm", which is also used by Sláine from 2000 AD. (Fun fact: Irish people automatically pronounce "Sláine" correctly (Slanya), despite the fact nobody at 2000 AD does.) Brown added that Hulk is one of the few superhero characters who isn't unambigously a good guy or a bad guy, which is his problem with superheroes as modern mythology: in mythology you can't say the "heroes" are always right, and therefore those who oppose them are the villains; that's not what "hero" means in this context and the chances are there are heroes on both sides.
There were Scottish people on the panel as well. Colin MacNeil was asked how he would do Braveheart and replied "Completely differently from the film!" He was rather sceptical about the possibility of Scottish superheroes, reckoning Scottish comics should find their own things to do, rather than duplicating what American comics do. And Leslie Mackenzie talked portraying Scottish history in comics and animation, saying that the problem with the animation was showing it in a way that the BBC would accept in a schools programme. MacNeil and Mackenzie also discussed whether there was any such thing as "Standad Scots", and if it would be more accurate to have comics translated into Doric, Glaswegian, etc.
That was it for the first day. The second day opened with a discussion on Comics Education. This was a bit of a round-robin session, with the audience asking questions and making suggestions. There was an interesting point made by one teacher, who used The Spirit to illustrate three-act format, and one student asked "How do I read this?" And he looked at the first panel, and saw all the complexity of a Will Eisner opening, with things happening in the background, and dynamic movement in the foreground, and speech bubbles everywhere and thought "If you haven't grown up with comics, how do you read this?"
Another teacher mentioned that her students were very sniffy about comics, and you had to call them something else like graphic novels or illustrated books. Colin MacNeil (I think; memory going again) didn't have any truck with that, and derided a comics scholar he knew who had business cards that read "panelologist". He then traced the word "comics" back to having the same route as "community"; the Greek "komos", meaning revels. Comics bring people and artforms together, and like the revels they work against the established order. (He added that this etymology has nothing to do with why comics are actually called comics, but it's still a nice interpretation)
It was also pointed out that reading a Shakespeare comic is closer to actually watching the play than reading the script is, and that anyway, Shakespeare's plays were popular entertainment at the time, and it was his poems he thought of as True Art.
Leslie Mackenzie pointed out that textbooks generally have illustrations in them because the combination of words and pictures make it easier to follow than words alone, which led someone in the audience to consider the possibility of comic textbooks. This reminded me of The Cartoon History of the Universe, which I mentioned when they asked what comics the audience would recommend for educational purposes. Unfortunately, I couldn't remember Larry Gonick's name.
This was followed by The Vault of Horror, which was basically John Vaughan's MST3King of The Swarm. This was hilarious. Highlights included the audience participation bits, such as getting us to count the seconds between the leader of the investigators taking of his helmet, and the moment he realises everyone's dead (this is after a minute-long establishing shot of everyone being dead). He also cleverly got us to the point where we were in hysterics while the screen showed children being killed by the bees, and then bellowed "What is WRONG with you people?" There was also a raffle for a mystery prize at 10p a ticket (all money to Children 1st). The prize, of course, was the DVD of The Swarm "because I'm not taking it home with me!"
Lunch, another browse of the dealers' room, and then the final panel was Expanding The Universe, which was supposed to be about prequels, sequels and spin-offs, and rapidly became a general conversation. A discussion about Star Wars spin-offs while we waited for half the panel to arrive led to Al Ewing propose the Ultimate Star Wars Marathon[1], and someone in the audience to confess to being a Jar Jar Binks fan.
Al Ewing also made some comments about how if an entirely hypothetical comic company was, for example, to reboot its entire line without having a clear direction in mind for many of its titles (such as, off the top of his head, one about a man with the powers of a hawk) that would probably be a bad idea. He also seemed happy to play devil's advocate to any position in the Before Watchmen debate, unlike Michael Carroll, whose view, put succently, was "No". As organiser Rich Clements arrived to suggest the closing ceremony was about due, Al declared the discussion would be continuing in the pub. Rich: "Like every other panel, then."
(There was a lot more discussed in that panel, but it was so free-wheeling I can't remember half of it. Oh, a debate about the earliest popular spin-off character settled on Falstaff. "But Will, didn't he die tragically in Henry IV Part 2?" "Shut up, the Queen likes him, he's getting his own comedy.")
A fun weekend, and I'm definitely looking forward to next year's. I might even get round to getting something signed!
On another note, they almost managed panel parity, but didn't. Setting aside the Razorjack panel (1/5), because that was a specific creative team, the British Comics panel was 1/4 (bad), the Celtio Comics panel was 2/5 (good), the Comics Education panel was 2/4 (great) ... until they reminded Colin MacNeil he was on the panel and dragged him on stage, making it 2/5 (good) and the Expanding The Universe panel was 0/5 because one panelist couldn't make it (very bad). I definitely got the impression they were aiming for it, though; it just hadn't worked out.
[1]The Ultimate Star Wars Marathon goes like this:
The Phantom Menace
Attack of the Clones
Every episode of The Clone Wars
Revenge of the Sith
Every episode of Droids
A New Hope
The Star Wars Holiday Special
The Empire Strikes Back
Caravan of Courage
Battle for Endor
Every episode of Ewoks
Return of the Jedi
Amazingly, someone in the audience claimed to know someone who was doing this.
It takes place at Eden Court Theatre, and you can always tell when it's on, because the doors are suddenly guarded by Imperial Stormtroopers. There were also a lot of anime characters wandering around.
The first panel I went to was about John Higgins's Razorjack. I'll be honest, Razorjack seems a bit too blood-and-gore to interest me, but it was fascinating seeing a group of creators trying to create a multimedia character from the ground up, with novels, animation, and even original music. The goal, according to ... either Michael Carroll or Al Ewing, one of the guys doing the novels, anyway ... is to reach the point where people have "the same awareness of Razorjack as they have of Superman or Batman. Or water."
To be honest I found my mind wandering a bit during the British And Irish Comics You Should Read panel, which mostly seemed to be bemoaning either the lack of B&ICYSR, or the fact no-one was reading them. Sometimes both at the same time. I'm afraid I honestly can't recall any actual recommendations, but that's probably my memory.
The charity auction was fun. I bidded on a couple of peices of Doctor Who art, but didn't get them. (The very nice one of Eleventh, Amy and River, in the traditional "heads floating in space" style, sold for just over my self-imposed bid limit, leaving me thinking "Should've kept going.")
I didn't bid on anything else, but it was entertaining, especially the guy who kept insisting on examining every peice of artwork, and John Vaughan's comedy exasperation with having to carry them up to him. He was also the guy who bid against Al Ewing for a peice of Dredd artwork based on one of Ewing's own scripts, and then said "If you really want it, Al, I'll give it to you." Ewing responded by bidding again. The other guy bid higher. An increasingly baffled Vaughan asked if they understood how auctions worked. They both seemed to take the view that "hey, it's for charity".
Final bid was for Ewing to name a block in Mega City One after you. This started above my limit, and rapidly skyrocketed under the encouragement of Vaughan, who assured us -- as "recurring character Senior Judge Vaughan" -- that this was buying immortality.
After that it was 3:00, and I decided I could skip the art panel and get some lunch. After that, I went to the dealer's room, and decided that since I hadn't bought anything in the auction I could justify spending 15 quid on Superman: Earth One. As yet-another-Superman-origin goes, it's actually pretty good. Also picked up a few back issues from the "Oh god, I've got to sell my collection to make space!" stalls. (One day I'm going to be running one of those stalls, probably 8-(.)
Last panel on the first day was Celtic comics. This was fascinating stuff, with a mix of Scottish and Irish creators discussing whether comics were a way of preserving traditional stories. Patrick Brown (who's writing a comic based on the Ulster Cycle) commented that academics preserved traditional stories "in jars, once they're dead. I want to keep them alive, and that means they change." He also added that the Ulster Cycle was a way for Northern Irish people to identify themselves as Irish without it being a political decision. "All countries are weird in different ways. You need to keep your own weirdness alive."
There was an interesting diversion into Incredible Hulk as Doctor Jekyll, where Maura McHugh pointed out that he's arguable closer to Cú Chulainn's "warp spasm", which is also used by Sláine from 2000 AD. (Fun fact: Irish people automatically pronounce "Sláine" correctly (Slanya), despite the fact nobody at 2000 AD does.) Brown added that Hulk is one of the few superhero characters who isn't unambigously a good guy or a bad guy, which is his problem with superheroes as modern mythology: in mythology you can't say the "heroes" are always right, and therefore those who oppose them are the villains; that's not what "hero" means in this context and the chances are there are heroes on both sides.
There were Scottish people on the panel as well. Colin MacNeil was asked how he would do Braveheart and replied "Completely differently from the film!" He was rather sceptical about the possibility of Scottish superheroes, reckoning Scottish comics should find their own things to do, rather than duplicating what American comics do. And Leslie Mackenzie talked portraying Scottish history in comics and animation, saying that the problem with the animation was showing it in a way that the BBC would accept in a schools programme. MacNeil and Mackenzie also discussed whether there was any such thing as "Standad Scots", and if it would be more accurate to have comics translated into Doric, Glaswegian, etc.
That was it for the first day. The second day opened with a discussion on Comics Education. This was a bit of a round-robin session, with the audience asking questions and making suggestions. There was an interesting point made by one teacher, who used The Spirit to illustrate three-act format, and one student asked "How do I read this?" And he looked at the first panel, and saw all the complexity of a Will Eisner opening, with things happening in the background, and dynamic movement in the foreground, and speech bubbles everywhere and thought "If you haven't grown up with comics, how do you read this?"
Another teacher mentioned that her students were very sniffy about comics, and you had to call them something else like graphic novels or illustrated books. Colin MacNeil (I think; memory going again) didn't have any truck with that, and derided a comics scholar he knew who had business cards that read "panelologist". He then traced the word "comics" back to having the same route as "community"; the Greek "komos", meaning revels. Comics bring people and artforms together, and like the revels they work against the established order. (He added that this etymology has nothing to do with why comics are actually called comics, but it's still a nice interpretation)
It was also pointed out that reading a Shakespeare comic is closer to actually watching the play than reading the script is, and that anyway, Shakespeare's plays were popular entertainment at the time, and it was his poems he thought of as True Art.
Leslie Mackenzie pointed out that textbooks generally have illustrations in them because the combination of words and pictures make it easier to follow than words alone, which led someone in the audience to consider the possibility of comic textbooks. This reminded me of The Cartoon History of the Universe, which I mentioned when they asked what comics the audience would recommend for educational purposes. Unfortunately, I couldn't remember Larry Gonick's name.
This was followed by The Vault of Horror, which was basically John Vaughan's MST3King of The Swarm. This was hilarious. Highlights included the audience participation bits, such as getting us to count the seconds between the leader of the investigators taking of his helmet, and the moment he realises everyone's dead (this is after a minute-long establishing shot of everyone being dead). He also cleverly got us to the point where we were in hysterics while the screen showed children being killed by the bees, and then bellowed "What is WRONG with you people?" There was also a raffle for a mystery prize at 10p a ticket (all money to Children 1st). The prize, of course, was the DVD of The Swarm "because I'm not taking it home with me!"
Lunch, another browse of the dealers' room, and then the final panel was Expanding The Universe, which was supposed to be about prequels, sequels and spin-offs, and rapidly became a general conversation. A discussion about Star Wars spin-offs while we waited for half the panel to arrive led to Al Ewing propose the Ultimate Star Wars Marathon[1], and someone in the audience to confess to being a Jar Jar Binks fan.
Al Ewing also made some comments about how if an entirely hypothetical comic company was, for example, to reboot its entire line without having a clear direction in mind for many of its titles (such as, off the top of his head, one about a man with the powers of a hawk) that would probably be a bad idea. He also seemed happy to play devil's advocate to any position in the Before Watchmen debate, unlike Michael Carroll, whose view, put succently, was "No". As organiser Rich Clements arrived to suggest the closing ceremony was about due, Al declared the discussion would be continuing in the pub. Rich: "Like every other panel, then."
(There was a lot more discussed in that panel, but it was so free-wheeling I can't remember half of it. Oh, a debate about the earliest popular spin-off character settled on Falstaff. "But Will, didn't he die tragically in Henry IV Part 2?" "Shut up, the Queen likes him, he's getting his own comedy.")
A fun weekend, and I'm definitely looking forward to next year's. I might even get round to getting something signed!
On another note, they almost managed panel parity, but didn't. Setting aside the Razorjack panel (1/5), because that was a specific creative team, the British Comics panel was 1/4 (bad), the Celtio Comics panel was 2/5 (good), the Comics Education panel was 2/4 (great) ... until they reminded Colin MacNeil he was on the panel and dragged him on stage, making it 2/5 (good) and the Expanding The Universe panel was 0/5 because one panelist couldn't make it (very bad). I definitely got the impression they were aiming for it, though; it just hadn't worked out.
[1]The Ultimate Star Wars Marathon goes like this:
The Phantom Menace
Attack of the Clones
Every episode of The Clone Wars
Revenge of the Sith
Every episode of Droids
A New Hope
The Star Wars Holiday Special
The Empire Strikes Back
Caravan of Courage
Battle for Endor
Every episode of Ewoks
Return of the Jedi
Amazingly, someone in the audience claimed to know someone who was doing this.