Bon Anniversaire, Paul Gravett!
Right now, Paul is celebrating his big day overseas, so let’s send him all the best. Below is the portrait I drew for him as a birthday gift (Paul is a fellow Stevie fan), mailed & safely received last week.
Events
London Comic Mart October 2026
Apparently, going to the London mart back in August wasn’t enough for me—so off I went again last Sunday (Oct 11th).
An earlier start this time, so Steve dropped me off at Solihull station around 8.45am. While there I took a selfie on the platform, and in nice, gentle daylight it turned out OK—apart from the horribly greying hair. I really need to put some dye onto this, stat!!
The train to Marylebone was only ten minutes late and I got in just after 11am. Paul was already waiting for me there. I had a quick coffee from Greggs and we had a quick chat, before getting on the tube heading for Euston Square.
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London Comic Mart August 2026
So, on August 16th, I visited the almost-legendary London Comic Mart at the Royal National Hotel for the first time since the autumn of 2008.
Why so long?!
I don’t know. I hadn’t been to London at all since December 2018, when Steve and I had lunch with the late movie director Norman J Warren. Norman was a very nice guy, BTW. But as to the marts… this was something I did go to semi-regularly for a number of years… the habit just lapsed, I suppose.
I met Paul G at Euston around 1pm, All the trains were running a bit late on this particular day. In spite of rumours to the contrary, London seemed about the same as the last time I saw it. The mart venue itself was not greatly changed from 18 years ago—the outdoor seating area was corralled, and I believe that wasn’t the case in ’08 (do I remember wrongly?!), but otherwise no notable changes. I had not done anything the least bit comicsy for so long, I found the mart a little disorientating for a while.
Blurry shot of the first room of the mart. Sorry, screwed this up a bit.
Glad to say, most of the mart prices were not unpardonably steep and I picked up a copy of the recent facsimile of the 1978 Superman vs. Muhammad Ali treasury special for £12.50. Strange but true: I have never previously owned a copy of this book, which in spite of the absurd concept happens to carry one of Neal Adams’s best art jobs. This was a good score, I think.
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In Conversation With… Jonathan Rigby
Aaand… here’s the second of our Manchester interviews, also being part of our “In Conversation With” series.
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Grindhouse Planet Film Festival Screening
Yesterday (Nov 27), All Bad Things was screened at the 2017 Grindhouse Planet Film Festival, at The Shed, Leicester.
This was the first public screening following the cast & crew screening last month. Here are some photos…
All Bad Things Grindhouse screening.
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All Bad Things Poster
As Steve has been busy submitting All Bad Things to various festivals, it was down to me to knock out an official poster. Natch, I went for retro…
In Conversation With… Jenny Hanley
As promised earlier, here’s the first of our Manchester interviews. It’s also part of our new “In Conversation With” series.
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All Bad Things: Cast & Crew Screening
Incidentally, today is my birthday. Don’t ask.
Last night, we had our cast & crew screening for All Bad Things, plus the two Club Vamporama shorts “Who Is Bette Noir?” and “Hail Cthulhu!”, plus we screened some early footage for the Terror at Bell’s End trailer.
We drafted in our good friend & talented author/performer, Jasper Bark, to MC the proceedings, which was held at the Victoria, Birmingham city centre. I think overall the night went very well and we had most of the cast & crew from our various projects there.
The evening kicked off with the superb local actor, William Hayes (with whom we are planning to work very soon), giving a stirring rendition of Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Tell-Tale Heart”.
Festival of Fantastic Films 2017
We went up to Manchester yesterday to attend the 28th FFF… Mr Steve Green was enlisted to interview both Jenny Hanley and Jonathan Rigby on stage, and we later filmed short interviews with both in the bar, which will be available on YouTube quite soon. Below are shots of Steve with his two interview subjects.
Birmingham Horror Group
In a break from my regular postings about the collapse of society, doom & gloom and the need for REVOLUTION NOW… we’ve just started a new horror group for Birmingham! The first meeting was on Saturday (Dec 5th). Honorary President Ramsey Campbell appeared via Skype. Pic below; click for larger version!
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