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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.

London Comic Mart August 16 2026
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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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”.

All Bad Things Screening William Hayes October 2017
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Birthday

Yeah, it’s my birthday today. Still not too late to send me a gift via PayPal if you think I’m groovy… or something off my Amazon Wishlist, if you like…

Did manage to attend the local Grey Lodge horror meet in Acocks Green (the Spread Eagle) last night. Oddly enough, didn’t talk about horror much, although I did suggest bedroom farce + giallo as a dubious combination of genres. (Not entirely sure whether or not Lucio Fulci managed to do this somewhere or other.)
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Brighton Comic Expo Report

I have been somewhat tired and distracted, but I thought it was about time I posted the full Brighton Comic Expo details on here!

On the whole, it was a fabulous weekend. Last Friday (18th) was a late afternoon set-off for me, leaving for Brum at 5pm. This was a bit later than planned, so a taxi was needed to speed things along. Travel the whole weekend was expensive, coming to a total of just under £95 in the end! Anyhow, in spite of the lateness I got into London, Euston at 7.30pm and met up with Paul. From there, it took us another hour-and-a-half to finally get to Brighton and check into the Hilton Metropole (where the Expo itself was being held).

Here’s a Saturday sea front view…

Brighton Beach November 19 2005
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