Edinburgh Afterword

The obligatory photo of the table is a testament to the grim reality that we were surviving on our own merits at the Edinburgh Zines & Small Press Fair yesterday. Through a lack of copies, or sheer incompetence, we had no work by any of our lovely colaborators and chums from the Newcastle Comics Forum. There was only Nightbus and Aide-Mémoire. We brough some copies of Pope, but shifted not one. My sketchbook obscures them in the photo. Perhaps we'll not bother next time. Perhaps that will provide impetus to do some more work.

If any of you read Penny Arcade, you'll know they due to being sundered from scanners while at San Diego Comic Con, they photograph the comic straight from the sketchbook. Edinburgh being our San Diego, we decided to rip off their idea.


We had a less than profitable day, less so than at Thing, but the ramshackle atmosphere was appropriate, and because there were less tables than at London, there was time to have a good look round everything. Also, Stephen, the organiser chap was very pleasant. I understand that's not required of the organisers of these events, but it is appreciated when it happens.

We met the boys from Mallard, for the first time despite them operating from Durham, 10 minutes away from us via the train. The latest Mallard is a jolly good read, with lots of reflective moments and a healthy balace between comics and prose. As with all anthologies, there are weak points, but the quality stuff is strong enough to keep it afloat. That was not a duck metaphor.


Magda Boreysza is a tremendous artist and the second issue of Toasty Cats has moments reminiscent of Olivia Plender and all that Le Gun stuff. I had the pleasure of doing a bit of a colaborative comic with Magda which was lots of fun.

We also had a few pub themed words with Stuart Murray, who looked a lot like my old English teacher and draws wonderful, humourous observations in a scratchy hand not unlike Nick Whitmore's Private Eye and Journal gag cartoons.

Anyway, we had a good one, more on the networking side, than the monetary side. Maybe one day we'll settle down and just go straight for the cash rather than making friends. So what have we learnt? 1) Talking to people is not as scary as we once thought it was. 2) More comics that are friendly to this kind of event, Nightbus does quite well, and we should crack on with number two, but something small like Aide-Mémoire that goes in the gap between artist's book and comic may be the way forward. 3) Maybe we should have had free stuff.



























The Forest Shop also took a few copies of Nightbus to sell and we are very pleased to recommend you go there for a cuppa and a read, should you find yourself in Auld Reekie.