Hellblazer 180 – Page 4 (London Film & Comic Con Part 1a)

Exactly one month ago today the London Film & Comic Con took place in the Olympia exhibition space over the weekend of 5-6 July. Owing to my financial indiscipline and a bad miscalculation I had blown all the ready money I had brought with me by 4.30pm on the Saturday. This would not normally be an issue as I was there on only the Saturday but I had already contracted the great Glenn Fabry to execute a drawing in my sketchbook, and he had even written the initials “J.C.” (which on reflection could be one of two characters to whom he is closely associated) on one of the pages in readiness for when it was my turn for his convention sketch. So Glenn, if Simon Bisley, your right-hand-side neighbour in Artists Alley, did not pass on my message to you after you came back from your break (although I have absolutely no reason to believe he did not because he is a sound sound bloke) then you know that fiver I subbed you when you did not have change for a fan who had just bought a signed, personalised colour Hellblazer print from you? Could you consider that as my lost non-refundable deposit and we will start from scratch at the next convention in which I run into you? Cheers and sorry.

My advice if you are going to this convention in the future is not to leave it to the last minute to book your ticket. I did not get mine until the Thursday before because I was anxious that the one creator I wanted to see was going to cancel at the last minute just as Jack Kirby, Gene Colan and Adam Hughes had at earlier cons I had been to. Their pulling out did not seem too bad at the time (although I have obviously missed my chance to ever meet the first two) because there were many other artists and writers I was keen to see for the first time at those cons but as far as this London multimedia convention went I had pretty much seen, met, spoken to, got a drawing from every other big-name creator who was appearing. When Thursday rolled around and I found that only whole weekend tickets were then available (except for single-day entry from 2.30pm by which time it would be almost all over for that day; and £400 Golden Tickets which granted you special privileges in meeting Film and TV celebrities, which I had little interest in) I decided I had better pull the trigger then which was just as well as by that evening even those had all been sold. It worked out fine in the end because being in possession of a full-weekend ticket allowed me on-the-day to fast-track entry which meant that I was first in the queue as soon as the doors opened to see the one creator (who I will get to in a later upload on CAF) I was laser-focused on meeting. When that encounter was put to bed with me managing to commission a convention sketch I explored the rest of the floor – upstairs for Comics, and downstairs for Film and TV.

I timed things perfectly then as soon after I managed to see Mike Carey in his hour-long signing stint. He is most famous in the outside world as the author of the book The Girl with All the Gifts, which was later turned into a film for which he also wrote the screenplay. When this movie came out in 2016 I had to travel 30 miles to see it because it was too arty for my local multiplex. The film is a worthy addition to the zombie genre although like a number of zombie films I have seen the film’s ending is a bit of a downer. For anybody unfamiliar with Mike Carey’s comics work the two already-published series he says he is most proud of are My Faith in Frankie with art by Sonny Liew and Marc Hempel, and the long run he had on Lucifer with art by Peter Gross. The big news to me was that after taking what seems to have been a bit of a break from comics he has a comeback comic called Cul de Sac from Bad Idea Comics due out this month, August, with art by – drum roll, please – Jonathan Wayshak. Everyone on CAF should run out and get this and make Jonathan Wayshak the comics megastar he truly deserves to be. Those of us who have been following him from if not the start of his career but earlier than most everyone else can then feel suitably smug.

However, I am most familiar with Mike Carey’s work through his distinguished run on Hellblazer with art by Marcelo Frusin to begin with and then Leonardo Manco. MC seemed to be both pleased and surprised to be presented with and asked to sign these two pages from his first Hellblazer arc. Thank you, Mike, and it was a pleasure to meet and talk to you.