I’ve gone every year since 2005, except 2006 (when it clashed with a trip to LA for E3), but every year I attended to officially represent NCsoft. What started in 2005 as a couple of us stuck in a corner trying to flog City of Heroes (without actually selling it) culminated last year in a big ol’ stand with practically an artistic production-line to handle the pencilling, inking, scanning, colouring and printing of player sketches. Without a doubt, in terms of our professional ambitions, Bristol 2008 was our high point. As a fun weekend away for me personally though, this year is the hands-down winner.

Despite that, we definitely fulfilled our primary purpose: to help out Andrew Wildman once more with Draw the World Together. Mat and I couldn’t be happier to help, but as always, there were a lot of people who made things happen.

First and foremost was Mike Allwood, Expo organiser, who gave us the space and time we needed to sketch in. It was no easy feat, as with this year’s Expo being squeezed into the Ramada Hotel (with overspill at the nearby Mercure) it was hard to swing a cat, let alone get half-a-dozen artists to sketch in one room. Mike also ensured that our most generous supporters could get into the Expo, even after tickets were officially sold out. As always whenever I saw Mike over the weekend he was a picture of relaxed calm amongst the chaos, and went above and beyond to help things run smoothly.

DTWT doesn’t really work without Andrew Wildman at the centre of things though – even though he’d say he’s not the most important part! As always Andrew pulled strings, stroked egos and generally hustled to get a great group of artists to sit and sketch. He’s a diamond geezer, as anyone will attest to, and of course he sketched more than a few things on the day too.

Mat and I? We just turned up, really. So let’s kick back with the traditional, chronological, rambling retelling….

Travelling light

As we were paying for our own hotel room, Mat and I chose to head down on Saturday morning and stay one night. Luckily Mat owns his own wheels, so that also cut down our weekend costs considerably. Saying that, it might have contributed to the first, ahem, ‘bump in the road’ of the weekend: getting a flat tyre on the M25.

After a quick, invigorating stop on the hard shoulder where the ol’ teamwork skills kicked straight in to help us change the wheel in PDQ time, we resumed the long drive onwards to Bristol, our old friend ‘Jane the GPS System’ bringing us to the hotel. As we stepped out of the car in the Ramada’s car park, Andrew and Lesley Wildman arrived too, so we all entered the Expo at the same time.

Call it what you like – Convention Fug, or Eau De Fanboi perhaps – but there’s a distinctive smell when you get a lot of con attendees together in an enclosed space. While not distinctly unpleasant, it was very obvious when we stepped into the Ramada’s lobby. That was because everything was already in full swing, with a crowded signing area proving the trickiest part of the small Expo floor to navigate during the whole weekend.

We found Expo management easily enough, and after a trip to Andrew’s room to drop off our stuff (as our own room wasn’t ready) we wandered around for a while, Andrew handing out sketch cards and pads to any artist who was interested in drawing on ‘em for charity. I spied Mike Collins sketching up a storm on one table, so dropped by to say hi; I realised quickly that he, like a few of the other artists, was unaware that I’m supposed to be emigrating. Yes, it can be a bit surprising.

Before too long, we ended up over at the nearby Mercure, the hotel we’d stayed at in 2007 and 2008. This year it was playing host to the Small Press Expo. Little brother to the generally more commercial offerings at the Ramada, the SPE offered the chance for anyone with an indy comic, ‘zine or random product to come and plug it.

After noting that Kevin O’Neill was present, signing and sketching the new volume of The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, 1910 (which we said we’d come back to later), we eventually managed to prise Andrew away from talking to Simon Wyatt and friends at the Insomnia Comics stand, and went downstairs to get some lunch. (Simon contributed the fantastic sketch of Donna Troy for our auction you see here – check out his blog and his deviantART page.)

Another pleasant coincidence brought Andie Tong to our table for lunch, so we ate and caught up, with me explaining the boring intricacies of UK-US emigration, and everyone else listening politely. Eventually it got to be ‘about that time’, and we headed back to the Ramada for the so-called ‘Sketch-a-thon’, as Mike Allwood had dubbed it!

More ‘sketch’ than ‘thon’

After standing around being British in our designated room for a bit (hinting strongly that Alan Davis, superstar artist though he may be, needed to vacate the premises… without actually saying so) we got to work with our remarkably meagre resources.

No van full of stock this time for us, no ubiquitous black boxes of ‘stuff’ ready for any occasion. Instead, we ended up getting our Draw The World Together banner up on a wall by ingeniously re-purposing the cords for the window blinds. It was a crazy plan, but hey, it worked.

As if by magic, suddenly artists appeared; and not just the welcome familiar faces of Neil Edwards, Kat Nicholson and Jason Cardy. We had newcomers too; Stephen Baskerville, an old friend of Andrew’s who’d inked his work for many years, took a seat and got straight to work. Lee Bradley sat quietly at the end of the long table and turned out sketches without complaint. We even had David ‘V for Vendetta’ Lloyd for a while, who accidentally ended up facing the door – and as a result, probably just drew his trademark ‘V’ sketch more times than he cared for. But what the hell, every one of them earned us cash. With extra chairs and tables secured, and then with the arrival of Laura Howell to sketch as well, I realised we had more artists (eight!) than we had customers!

Luckily for us, some of those customers (Torsten, Paul, Ben and Rebecca) were regulars, and were ready and willing to donate plenty of money, so pencils flew and pens scratched as everyone got down to business. Unlike the previous couple of years, we had no scanner on hand to capture the sketches, so that meant no colouring and of course nothing I can show to you here (yet). I saw some excellent work though, from all of those involved.

For myself, I got Captain America immortalised by Neil Edwards and a Black Widow by Lee Bradley. I would have potentially gotten more, but my budget only stretched so far – and frankly, I wanted to get sketches from elsewhere around the Expo. For one, both Mat and I had sworn oaths that we would not leave the con without getting a sketch by Andie Tong; after all, we’d waited since BICS 2007!

Time passed, sketches got done, and before long between the amount of artists we had and the lack of foot traffic (our room was well away from the main floor) we had something of a lull, so said goodbye and thank you to a few artists. We rounded up a few more customers, but generally it was a little less intense than previous years. Which was fine with all of us, really; the objective wasn’t to try and top any previous amount we’d raised, but instead to see if the Draw The World Together idea would work with little to no ‘corporate support’, and it seemed to do just fine.

So fine, in fact, that I felt happy to wander off at times, although generally I was going on some errand or other. On one particular trip I dropped by to see Mike Collins again, as I’d been meaning to see if he had copies of A Christmas Carol to sell. (At last year’s show, he’d been working on pages from the book, and I really wanted to read the finished product.) He didn’t have any – but then a little later on another pass, he said “I’ve got something for you” and produced a full-page ‘pin-up’ style image of the Flash. I thought, understandably, he was offering it for auction – but he said no, it was for me. “Because you’re going away.” Chuffed? I certainly was.

A second Mike Collins-related bit of good fortune happened later. A gentleman wandered into the sketch room and asked for me by name; he said Mike had sent him over because he’d said I wanted to pick up A Christmas Carol. Turns out he was Clive Bryant, publisher of Classical Comics. He produced two copies of the graphic novel – one the ‘Original Text’ (ie, all dialogue as Dickens had wrote it) and one the ‘Quick Text’ and asked me to pick one. Taking the ‘Original Text’ (of course) I asked how much I owed him, being happy to pay – and he gave it to me for free! Chuffed? Again, I was. So huge thanks to both Mike Collins and Clive Bryant for making my weekend with their generosity.

When 5pm rolled around we held a raffle to see who’d win the ‘mega-goodie bag’ put together by Mike Allwood; perhaps unsurprisingly Torsten clinched it, which was appropriate given the amount of money he’d donated (and hence the number of raffle tickets he had!). With that done, we put our pencils away for the weekend, and got ourselves ready for the evening’s event… a charity auction!

Auctions for fun and profit

Our organisation for the auction pretty much amounted to “Moving what we have to auction to the room we’re going to auction in”, so we didn’t exactly look slick. Still, we had more people turn up than I expected, even if many of them just seemed to want to look at the art, and not bid on anything.

Regardless, somehow it seemed to work, and later that evening it turned out that we’d made over £200 from the auction alone, which is pretty good considering how many Transformers toys we had… highlights included auctioning a number of the infamous sketch cards (contributed since 2007, only sold once before!!) and also saying goodbye to Boo Cook’s excellent Manticore sketch (hope it looks good in Ben and Rebecca’s house) as well as the Simon Wyatt sketch seen above, which I almost nabbed myself.

Combining the auction cash with the £300 or so we’d made in the afternoon, and we’d made over £500 for one day’s work – which is pretty amazing given we’d just sketched for three hours (with less than the usual crowds!). We were all well-pleased, and felt quite justified in taking ourselves off to the bar for a swift drink.

I was surprised how much I ached when I sat down that night – a sign of encroaching age, I fear, dear readers – and did wonder just how I’d managed this in previous years. Regardless it had been worth the effort for all the usual reasons; getting to watch artists work for charity, raising the money, seeing old friends, and engaging in mindless chit-chat about games and comics and movies. Even better, the always-present spectre of trying to make some money and sell some games was gone, so all-in-all, it was a far less stressful con than previously.

Dinner for 13

A rag-tag group of us quickly formed in the bar, and off we went to try and find dinner. Simon Furman, writer of all things Transformers (amongst others) led the way, and it turned out he was aiming to take us to the same curry house we have ended up in at least twice in Bristol, The Raj. Finding out that was full, however, we crossed the street and got lucky in Myristica, which might sound like a pulp fantasy setting, but actually is another Indian restaurant.

It turned out to be a serendiptious decision however, as the food was excellent, we got our own ‘private room’, and were waited on hand and foot by the attentive staff. It was easily the best curry I’ve had in Bristol (although The Raj was a close second) and made even better by the presence of friends all around. The only slight downside was that Mike Collins and Neil Edwards hadn’t been able to join us, having family and work commitments. This being our traditional Saturday night Expo curry, however, I felt they were there in spirit.

Naturally, with our bellies utterly stuffed with curry, it was only right after we left the restaurant that we’d head back to the Ramada bar, traditionally jammed with comics fans on Saturday night. This year it was actually a little less busy than I’d been used to, but still had enough people at the bar to make getting a drink a very long process.

Gradually people began to drop off to bed, but Mat and I ‘stayed the course’ mostly out of bloody-mindedness than any rational reasoning. We ended up sharing a corner with Paul, who was croaking to an assorted group of UK comics podcasters. When the clock struck midnight however, Mat and I duly decided we’d ‘gone the distance’ and crept up to bed. We’re not getting any younger here, people.

Any given Sunday

The next morning, after a long, leisurely breakfast with Andrew and Lesley, Mat and I had the unusual freedom to wander around the Expo, with no stand beckoning us back after a few minutes. It was kind of weird.

Partially, it was because the Expo was so much smaller this year. A couple of small rooms, a corridor, one big dealer’s room and that was pretty much it; you could get around the whole thing in minutes. So we did, pinpointing stands and artists we wanted to visit later. One notable absentee was Mr Andie Tong, who was nowhere to be seen; Mat and I decided he’d probably fled, knowing we were coming to get our sketches or else. We decided instead to head to the Mercure so we could pick up copies of LOEG 1910 and get Kevin O’Neill to sign – only to remember as we exited the Mercure’s lift that the Small Press Expo was running on Saturday only. D’oh!

A quick about face back to the Ramada, and we said goodbye to Andrew and Lesley for the second time, as they drove off home. Now we were left to our own devices, and duly split up. After some consideration I got in a short line to get a sketch from Dylan Teague, and Mat went shopping. While I watched Dylan create some excellent art and wondered exactly what I’d get him to sketch, in what I can only call an insane coincidence, I ran into my old friend Liam, who was down from London for the day. We chatted for a bit, catching up on the past few years, as I moved slowly to the front of the line.

In the meantime Mat returned from shopping and Andie Tong Watch, telling me that the mysterious man had not popped up on his previous stand. Figuring that possibly Andie had gone home, when Dylan asked me what I wanted to have sketched I suggested Marvel’s Spider-Woman, as I’d been thinking about getting Andie to do the same. Dylan did a very nice job even though he wasn’t too familiar with the character, and I went away happy.

Queuing for Dylan had pretty much taken it out of me, though, and Mat wasn’t interested in queuing himself. Instead I did a bit of shopping, picking up three massive volumes of Judge Dredd reprints for just £25 from the Rebellion stand.

With those in hand we were just about ready to leave – but not before we ran into Kat Nicholson for one last chat. She showed us some sample pages from the adaptation of A Midsummer Night’s Dream that her and Jason Cardy are doing for Classical Comics. As most of the time Kat and Jason are colourists, this is an exciting step forward for them. Essentially they’re ‘digitally painting’ the book, with of course the script coming from ol’ Bill himself. Quite a challenge I’d imagine, but they have 10 months to get it right!

Saying our goodbyes, Mat and I headed for the lobby, resigning ourselves to another con without a Tong sketch. “You know,” I said as we headed for the doors, “this is when we’ll run right into him as we leave.”

And who did we run right into? Andie himself, on the phone with Andrew Wildman, trying to figure out how to get his own Draw The World Together donation over to Andrew. This was obviously fate, so Andie immediately promised his first two sketches to us. Hurrah!

What’s the big deal?

You might be wondering why getting a sketch from Andie was a big deal to us. He’s hellishly talented, that’s for sure, but the real truth is that we’d just been too nice for too long.

Andie first turned up out of the blue at the Birmingham International Comics Show (BICS) in 2007, where he wowed us with his work. (In fact, I seem to recall he wowed the other artists quite a bit, too.) However, as was always our policy at shows, everyone on the NCsoft staff held back from getting a sketch done on the day – just so we could ensure that you lot got your sketches first. Sure, our money was as good as anyone’s, but if there were customers before us in the queue, they came first.

As you might understand over the years this was a particularly hard policy to stick to, especially when artists like Andie were drawing their hearts out right in front of our eyes. So more than a few artists graciously did sketches for us outside of shows, including Andie himself; you can see the Aero he did for Chris here, and Mat also got a surprise Transformers sketch at one point. I, however, through fate or luck or whatever, had never ‘gotten a Tong’.

So down Andie sat, and Mat, who already knew what he wanted, ponied up for a full-colour sketch of, erm, Marvel’s Ms. Marvel – with all the money promised by Andie to DTWT. Mat and I happily settled in for the long haul, knowing the sketch would take a while but content to watch Andie work. As always it was a pleasure; confident, fluid lines, intuitive shading and in Mat’s case, some lovely layered colours combined to form a thing of beauty. (Update: added Mat’s scan, left.)

Leaving me to ponder was probably a mistake, however, as we also happened to be standing next to Charlie Adlard’s table (told you it was a small Expo) who was selling copies of a telephone book-sized compendium of The Walking Dead for just £15. Being a sucker for post-apocalypse stories – but an even bigger sucker for monster bargains – I snapped up a copy, leaving me just enough money to get a sketch from Andie, but in black and white.

That just wasn’t going to cut it for Spider-Woman, and besides, I already had a sketch of her from Dylan. Mat suggested Batgirl as an alternative – Barbara Gordon, natch – and Andie went to work, creating a fantastic sketch that I’ll proudly put on my wall next to Mike’s donated Flash.

With both of our sketches completed, we had very little reason to hang around – and little money to spend, anyway. We clambered back into Mat’s car, rolled down the windows, cranked the tunes and set the GPS for ‘Home’.

The last Expo?

As we headed home, Mat bearing the brunt of the driving while I occasionally made a semi-intelligent remark, I didn’t think too heavily about the fact that this may have been my last Bristol Comic Expo. After all, this time next year I’ll be Stateside (Come hell or high water!) and while I’d love to say my new company would exhibit at future shows, I really doubt that’s the case. (But never say never.)

However if this weekend was the last time I head down the M4 corridor towards Bristol, with blues-rock playing and sun streaming through the windows, well – it was a great way to go out. In a way it felt like things had come full circle from where we started; we started as a two-man operation, and to there we returned.

Comic Expo – and comics shows in general – have given me some excellent memories in the last few years, and for that I’m eternally grateful to everyone who’s ever attended a show, drawn a sketch, bought a game or just hung out in the bar with me. Hopefully, I’ll see you at another venue before too long.

For now though, if you’ll excuse me, I have some light reading to get to.

Extra: Pictures!

Thanks to Torsten, who took pictures of the sketching and also a few of the auction, here’s a gallery to enjoy. Thanks for sharing, Torsten!

[Show as slideshow]

However, one thing will be the same: Mat and I will be trying to help raise some charity cash for Draw The World Together, although we’ll be doing the easy bit (Taking your donations and keeping people fed and watered) while our amazing volunteer comic artists do the hard stuff, ie drawing your characters.

On top of the sketching – we also have some fantastic original art that we’ll probably be auctioning, in some ad hoc fashion, over the weekend. If we don’t get rid of something at the show, we’ll auction it online afterwards.

Unfortunately as we left the decision to attend so late this year – blame me for that, with imminent visa interviews putting everything on hold – by the time we said we were going, tickets were pretty much sold out. (The Expo’s moved – for one year only, I understand, to the much smaller hotel nearby, so capacity is limited.) I apologise to all of you who are anxious to get sketches – but fingers crossed, Andrew Wildman will return to Bristol (and other shows) to do the same thing.

As well as trying to raise some cash for DTWT I’m also going to the Expo, well, to see the Expo! I was there in 2004, 2005, 2007 and 2008 and never got to sit on any panels, or spend much time wandering around the hall. So this time, at last, I’ll get the chance.

Last but not least… this will be my last show in the UK for a while. I’m hoping to return later this year (Stay tuned for what and when….) but for a while, at least, this will be my last chance to meet up with You People. You know who you are…. and you know the drill! It should be a lot of fun.

Here’s how this weekend’s going to break down, then…

Saturday

• Mat and I are going to travel down to Bristol, leaving at some ungodly hour
• We’re going to explore the Expo a bit, find Andrew…
• … and set up for Draw the World Together at 3pm
• We’ll have a group of artists sketching between 3pm and 5pm – with others around the Expo sketching for us
• We’ll knock off at 5pm ish, unless we can go on longer – you know we’ll try and drag it out!
• After we hit the bar – inevitably – we’ll end up at a curry house. Suggestions?

Sunday

• Wandering to and fro in the Expo itself, doing the traditional comic convention thing!

If you can make it down there, make sure you come by. It’s a small event so I’m sure it won’t be too hard to locate us!

If you can’t get a ticket for the Expo but still want to come down – to get food in the evening or whatever – then get in contact with me and we’ll sort things out.

Prepare for awesomeness!!!

(Image by Mat 'Snapshot' Keller. Who else??)

It’s on, baby!!!

To recap the entire day’s events in more detail and give you all the info you need…

(Optional) Activity One: Fiery Food UK

This weekend is the Fiery Food Festival in ol’ Brighton, which means a whole host of spicy, flavourful and downright delicious foods will be on display to be tasted, sampled, feasted upon and bought whole to take home. It’s completely free to come along, browse, and enjoy some great food.

Amanda and I have been going to this for the last few years and it’s always fun. So, assuming that it’s not peeing down with rain (and forecast suggests it won’t be) then we’ll be around and about The Old Steine, which is basically the bit of grass between the town centre and Kemptown, from around 10, 11am onwards.

I’d say “Here’s my mobile, come find us” but I won’t have a new mobile before tomorrow, and this is the internet, what do you think I am, some crazy fool who just gives out his mobile?

More details on the event are right here.

Activity Two: Tropic Thunder!!

We’ve been looking forward to this movie for months, and I’ll be damned if some ‘redundancy’ nonsense is going to stop me from seeing it!! So, please feel free to join us after a (probably hot ‘n’ spicy) lunch for the 3pm showing at the Odeon on West Street. (No West Street jokes, please.)

We’ve booked our tickets in the ‘standard’ seating area, so feel free to do so as well. Book either by visiting www.odeon.co.uk or calling 0871 22 44 007, or indeed just turning up on the day – just don’t blame us if they’re sold out….

Not heard of Tropic Thunder? Feel free to get more info on the movie… right here.

Activity Three: Drinking!! Eating!! Drinking some more!!

Movie should probably finish about 5pm or so, and that gives us more than enough time to saunter across town and head for Moksha Caffe, the (in)famous haunt where I spend more time than is probably healthy. But, all that coffee drinking is finally about to pay off, because the wonderful people there are ready to welcome us with open arms.

What’s that you say? A cafe surely doesn’t serve sweet, sweet booze? WELL THIS ONE DOES… including fabulous caffeinated cocktails (which will be available in a 2-for-1 deal for part of the evening), beers, wines, that wonderful Kopparberg Pear Cider that I know I’ll be getting trashed on, and food as well!!

Seriously, they’re going to treat us right.

During the evening it’s quite possible all or none of the following may happen:

• An impromptu quiz, with all questions focused on dead roleplaying game designers we have loved*
• An auction on behalf of Draw the World Together (You better believe it – cash only, please!)
• A Q&A session which will be notable for the amount of ‘Qs’ asked that get no ‘As’

It’ll be a cracker. If you come for one part of the evening, make it this one. Unless that is you’re a complete insomniac, in which case, HAVE I GOT AN EVENING ACTIVITY FOR YOU…

Activity Four: Gaming Until Your Eyes Fall Out

Yes, our old friends at Gamer Heaven (who have moved premises – this is very important to note if you went to the meet we did at the old Gamer Heaven in 2006…) have allowed us to host an all-night gaming lock-in!!

Starting at (about) 10pm, for just £10 entrance fee you can kick back, relax, and play games ALL NIGHT LONG on their LAN, enjoying some City of Heroes (maybe I’ll even do a Task Force!!), Guild Wars, or indeed Other Games from Other Companies. On top of that they have consoles – there may even be some (whisper it) Rock Band.

In case you haven’t figured it out yet, by the way: if you’re looking for somewhere to spend the night in Brighton (admittedly, without a bed, but hey, those chairs are soft)… this is your best option.

Check out the Gamer Heaven site here.

That’s it! What more do you need to know?

Oh yeah: where everything is.

Enter Google Maps, baby! Click here for all the local info.

One last VERY important thing

TELL ME IF YOU’RE COMING. I need numbers, both for Moksha and for Gamer Heaven. (If we get enough, we might get the run of Moksha, which’d be nice.)

Either leave a comment below, or if you can’t comment for some reason, send me an email – details are on the Contact page.

Oh no wait, there was one more tiny thing

That image above? Available in LIMITED EDITION POSTER FORM (well, printed A4 sheets…) on Saturday night. We are that shameless!

SEE YOU THERE!!!

Let’s start with a quick recap of…

Friday 30th May

Just two weeks after our last VanQuest we were off again, feeling a distinct sense of déja vu as we assembled at the car hire place, packed the van and ended up at Oxford Services for lunch. I find it slightly worrying that I’ve considered – twice – getting a ‘Frequent Customer’ card at the coffee place there.

A series of unexplained slowdowns on the M25 delayed us a bit, but apart from that we made good time, pulling into the Clarendon Suites’ car park before 5pm. Then it was a quick and easy unload, followed by a stress-free setup, the only slight kink being that we had to ‘haXX0r’ the wifi password for the venue.

The fact that we could hack it sort of speaks volumes…

We were out by 7:30pm, trundled across the road to our hotel and checked in, agreeing to meet again for dinner. The room was functional and pleasant enough, but inexplicably hot – hotter than the warm summer’s day we’d come out of.

“Are your rooms hot?” was pretty much the first thing I asked Mat and Chris on return to the lobby. Both agreed that they were. Unsure whether it was some sort of hotel-wide thing or just us, we foolishly decided not to say anything, at least for the night. TGI Friday’s beckoned… not because it’s particularly good, just because it was close. We ate and drank and ended up in the local pub, along with a few other exhibitors we recognised. A couple of beverages later and we strolled back to the hotel… to still-hot rooms.

Day One: Saturday 31st May

I woke at 5:30am. Not because I was eager, just because I was hot.

Looking back on it, the fact that I didn’t go raise a stink with the management seems extraordinarily stupid, but then I’m not where I was then: tired, uninterested in moving rooms, and so on. Unable to go back to sleep but also not really awake enough to do anything constructive, I surfed the web for a couple of hours.

Eventually I ended up at breakfast, listening to Mat and Chris also admit they hadn’t slept well. Nonetheless with a bit of coffee and a lot of willpower we roused ourselves and headed over to the Expo, after a short detour via a pub back garden.

Moving briskly along

Last year, the UK Games Expo surprised us. Quite a lot. A first-time show, we weren’t expecting that many attendees or that many sales, but we got both. We also got surprised by how unpopular our friend Reyna the Ranger was, as she made her debut – while she certainly wasn’t ignored, she wasn’t swamped either. We put the lack of fans down to the generally timid nature of most hardcore gamers, but when it came to this year, we decided to switch her out for Draw the World Together, instead. Sorry, Reyna.

As a result we had a slightly smaller stand, but not by a lot. We were also now lacking the six-or-so PCs that we’d brought with us the previous year, which meant that personal demos weren’t going to be possible. This show was going to be a test of my theory that hands-on customer demos aren’t needed to sell games (although yes, they can be nice). With Draw the World Together raising charity money, and a full range of games and merchandise to sell (some newly reduced in price) I knew we had a good offering going into Saturday morning.

Even so, I got surprised again. Trade started briskly and just kept getting brisker; inside two hours I was staring at the takings thinking that if the trend continued, we’d be taking home well beyond what we made last year. That thought obviously jinxed us, as post-lunch, things started to slow well down.

My day was brightened up by many of the usual faces turning up to see us though, and I spent the morning chatting with Wild Red (Hazel), Crimson Archer (Paul), Shadowe (Ben), Pix (Rebecca) and Callista (Paul). All of them got sketches and most brought food, which was awesome as always. I also spoke to a few other players who’d I’d either met at previous shows, or had talked to on the boards, which is always good. I like to see new faces, although of course we love to see the familiar, too.

On the Draw the World Together side, apart from a slow start thanks to A Certain Artiste forgetting to bring his pencils (!!), things went as smoothly as ever. We were joined for the first time by Karl Kopinski, who after drawing just one sketch had Chris and I both reaching for our wallets.

Neil Edwards was of course there as well, drawing up a storm – he started the day with a Superman which was just outstanding (seen left). And it wouldn’t be Draw the World Together without Andrew Wildman, who believe it or not actually found himself with some free time during the day, which he used to create some lovely sketch cards which we’ll hopefully, one day, auction off.

Later on in the afternoon we even had Andrew’s lovely wife Lesley come down to join us, who occupied her time doing ‘flats’ (AKA ‘flat colours’) for Andrew’s new Frontier strip, which will be debuting in new British comic The DFC in September. With her and the other artists, we had a nice little art factory brewing, and plenty of interest from punters, which is what we always want. We even sold a few more Draw the World Together sketchbooks left over from Bristol (and yes, we have more).

You are the luckiest

The artistic highlight of the day, undoubtedly, came from Karl Kopinski’s hand. Here’s how it happened.

I suggested to Andrew that we ask Karl to come down and sketch at UK Games Expo only a couple of weeks before the show. Both of us had met Karl for the first time at the one-day show we did in Loughborough last year. He’d seemed like a nice guy – and extremely talented – so why not, right? Thanks to Andrew’s persuading skills, Karl said he’d come down for a day. Probably a good idea, that.

Y’see, it’s always a little scary for us to bring a new artist into the Draw the World Together ‘fold’. We never know how they’re going to react, or indeed how they’re going to be received. To date we’ve had no freak-outs, no freeze-ups or similar – touch wood. Our fear is probably nothing compared to theirs, however.

When an artist commits to coming to sketch for us, they’re basically asked to come along, sit down, and put in six to eight hours of work for charity (ie, for free; we pay their expenses). Every sketch they do is created from scratch. Almost all of them are based on character designs that they’ve not seen until minutes before they start drawing. And quite often, they have the person who plays that character standing right there as they draw.

(Incidentally that person, in many cases, will also have a stronger emotional connection to their character than to anything in pop culture; after all they created them, and have played them for countless hours, too. It’s sort of like Stan Lee getting Spider-Man drawn for the first time, if he’d only written prose about him for forty years.)

Considering all this it’s a miracle we don’t have more artists throwing up their arms and walking out, or more players looking at their completed sketch and going “What? Webbing under his arms? Are you insane??” It’s a testament to how good the artists are, at essentially divining what a player wants to see in their sketch just about every time. They work their asses off.

So. We come to Karl, and Paul, and Callista.

Paul’s been to quite a few of our shows, as even a cursory search of our Flickr stream reveals. He’s a pretty big fan. He was also one of the earliest customers of Draw the World Together, and if memory serves, was possibly the very first player I saw sporting a t-shirt with a DTWT rendering of their character on it. He obviously loves his character, and why not.

With all that in mind, we shouldn’t have been surprised that he’d eventually ask for a picture of himself with his character, Callista. (Sketches of players are rare, by the way. Sketches of players-as-characters are sort-of-rare, but it’s happened.) That he chose to ask Karl to draw it was just dumb freaking luck.

He didn’t just want himself and Callista though; he wanted another character, Lilit, as well. Three characters in one sketch = a £45 donation, so we were quite happy to take that money for EveryChild, and Paul was happy to pay it. Karl, on the other hand, apparently decided to give Paul his money’s worth.

It took quite a while, perhaps over an hour; the passage of time’s always hard to discern at these shows. Every now and again Chris would beckon me over, with a familiar “Look at what he’s drawing!” expression on his face. I couldn’t quite see, and eventually fought my way through our cramped surroundings to get a peek over Karl’s shoulder. I couldn’t quite believe it; Paul was right there on paper.

Paul was also standing right there watching. I looked at him. “You are one lucky son of – ”

“I know,” he interrupted, for sake of decency. He looked very pleased, but also a little scared; as if he didn’t want to break the spell, to stop Karl drawing as he began to work on the figure on ‘his’ shoulder.

As for myself, I was astounded. This is why we started working with Draw the World Together. This is what we can do, at our best. This is why I love my job.

Paul was happy.

Saturday night’s alright for eatin’

Not long after that artistic miracle, Karl faded into the sunset, his work done – promising us that he’d try to return for Memorabilia. Believe you me, he’s near the top of our ‘artist hitlist’.

As for the rest of us, first day was over. Cash was counted, and was respectable in total. We packed up, did the usual stock checks, and agreed to meet the ‘Usual Suspects’, plus the remaining artists, over at the hotel in good time.

We walked over, laden down with bags, talking about the day. It had been smooth, pretty much, and all of us were happy with how it had gone. As we arrived we marvelled at Neil Edwards’ spectacular lack of timing. To his credit, he pretty much hadn’t stopped sketching all day; unfortunately that meant when he came to check in to the hotel, he was doing so at the exact time as a literal busload of tourists. Sorry Neil….

Dinner involved a swift walk into town, which turned into a slow walk, which almost turned into a forced march as it wore on interminably – but then suddenly we were at Shimla Pinks, the latest choice in our quest for Birmingham’s Best Curry. It wasn’t a particularly measured choice, but then I was just damn happy that I’d been able to call and get a table for 12 with about five hours notice on a Saturday night.

We ended up ordering a set meal, which was easier on our tired brains and I dare say, a bit easier on the kitchen. Food came quickly, and was very tasty, as well as being ‘all you can eat’ – although collectively finishing off two helpings of starters was probably an unwise decision. Early on we realised we were also a table over from the peeps from Wizkids Games, who we’ve run into quite a bit at shows like these. Apart from relaxing after the day, they were also celebrating a wedding anniversary of one of their crew, and as a result sent us over the remains of a fantastic cake for our pudding. Lovely.

It was a great evening, with much chat, camaraderie and geekiness. Exactly the kind of thing I love to do when given half the chance. Thanks to everyone who came. I won’t go on about it much more, but instead, will just give you some photos to look at.

[Show as slideshow]

Day Two: Sunday 1st June

Sunday came with another bad night’s sleep – yep, the Hotel Room Heat Box from Hell continued to torment. Don’t say it! I know we’re fools for not moving. We’ll just do the English thing and try another hotel next year….

After a mix-up over our bill which meant I ended up shelling out £740 for our rooms (don’t worry, it got claimed) we headed back to the Expo, with all of our personal luggage in tow as well as all of the other paraphernalia we usually carry. Clanking and puffing like a set of steam trains, we smartened up the stand a bit, got our water on, and waited for the rush.

Which never really came, to be honest. It’s never easy to tell at any show, but it seemed that maybe all of the visitors who’d been hanging around on Saturday were now gaming their hearts out. At least, that’s what we guessed. There’s always plenty of time to guess when you’re not being swamped by customers.

Still, we found enough to keep us busy. First thing was that we got given a tour of the Living Dungeon, a headline attraction at this year’s Expo. It seemed like a sort of live-action Knightmare, which was intriguing, and one of the organisers (an NCsoft fan!) was happy to take us and a few other stand-runners around. Sadly we didn’t have time to actually play in it, but I was very impressed with what they managed to achieve. Inside a few rooms in the basement of the building, a full-on dungeon had been constructed (obviously with limited budget). Packed with puzzles, a few special effects, and suitably cold, I think it would have been a lot of fun to adventure through. Treat yourself when it hopefully returns next year.

Ascending back into the light, we returned to the stand to deal with a steady stream of people. Just like last year, I found myself selling a lot of copies of Guild Wars, and happily quite a bit of merchandise too. We’re still tweaking on our ‘merchandise presentation’ and we got some good tips from the folks at Pagan Angel, who were directly opposite us for the second year running, on online locations where we could buy shop fittings. Mmmm, shop fittings…

Meanwhile, at the other end of the stand, Andrew and Neil continued to soldier on with more sketches. Luckily for both of them we had nowhere near the rush we do at some shows, partially down to our new and improved rules for just how many sketches we take. Just like at Bristol Comic Expo, we now had a good number of sketches for the guys to complete, but not so many that they felt insanely pressured to perform – and we still raised a decent amount for the charity. Just how we like it.

With the day ending at 4pm, which is pretty damn early for a show, we found ourselves running through the afternoon pretty quickly. People came and went – some being our faithful players, who of course vowed to return with more sugar-baked treats at Memorabilia in November. (Actually guys, speaking for myself, I may have to request at least one savoury snack. Some ‘interesting’ dental work put The Fear into me recently, and the sugar intake has dropped dramatically…!)

A trip down Memory Lane

Things actually quietened down to a point where I even felt comfortable leaving the stand for a while. Mat and Chris had both managed to get away for a bit, and kept telling me just how much of the show there was to see; so I wandered off to take a look.

It was an eye-opening wander, to say the least. Last year I didn’t even make it off the ground floor of the Clarendon Suites, so just discovering how big the place was, and how much was tucked away in every corner of the place, was a revelation. Suddenly I realised that there were easily a few hundred people inside the four walls, and how it could probably hold a couple of thousand; it felt like a bigger show already.

I moved about fairly briskly, not trusting myself to slow down and look at too much stuff, as I knew the wallet would come out almost of its own accord. Instead I just soaked up the atmosphere, and as I walked, found myself remembering the few shows that I went to, similar to this one, when I was a kid. I never went to anything as big as this; some came close. Maybe I’m making up for lost time. I knew, deep down, that if I had been to a show like this when I was about 12… I’d have been in heaven for a little while.

For some reason – maybe because I could see plenty of kids around me, enjoying their gaming – that made me all kinds of happy. I made my way back to our stand with a spring in my step.

Show’s over, folks

Blink – and it was 4pm. Time to put this baby to bed. Loadout was easy and quick; a few trips, a light sweat, and we had the van stacked with stuff. We climbed in, set the SatNav, and headed for the road.

It was an easy, uneventful trip back, filled with the same sort of routine that we’ve all become accustomed to; listening to road music, stopping at the same service stations, eating the same greasy road food.

We talked about what had gone well, what we might want to change; about the best sketches we’d seen, the people we’d spoken to. We’re always looking to improve things, and every show brings up new stuff – although this one, less than most.

Without a lot to post-mortem, my thoughts drifted. The first half of our show year was over, and we’d had a blast – from the Ultimate Heroic Weekend at Omega Sektor through Comic Expo in Bristol and now to UK Games Expo. Each show had been different, but at the core they’d been the same, because it was always the three of us: Mat, Chris and I. Now, at least temporarily, we were breaking up the merry band – and that had me feeling a tad melancholy as we sped on down the road.

Sure, it’s not like we’d spent time in a foxhole together. You could laugh and tell me “it’s just work”; but then maybe you’ve never felt anything for your work.

We don’t work the hours, drive the vans, load the stock, take the sketch orders, sell the games, discuss improvements, or think up new ideas because we feel it’s just work. Everyone who comes to a show I run is invested more than that. Everyone comes because they want to do a great job, and represent NCsoft as best as we possibly can, by showing the world that what we do isn’t just what we sell – it’s what we’re about; fun.

The core team though – the three of us – I’d argue we care even more. (Sometimes a little too much.) We’re the driving force, and right then, with our next ‘proper’ show almost six months away from that night in June, I didn’t want the gap. As far as I was concerned we could do it all again the next weekend.

I just needed a shower and a good night’s sleep, first.

Listen to the lyrics

In recent years, I’ve realised I seem to unconsciously match song lyrics that I know to my mood or situation. I can often find myself humming or singing a song, and then realise much later that the lyrics relate exactly to how I’m feeling.

That night on the road, as I took photos of random stuff, trying in part to capture the moment, I had Jackson Browne’s Running on Empty in my mind. I wasn’t even sure I knew all of the lyric, but I did know that my mind had heard something, at some time, that it was trying to tell me; and it turns out the verse below was it. It might not be poetry, but it’s real to me.

Looking out at the road rushing under my wheels
I don’t know how to tell you all just how crazy this life feels
I look around for the friends that I used to turn to to pull me through
Looking into their eyes I see them running too

See you at Memorabilia.

[Show as slideshow]

Couple of Aion previews

Pre-Leipzig we gave an exclusive Aion preview to PCGZine, who visited the office and got loads of ‘stuff’ from us that they’ve put together into a six-page preview. In case you didn’t know, they’re a PDF-based online magazine, so you don’t even have to go to the shops to read it.

Anyway, you can grab the PDF file right here and have a peruse. It’s supposed to be ‘interactive’ with rollover videos and stuff, which might work in Acrobat, but I’ll tell you right now doesn’t work on a Mac.

If you’d prefer a preview that isn’t in PDF format, you might enjoy this look at Aion from The Escapist, who aren’t generally known for their hyperbole. They like what they saw at the recent press preview in San Francisco, which is all good news.

The things fans do…

We spent a lot of our time during GC on our feet, but we never made the commitment to distance that a few of our more dedicated Aion fansites did. A number of them banded together to basically walk the length and breadth of Leipzig (as in, the town) and get pictures of every Aion billboard we had there.

Apart from being proof that yeah, we spent a bit of money on the game’s promotion, it also proves undeniably that our fans are mad, crazy people who we love to bits. See the photographic proof of this true ‘Quest for GC’ in this Flickr set.

While we’re talking about “things our fans do for us”, here are two photos with things that make me happy:

Yep, that’ll be Martin with a shark tank, as presented to him by a fan during the show. (Our Marketing Manager, Mirko, is on the right.) That’ll be a direct reference to my dialogue, then….

Last but not least – AionSource‘s t-shirt of GC, featuring fan art based on The Shark, as modelled by Martin, constructed by Chris, and conceived by me in Episode 6.

Fan-made merch. Love it.

Images by Mat, of course. A few more (just a few!!) are on the official Flickr feed for us.

I’m tapping away in the hotel restaurant, picking away at breakfast while surrounded by a mix of American flight attendants, youth football teams, and hungover colleagues. Last night was, well, the last night – so there will probably be a few sore heads on the way home. The last thing I wanted was a hangover threading through a long trip home, so it was a relatively early – and booze-free – night for me.

In lieu of having much intelligent commentary at this point, here’s some lazy list writing.

Things I won’t miss about GC

1. The people. Not the people of Leipzig, or Germany per se, but the sheer number of people at GC. I don’t mind crowds, but seriously.
2. Late nights and early mornings. ‘Nuff said.
3. A near-constant voice in my ear. Radios good. Near constant chatter bad.
4. T-shirts. Getting rid of 20,000 was quite a chore, in so many ways.

Things I will miss about GC

1. The people. Those around me right now.
2. The coffee at the hotel in the morning. Was it the cream or the coffee? We may never know, but it was liquid gold every single time.
3. The rush. When it’s good, it’s great.
4. This moment, right now.

Day Five, anyway. LAST DAY! WOOOOOOOO!!!!

So, Day Two (of FIVE) is done, and it basically feels like we’ve “done a Memorabilia” only with more Germans. A lot more Germans. Tomorrow the show extends from today’s 9am to 6pm stint, to a staggering 11-hour opening time – 9am to 8pm. While we do have just about all the catered food and drinks we can ask for (don’t get excited; I’m talking sandwiches and soda) the sheer physical endurance side of things starts to really come in now.

Hence all of us collapsing into bed early. Well, early-ish. Having working Internet is too good an opportunity to pass up.

Anyway. It’s going well. It feels like an odd mix of our ‘usual show’ (especially as we’re here with some familiar faces) and something much, much larger and crazier. Also as we don’t have one big event as we did two years ago (the Guild Wars Factions World Championships) the spotlight is much more on the community team, who I’m proud to help soar to new heights.

If yesterday was really the early rehearsals, and today was full dress, then tomorrow’s the first performance. Let’s hope we’re good.

Busy – and then quiet – first day at the show. As a result, looked like a blockbuster of a day first of all, then settled down so that it ended up in the ‘decent’ category. Still, if the same happens tomorrow I’ll be happy with the weekend as a whole.

Draw the World Together went really well it seemed; Karl Kopinski took to the process like a duck to water. Neil and Andrew both of course did great stuff too. Karl did a knockout sketch of Callista that I’ll share soon enough. Suffice to say it contains three figures… but simply looks amazing. We were all green with envy.

Right, now it’s time to get off to the curry house with artists and a few players in tow. (I can tell all the ‘regulars’ are here because my hits today are so low!!) I’ll leave you with me and a box of money.