Click here to view the embedded video.

What do you think? More soon.

Well, a year to the day since I made some outlandish predictions for Twenty-Zero-Nine, here I am back to make a fool of myself for 2010. I’m a year older, a year wiser (ish) and probably going to be a mite more cautious, especially after what I’ve seen this year.

Let’s dive in though, see what the scrying pool has to tell us.

One caveat: being currently employed as I am, and wanting to stay that way, I won’t be ‘predicting’ anything to do with Trion World Network (my employers until October this year) or Gazillion Entertainment (my current employers). So no predictions for (deep breath) Heroes of Telara or any other Trion game in production, or Jumpgate: Evolution, LEGO Universe or anything else Gazillion has in the works which we haven’t told anyone about yet…! Sorry ’bout that, but I reckon you understand.

Known MMOGs

World of WarCraft‘s latest expansion, Cataclysm, will launch in September, or very close to that (last week of August/first week of October). Backed by a huge global marketing campaign (TV adverts, etc etc) Activision-Blizzard will attempt to convert the last few humans living in a cave on the moon into active players by pushing – hard – the fact that the game is now easier to get into than ever. It’ll be a massive, towering hit at launch, breaking the current (US, NPD-data) records for fastest selling PC game. A month after launch, everyone who’s played for more than a year will find something to complain about.

Star Wars: The Old Republic will launch in Q4 as well, probably about two months after Cataclysm (say, November). EA’s marketing machine will be in full effect from E3 onwards, pulling out all the stops to get as many people into the Beta as possible, which everyone will call the ‘most polished since WoW’. Bloggers will spend endless amounts of words talking about whether SWTOR will topple WoW; of course it won’t, but it’ll launch huge, falling just shy of Cataclysm’s newly-established record for fastest-selling PC game. Naturally, we won’t hear a thing about subscriber numbers until EA’s first financial report in 2011… so I can neatly dodge predicting them. (Although I will say, they’ll be less than WoW’s…!)

November update, post-hire at BioWare: For those who might have missed the original date this post was published (January 3rd, 2010), here’s the disclaimer: This post was written long before BioWare even knew I existed, and vice-versa. It was a prediction based solely on my own guesswork, and it is preserved here solely for posterity. It does not reflect any official views on Star Wars: The Old Republic, as at the time I had zero insight apart from my own guesses. As such, it should not be seen as any kind of official view… on anything.

Star Trek Online will launch on time in February, and will get plenty of early traction from Trekkers who’ve spent many a long year waiting for a chance to indulge their inner captain. Think 250K box sales in the US alone… but a month after launch, despite Cryptic/Atari keeping very quiet about the actual numbers, the retained subscribers will be less than 100K. We’ll all be guessing about this though. Reviews will be in the fair-to-good range, depending on the level of Trek-love the reviewer has.

APB will launch on time, with a big marketing push from EA. It’ll start strongly but will quickly be derided by ‘hardcore’ MMOGers as just being ‘CounterStrike with better customisation’. Realtime Worlds will promise a lot of exciting stuff post-ship, and will probably get a chance to do it, as their initial numbers (customers? subscribers?) will be decent. Talk of a 360 port will be mostly drowned out by whoops of joy from those of us already playing Crackdown 2 / MAG.

DC Universe Online won’t launch this year, but it’ll spend another summer doing the comic book convention circuit. I have to hope it’ll be in some form of Beta by the end of the year. Surely. Said Beta will be PC-only though, leading many to predict it’s never going to ship on PS3.

City of Heroes will launch Going Rogue, which will be generally well accepted, and give a small shot in the arm to the game’s subscriber base – undermining Champions Online a little in the process.

Guild Wars 2 will be demonstrated to press, behind closed doors, at E3. The previews are strong, mostly based on graphics and a few demonstrable features, but press are unsure if they’ll let it be called a ‘proper’ MMOG. The game will be playable at PAX in Q4, and the first public ‘preview event’ dates will be announced for 2011.

Aion will continue to suffer from bots and gold farming galore, although NCwest will try their best to make their finger-in-the-dam approach to controlling them look tough. The actual reason the bots and gold farming exists – the massive in-game grind – won’t go anywhere. NCsoft will continue to make enough money from Aion in Korea to keep it afloat elsewhere.

Unknown MMOGs

Blizzard will continue to not announce their next MMOG project. They’ll be too busy launching StarCraft 2, Cataclysm and pretending that Diablo III is ‘coming soon’.

I think it’s put-up or shut-up time for 38 Studios, Red 5 and Carbine Studios. All three of them should really be taking the wrappers off something this year. Having said that, if somehow all three have gotten funding for what we (read: marketing people and journos) like to call a ‘triple A’ MMOG, then it’s quite possible they’re on a 3-5 year development schedule. If that’s the case… then assume they’ll stay quiet for a while longer. (Still, it’s got to be getting pretty close to announcement time. Takes time to build a big community to get back that big funding.)

What else; oh yeah, SOE will announce a new game based on the Free Realms ‘engine’ but with a known IP. (Thus helping them earn back some of the big development costs on Free Realms.)

Me, personally?

All I’m going to say about me to finish, is that I hope 2010 is a slightly more quiet year than 2009.

See you in 362 days to find out if I’m right!

Back in January I threw out a few predictions for the year. I’m sure if I could open a hole in time, stick my head through and say to my almost-a-year-younger self “By the time you look back at this post, you’ll be living in the US, in a job you don’t even know exists yet – oh and most of your predictions will be wrong…” Well I’d probably be half-surprised.

Let’s score me then – feel free to refresh your memory with the original post, although the important stuff is here anyway.

Known MMOG predictions

Champions Online will get released this year… but will still slip, probably to Q4. It’ll attract a solid 250K subscribers at launch. Oh: it won’t release on Xbox 360 at launch, either.

Well, it released, I’ll say that much – and in Q4, to boot – but boy is my face red about that subscriber figure. At launch? Maybe, perhaps that many boxes were sold, globally, at retail. But subscribers? Absolutely no way. I do have a smidgen of insider knowledge about this… but trust me. Champions Online has nowhere near 250K subscribers and never did. I guess I was thinking somehow they’d convert everyone then-subscribing to City of Heroes… and a few more, besides.

I was spot-on about the lack of Xbox 360 version, but honestly, that was sort of a gimme. Still, three-outta-four ain’t bad. Great start!

Final score: 3/4

DC Universe Online won’t get released, but will go into some sort of Closed Beta… probably about the same time Champions launches… and will announce a ’solid’ release date in 2010.

Oh dearie me… well, you would think that putting your superhero MMOG into some sort of Closed Beta at the same time as the new kid on the block launches would be a good idea, right? But whether SOE realised their game wasn’t ready for prime-time (which is what Beta is these days, make no mistake) or they had some psychic premonition that Champions wasn’t going to be much of a threat, I guess we’ll never know.

And a solid release date? No. I have ideas about DCUO in 2010… but we’ll leave that to the predictions post.

Final score: 1/3

City of Heroes will get a major product announcement. 5th anniversary aproaching? Rival super-MMOs releasing? Hel-lo, sequel.

Ohhh, I should have hedged my bets… and acted on my insider knowledge… ahem. Yes, I knew about the expansion. I guess I didn’t want to spoil the surprise. Or did I? Dun-dun-duuuuuhh… Strictly speaking I failed here. No sequel (yet) but we have an expansion to look forward to. I’m gonna say I scored zilch here, because otherwise feels like a cheat!

Final score: 0/1

Guild Wars 2 will finally get some marketing love; think videos, some press demos, at least. But no release date.

Damn close. The release of several Guild Wars 2 videos has everyone in a lather already. But… suspiciously… no press demos. Hmmm. (I actually had zero insider knowledge on this, although I had seen Guild Wars 2 footage a lot earlier than you did….) I’ll say that’s a…

Final score: 1/2

Jumpgate: Evolution will debut and attract a nice, solid 85K subscribers. We won’t be able to confirm or deny this though, as Codemasters are releasing it.

Ahem. Well, at the beginning of the year I had no idea I’d end up working for Jumpgate Evolution… without working for Codemasters. In fact that would have blown my tiny mind. Anyway, fair to say Jumpgate didn’t launch in 2009, although all signs did point to it for the first half of the year.

Further comment would compromise me professionally, so you’ll have to settle with my final score of.. dangit…

Final score: 0/2

Unknown MMOG predictions

Cryptic’s third, unannounced MMOG will be announced as a quasi-pulp game, set in the 1930s, featuring Indiana Jones style global hijinks and monster battling. Hey, I can dream.

Dreaming indeed. Struck out here.

Red 5’s unannounced MMOG will be announced as a… fantasy game! (Boy, I’m pushing the boat out.)

Red who?

38 Studios‘ ‘Copernicus’ will also be announced… as a dark fantasy game! (Yeah. I’m playing the short odds.)

Copernywhat?

NCsoft will finally take the wrapper off the Carbine Studios project.

Apparently NCsoft like to keep the wrapper on things now.

Blizzard won’t announce anything new. At all. Why bother?

I should have said ‘Blizzard won’t announce their new MMO’ because I could have told you the next expansion was coming… but I didn’t. So I guess I score a big, fat…

Final score: 0/5

Games industry predictions

The Wii will end up so far ahead of PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 in sales terms, industry watchers will stop even mentioning it in sales figures. (They’re practically doing this already.)

Yep, I think that’s fair to say. It’s pretty much like the Wii doesn’t exist to the average gaming site. Or at least not the ones I go to. They’ve successfully crossed the divide to ‘average consumer product’ – and more power to ‘em. I heard more about people using Wii Fit this year than using it to, you know, play games.

Microsoft will drop heavy, unsubtle hints about the next Xbox. But won’t announce it, officially, until 2010.

Errr… maybe they did drop some and they weren’t that heavy?

PlayStation Home will get a major revamp by Q4… but will still be a complete flop.

I don’t know if launching an MMOG counts as a ‘major revamp’… but I don’t see any press releases touting Home as a massive success.

Activision will announce a Guitar Hero product that’ll have a ‘massively multiplayer’ component. Think: your band versus everyone else’s band in the world. There will be additional fees involved.

Nope, but instead they’ll flog the franchise to death with many products with ‘Hero’ in the name.

No-one in the business of MMOGs will pay much attention to articles like this over at Massively. (Sorry, Massively.)

I’d say I get a big fat ‘check’ for that, especially considering the two ‘big’ MMOG releases of 2009 – Champions Online and Aion – both got ripped in various quarters for many of the issues described in that article. Go read it, it’s still very applicable… sadly.

Final score: 2/7

Personal, uh, ‘predictions’

I’ll end up moving to the US of A.

Check!

I’ll make a public announcement about why I’m moving to the US.

Check!

I’ll make a public appearance (Oooohh!!) at a US-based gaming show or two.

Well if you made it to E3 – check!

I’ll keep blogging here, perhaps not as often as in 2008 though.

Ahem – check??

I’ll keep playing World of Warcraft. I know! I’m sorry!

Well, I did until April, and then I got bored.

Final, final score for 2009

It seems a little cheeky to give myself a score for personal predictions, so leaving that section aside it looks like I scored a massive…  7/24!! So basically almost 1-in-3… not terrible odds at a bookies. Although basically, you should have put all your cash on me guessing easy stuff about Champions.

Fairly big things that I totally didn’t predict this year – Star Wars: The Old Republic becoming the only damn game that anyone talks about; my employer, Gazillion Entertainment, revealing themselves; Facebook games becoming so bloody massive.

I figure I’ve got three days or so to figure out 2010. Place your bets.

Yes, that Gazillion Entertainment; the company I called ‘the new 800lb gorilla‘ when they de-cloaked back in March, and who are working on a variety of MMOGs, including two based on Marvel Comics.

Not so surprised now, are ya?

Yes, I’ll admit that when Gazillion’s acquisition of the Marvel licence was announced, my interest was very definitely piqued, if that wasn’t obvious. What really got me intrigued was that they had acquired NetDevil, a development team who I’ve been a fan of since we worked together on Auto Assault. I made some enquiries, heard some pleasing noises, and six months later… here we are.

You might think that I’ve spent the last six months scheming to extract myself from Trion, but that’s absolutely not true. In fact, I’ve had a blast over there, and I’m genuinely sad that I’m leaving. The development teams behind Heroes of Telara and the Syfy-MMO(Action)RPG are packed full of great people who I’m going to miss and in the case of the Syfy crew, now don’t get to work with – boo! Both games are looking great, and unfortunately I now won’t be able to help them across the finish line. Don’t think I’m forgetting the MMORTS in production with Petroglyph Games, either; a trip to Las Vegas earlier this year convinced me that they are going to unleash something that’ll shake up the genre. I still believe everything I said about Trion back when I announced I was working there, however… when opportunity knocks, you don’t just sit back in your easy chair.

Gazillion has got a stellar line-up of games coming, including some I know are going to surprise a lot of people, and my new role allows me to work on all of them, as well as tasking me to direct community strategies for the entire company. Once offered, I couldn’t turn that down, even if it meant leaving behind new friends and some great looking games at Trion.

Weirdly – at least for me – this means that I’m back to full-on secrecy mode. I thought Trion had a lot of secrets, but even after signing on with Gazillion, I still don’t know about everything they’re developing! Roll on Monday….

It’s been a crazy couple of weeks and I’m sure it’ll be a crazy couple of months ahead, but I’m very excited about it; perhaps even ‘stoked’ or ‘psyched’ if we’re being American. Here was me thinking I was done with big, tumultuous changes in my life. I guess all I can do is strap in and enjoy the ride!

Movies: Remakes and reboots aren’t just a trend any more, they’re business as usual. A Nightmare on Elm Street, Red Dawn, Halloween and more have all been or are being remade. Recent reboots included The Incredible Hulk and Punisher: War Zone with rumoured ones including The X-Files and of course, every Marvel property.

And if you’re not rebooting or remaking, you’re digging up a licence to something we are supposed to have liked as kids, like Transformers or G.I. Joe. Little wonder when a vaguely original idea like District 9 comes along, people go crazy for it.

Comics: Same trends, different medium, although it tends to be restricted to characters rather than comics. In the last few years just about every major DC character has been rebooted at least once (Batman, Batgirl, Superman, Wonder Woman, Flash, Green Lantern, Blue Beetle), either turning into a new incarnation of the same character or just undergoing an origin revision. Marvel isn’t immune to it either, whether it’s characters (Spider-Man, Captain America) or entire lines (Ultimate becoming Ultimate, er, Comics).

In comics’ defence, given the volume of content that’s output in comparison to movies, they have a more urgent requirement to shake things up on a regular basis; and I remember nodding sagely with (I think) Dan Didio’s assertion that the DC Universe needed to be rebooted every twenty years or so (Crisis on Infinite Earths was in 1986 after all). So perhaps this is just me being an old fart…

Games: However even now in games, we’re getting the same effect. The idea of ‘new IP’ seems to be total anathema to most of the major publishers, with the safe, tried and true method being to remake or reboot somehow. And why is this on my mind? Well it’s because of an MMO announcement, of course.

Those of us (ahem) ‘in the know’ have been aware of WoW’s Cataclysm expansion for a while now, but the full extent of the nostalgia trip it’s going to be wasn’t really clear until recent announcements. While I absolutely see the sense in going back to old content to ensure that players feel the world they’ve inhabited for so long, I can also see that the sticky, sweet, clingy sense of nostalgia that hangs around this stuff had to be a strong motivator in choosing what to do next. I actually read a blog post yesterday where the author was extremely excited for the nostalgia effect, not particularly for the new gameplay.

In other words, apparently as consumers, we’re now just looking to recapture that old feeling, instead of looking for new ones.

I’m as guilty of this as the rest of you. I yearn for those first, life-defining experiences to come again, at least some days. But other days, I really do find myself wondering if there’s a single original thought out there in this world. If anyone is trying to do something new.

If they are, unfortunately, they have their work cut out for them. It’s a rocky road ahead when you’re trying to genuinely do something different and exciting. For me though, it’s the most important path to take. Because everything that’s been remade or rebooted was original once… and it’s those guys, the ones who blazed a trail, who get to say they did it first, who I respect most. Everyone else is just trading on old memories.

One, I secured a job with Trion World Network, which was still in ‘stealth mode’ when I got the job, meaning I couldn’t talk about… well anything, really. Not the company, not the job, not the game(s)… so I just kept my big mouth shut.

Two, I was going through the time-consuming, tedious and nerve-wracking process of getting my US immigration visa. This would have been a tough enough process at any time, but considering it was connected directly to me taking up the job, I felt in some way I should just keep quiet. Didn’t want to jinx things. I only broke silence when the internal mental pressure began to get so much that even endless games of Civilization IV weren’t enough to keep The Voices in check, and I had to vent somewhere.

Well, now I’ve officially got The Job, and I sure as hell have The Visa. So I can talk. A bit.Trion’s an exciting company to be part of. With three games in active production (Heroes of Telara; the MMORTS project with Petroglyph, and the MMOARPG being made in collaboration with Sci-Fi/SyFy) there’s a hell of a lot to do, and lots of exciting possibilities down the road. I’ll admit it; before I found the job opportunity last year, I didn’t know much about Trion. I’d read the odd press release, but it was only when I started to really do my research, by reading every single scrap of info and interview I could find, that I got excited about what I might be getting into.

When I flew out to Redwood City and met the various team members there, I got more excited. These guys had a vision; a definite idea of what they wanted to do in the MMO ‘space’ and how they wanted to move the genre forward. The idea here wasn’t just to make a carbon copy game, or move things forward by inches. This is potentially revolutionary stuff.

Without trying to lapse into pure hyperbole, what I saw and what I heard during my two days of interviews was enough to make me very interested in being part of the company, and very anxious to get started. As you can imagine, kicking my heels for much of the following eight months while my visa processed was pure bloody torture.

Then suddenly everything came together. In late May my visa finally got approved, and days later I was on a plane to Los Angeles, to officially start the job as part of the E3 team. Due to a last minute delay in my visa processing which added another month to the wait, I hadn’t been as involved in the E3 planning as we’d initially hoped. As a result I expected to feel like the ‘odd man out’ at E3, the guy who didn’t know what was going on. (“Don’t worry,” I told my boss, “I am able to fetch and carry coffee.”)

What surprised and delighted me was how quickly I was welcomed by everyone. I felt like an important team member from the moment I arrived, and by the end of the show I felt proud to have been part of such a tight-knit, hard-working team. Without getting too sappy, I couldn’t have had a better welcome to my first ‘official’ work in the US, and for a new company, to boot.

(I’m not sure whether to stand up and salute right now, blow my nose on a tissue, or beg off because I have something in my eye.)

So what’s next?

Well, I leave the UK ‘officially’ on July 9th, with Tom (the cat) and Amanda (the wife) following closely after. We’ve found a nice little apartment in Redwood City, not too far from Trion’s office (by California standards, anyway…). We’ll settle in and start adjusting to our new life. It’s already been a whirlwind of paperwork and decisions; it’s probably not going to die down any time soon. Someday soon though, I look forward to relaxing on my big American sofa, watching my big American TV, with my big (well, medium-sized) American car outside.

And while I am there, my brain shall hatch big American community plans. Believe me: you ain’t seen nothin’ yet.

“Bum!”

I’d hoped to have a post primed and ready to rock, but given general secrecy and my rapid departure from the UK, that wasn’t to be.

More details soon, no doubt, but for now you might have a few questions, like:

“Trion World Network?”

“What are you working on?”

“What’s keeping you busy at E3?”

More soon.

C’mon, someone had to. If I had a nickel for the number of times I’ve seen ‘Rogue’ misspelled as ‘Rouge’ on the internet, well, I’d probably be living in the US already where having a lot of nickels actually means something.

The first (or second) paid expansion for City of Heroes was haphazardly announced this week, which might have been some email software’s fault, or a cunning plan to fail to attempt to get buzz. Either way, er… mission accomplished?

It was interesting timing, regardless, with Champions Online spinning up the rumour mill (“We might end up on PS3! We might have microtransactions! We might have cake, and eat it too!”) and NCNC Paragon Studios trying to reverse their way out of the dead-end they seem to have ended up in after cracking down on Mission Architect farmers a little too hard. (Hey, I’ve got no problem with the policy, but from a community point of view, it was a classic case of taking a dump where you eat. Or gnawing on the hand that feeds you. Choose your metaphor.)

In case you haven’t had dinner with me recently, I’ll tell you for nothing that Going Rogue has been around, in concept at least, for probably a couple of years. I certainly remember hearing about it looong before I was shown the door by NCsoft. A paid expansion was always part of the City of Heroes ‘Five Year Plan’, which started to form after the IP was finally wrestled away from Cryptic. (Apparently it helps to distract people with large piles of cash when attempting such a move.)

I seem to also recall that Going Rogue was an early title, but I’m going to keep quiet on the other potential title just in case it’s being used for something else. The other title certainly fits Going Rogue’s story, which seems to imply a big bust-up between Paragon City and an evil alternate universe. The idea of being able to switch your hero to villain and vice-versa always seemed like a good one to me, not least because it could potentially let you explore double the amount of content in the game. However, I don’t think Paragon are going to stop with just that, not by a long shot. Here’s hoping for more Archetypes, Origins and Powersets as well as new Zones and NPC groups, eh?

They certainly need to up their game, because between Champions Online, DC Universe Online and eventually Marvel Universe Online, superhero MMOs are almost going to be as ubiquitous as fantasy in the next few years. No bad thing for us consumers, but it’s going to be a bloody battle to keep what, so far, has proved to be a relatively niche audience.

I genuinely think the key to a true mass-market superhero MMO (ie, one that reaches considerably more than 200K subscribers) is going to be a combination of console-based gameplay and highly recognisable IP. That’s why right now, until we have more to go on regarding Gazillion’s Marvel project, the smart money’s got to be on DCUO. Having said that, don’t count out the PC-browser market; if Gazillion’s Marvel Super Hero Squad project can get up to Free Realms level of polish, it could become a monster hit.

Considering all this, it’s not surprising to see Cryptic suggesting they’re working on a PS3 version of Champions Online. NCsoft have also invested time and money into exploring PS3 development, although I expect you’ll see a new game announced on PS3 from them before you see anything ‘old’ being ported. And let’s be honest, even though SOE are talking confidently about a PS3 version of DCUO, they’ve acknowledged that there are large hurdles to overcome to actually make it happen – and they’re part of Sony!

Whatever happens, our choice in online superhero gaming is going to expand dramatically in the next few years, which for me, can only be a good thing. It’s going to be very interesting to see how each product differentiates itself going forward, and even more to see who ends up on top.

Anyway, while I know many of you who attended cons we were at (particularly Bristol ’08) probably already have a sketchbook, not many of you will have it signed by the artists whose work is inside the covers!

Well, now’s your chance to own one of ten sketchbooks that have been defaced by artists like Dave Gibbons, Doug Braithwaite, Mark Buckingham, Andie Tong, Phil Winslade, Bryan Talbot and many more! Oh also there are pictures.

All you have to do is bid on this charity auction, with all proceeds as ever going to EveryChild!

Seriously folks, this thing is lovely, with loads of sketches inside depicting the well-known signature characters from City of Heroes, including Statesman, Back Alley Brawler, Ms Liberty, Sister Psyche, Lord Recluse, Ghost Widow and more. If you don’t believe me, click the image on the right to see some thumbnails of the imagery inside.

Considering the sketchbook was only available at a few UK conventions last year, and there’s only nine of the signed ones in existence, if you’re any kind of fan of City of Heroes you should really go make a bid! It’s for charity, after all.

Stay tuned for more hot auction items including original art from the sketchbook!

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]