ReadCon 2013

Now I've never really been into manga or Anime that much. I've had friends who have tried to get me into various series but nothing ever really took my fancy. But this year I've started to pick up some small press manga at different conventions. I started off with a few books from the Red Garden Artist Group (so if you wanna blame somebody.....) and some other bits and pieces here and there and enjoyed every single one. So when I found out that there was a manga and anime convention in my own town I thought "well why the hell not?" and mosied on over to check it out.
ReadCon is organised by the Reading University Anime Society (www.readingunianime.webs.com/) and is, without doubt, the tiniest  convention  I've ever been to. Yet the talent on show was huge. There were only about ten tables there and maybe only four of those were home to small pressers. But that was okay as they were really cool people, happy to chat not only about their manga but also about making comics. I picked up The Elemals by Josh Clarke (www.JoshClarkeDraws.deviantart.com). I love this guys stuff; it's like someone has taken the cells from an animated movie and made a comic book out of them. It's really a funny book too. I also picked up Crankrats by Katherine Ellis (www.sio64.deviantart.com). It's an amazing amalgam of manga, anime and steam punk and I can't believe she's only been at this comics creating game a couple of years. Manga retailer Frank was there, who, along with his Red Garden Artists Group, is becoming a familiar face on the convention circuit.
Even though it was a small convention it got real busy real quick; so I hope it was successful enough for the organisers to put it on again next year.

   

Those Pages

Don't know why but these were cut off of  one of my previous posts. These are the pages that I picked up at LFCC 2013.

A page of art from Marvel comics series "The Twelve", by Chris Weston.

A page from an issue of What If? by Bryan Hitch.

S'MORE FAN ART

It's been a while since I posted some fan art so here is some based on some recent small press purchases.

A quick sketch of Bubbles and Eliza.
(www.redgardenartistgroup.com)

Another quick sketch of two of the main
characters from Fey
(www.redgardenartistgroup.com)

LONDON FILM AND COMIC CON 2013

Well this was an improvement on last years con. So much more comics related stuff this time. Somebody finally got it - it's the London Film and Comic Con. The panels/talks areas still need improving and the organisers could still make more of an effort to make things a little less confusing in terms of layout and scheduling of events. LFCC is one of the bigger events of the year and yet there is still no convention programme to pick up on the door.

Anyway, I usually go to conventions to pick up small press comics and cool original art, and LFCC certainly delivered on those. I picked up Bearlands #2 from the gang at www.subversivecomics.com,
volume 2 of Rob Curetons hilarious Orful Comics (www.orfulcomics.co.uk), the rather demented Frogman #1 (www.deadcanarycoimcs.com), the stunningly beautiful Only Me Tiny by Jing X. Hu (www.pinkjellyo.deviantart.com) and another cool sketchbook by Huy Truong (www.huy-truong.deviantart.com).

I was also really pleased with the art purchases that I made. One page from The Twelve by Chris Weston and one page by Bryan Hitch featuring the X-Men. I love both of these pages so much. There's so much detail in the Weston page and it's also a really fun piece. One of the many reasons I like the Hitch page is that all the lettering is there on the page. Not only that but there's also bits of zip-a-tone pasted to the board, plus white out