Avilés 2007

Supergirl, what are you doing? One of the giant figures used to mark the festival.

We've been at the 12th Jornadas De Cómic De Avilés since Tuesday; had a great time enjoying the town, being fed to a standstill and sketching for fans. Avilés is a wonderfully civilised experience; despite the excellent organization, the atmosphere here is so relaxed that some of this year's American guests said they didn't realise they'd been "on duty" until they'd already been sat sketching at a café for a couple of hours!
It has to be said that the aficionados here are an absolute delight; enthusiasts for comics with a wide knowledge of the form, they organise and police themselves with the minimum of fuss, help to look after guests, and on top of that provide the best quality sketching paper I've ever used. Plus they're extremely tolerant of my halting and painfully clumsy Spanish.

Anglophone guests include (above): Angel Medina, Liam Sharp, Gene Ha, Doug Braithwaite & George Perez. Not shown here but taking part are Michael Golden & Mike Ploog, though sadly Michael Avon Oeming had to drop out due to illness.

Rodney Ramos, front & rear elevations: inside Rodney is a shy, retiring wallflower, struggling to stay in :-)

There are more guests than ever this year, including a big American contingent and several of us from the UK as well as some incredible guys from Spain & France (at some point I'm going to do a feature on an amazing artist called Jorge Gonzalez whose work I discovered this year.)

Together again for the first time; George Perez & Mark Buckingham with their Spiderman sketch (Bucky pencils, George inks)

I've also been priveliged to meet such titans of the trade as Geroge Perez, Michael Golden & Gene Ha. Last night I got to neb over George Perez's shoulder as he inked a Spiderman sketch by Mark Buckingham for a local charity event. I did have one small come-down though; just as I was about to tell Michael Golden I'd loved his comics as a kid, he started complaining to a companion about "middle-aged guys with grey in their beards who tell me they read my stuff in the seventh grade." Oh well. Good to know I belong to a minority, I suppose :-)