Avilés 2008

Alan Davis, Diego the translator and me in front of my poster at the Avilés comic festival in September 2008.
Photo by Javier Cuevas García-Hinojosa.

Only two months behind, I finally got round to sorting and posting my pictures from Avilés this year. It's a pity it's been so delayed because this year's festival had more big moments for me than most - for a start I was given the huge honour of doing the poster for the event, and I got to be in the same press conference as Alan Davis, being photographed in front of giant copies of said poster, plus the great Italian comic artist Ivo Milazzo came up to speak to me afterwards (though I was so stunned to meet the great man that I all I could do was witter like a pillock).

Left: my Avilés poster with text. And no, I'm not going to stop going on about it.

On the Saturday I flung myself down some stairs at the hotel, but it didn't kill me, and as a result, I met the lovely Kent Stout who later introduced me to her charming husband William Stout (who, among his many claims to fame, designed the original Predator costume). For more about my adventures in stair-diving, see here.

Safely descending stairs: INCORRECT XXX Safely descending stairs:CORRECT*
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX*but, sadly, this never happens

I did miss Chris Weston's infamous rap on the Thursday night though.

But, as a consolation, I won "Best Asturian Artist" at the awards (Asturias is the region in which the town of Avilés is located). Given that I'm from Sheffield and live in Nottingham, this was an unexpected honour. I suppose I must have made a good impression or something. This is a picture of the lovely award statuette (left).

And it sits proudly next to my Eagle Award.

I could only be present for the weekend (Avilés runs from Tuesday to Saturday), so I didn't manage quite as many sketches as usual, but I did remember to get photos of almost everybody this time round:

I think this is everyone who got a sketch from me in Avilés.
Click on the pictures to go the full-sized versions on Flickr.

I asked permission to Blog these, but if you'd rather your picture was taken down, just let me know and I'll remove it.

Thanks to everyone for being so nice about the slightly wibbly sketches I did after my stair-diving experience.

I've titled the photos based on names (if I know them or can read them from the dedications) or, failing that, the subject of the sketch. If you spot an error, leave a comment of the photo page on Flickr and I'll sort it out.

I Faw' Down N' Go Boom

Kent can do: Kent Stout binds my ankle after I took a plunge down the stairs in Avilés.

Deadlines prevent me from working an a proper report on the Avilés festival right now - though have a look at Chris "does the man never sleep?" Weston's blog, especially as he was there for the full week - however, I really wanted to say thanks to a few people publicly for the way they helped me out over the weekend.

On the Saturday, coming down into the hotel lobby, I missed a step and fell hard onto my ankle, twisting it agonizingly (at the time it hurt so much I feared it might be broken). Luckily for me, I fell more or less at the feet of Kent Stout, the wife of guest William Stout. It happens that Kent is a Medical Assistant by profession, which means that she spends much of her working life treating exactly the kind of minor injury I'd just suffered. Thanks to her, I my ankle was bound up and packed in ice within a couple of minutes of the accident. Even better, she was able to determine that there was no serious injury - otherwise, I'd have probably lost much of my one full day in Avilés to a trip to casualty.

Cooling my heels in the hotel lobby

I'd also like to thank Carmen for rushing out to get the dressings for my ankle, to Irma and Bucky for staying to keep an eye on me, to the nice people at the hotel for supplying me with ice (once at 3am), and to the gentleman whose name I've shamefully forgotten, who helped me back from the closing ceremony to the hotel, and even went all the way down to the lobby and back from the second floor when I forgot my keys!

A bit swollen but not even bruised: my foot's rapidly returning to normal.

By the following day, my foot was feeling a lot better. I was able to get myself and my luggage home without difficulty, and on the Monday, I even managed to do my Tai Chi class (albeit carefully). Though it's still a bit swollen, I'm able to walk on it normally now.

Thanks again to everyone who hleped me over the weekend, and to everyone who asked after me.

Aviés 2008

My poster for XIII Jornadas de Cómic de Avilés, northern Spain.
To see a much bigger version, check out the image at the end of the post.

Late as usual with the self-promotion, but I'll be going to the Jornadas de Cómic in Avilés this weekend. The event runs the whole week, but deadlines on Torchwood meant I could only do the Saturday and Sunday.

The Avilés guys kindly asked me to do the poster for this year's event; it's another one of my "mix and match" designs similar to my Bristol Expo Poster from 2007. This idea, borrowed from Brendan McCarthy, helps avoid copyright issues by taking classic superhero characters and mixing up their costume designs and colours. Aside from rights isues, it's hopefully fun to pick through the figures trying to work out what bits come from which characters.

There are several European characters in there that I did more-or-less straight, partly because European publishers tend to be a bit more relaxed about this stuff, and partly because Alack Sinner becomes unrecognizable if you paint him purple :-)

Click on this image to see a much larger version

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 :-)