IndieManga will be at Thought Bubble in Leeds on November 15th – come say hi if you’re there!

Thought Bubble is an event which dubs itself a sequential art festival and has beautiful promotional design, with softer colours than one might usually see for a comics-related event – it seems like an event geared towards expanding ideas of what comics are, and that can only be a good thing! Kate and Sally will be attending, with copies of Origins and Little Thoughts in tow. See you there!

Thought Bubble! November 15th

Woohoo, IndieManga’s first con, with our first book! Ah, brings a tear to me eye. That’s probably just because I was so tired when I got home though. Anyway! The magic that was Birmingham International Comics Show:

BICS has a pretty rad location literally inside a science museum (Thinktank at Millennium Point). Panels, etc. were housed downstairs in an excellent lecture theatre. It was a good location all in all – the dealer’s hall wasn’t crowded or sweltering hot, and the con itself had a nice calm, laid-back vibe – not what I was expecting given the packed, frenetic buzz of some other cons (they really do all have their own personality!). The event seemed to run really smoothly too – so much so that Shane Chebsey, one of the organizers, could be spotted wandering around chatting to the dealers and seeing how things were going – so good on you lot, a well-run con!

But anyway, you can read all about the con online – you want to hear about IndieManga, right? Of course you do! As was only appropriate for IndieManga’s first public outing, all four members – Kate, Rebecca, Anna and myself (Sally) – were present and accounted for! It was also the first outing for Origins – which had been delivered to my house, meaning to the other members had not even seen the books before the con! We were all delighted with the results, and sales over the weekend went well. We also spent lots of time sitting and staring at the books, because they came out so pretty and shiny and yay! Also on sale were copies of my previous work Little Thoughts, now with IndieManga (thanks to some slave labour by Kate, who seemed to be the only one of us capable of peeling the backings off the little IndieManga stickers I printed to put on them!), and on the corner of the table could be spotted a pre-promotion flyer for Atomic Sheep, a new series coming soon from myself and Markosia, which will be available to read for free on Myebook.com (who were also there – an exciting new platform for comics!) – so keep your eyes peeled for a further announcement on that, coming soon!

Of course, probably the best things about cons is seeing all the people you don’t usually get to hang out with! Lots of friends both of IndieManga and its individual members were present, so I won’t even attempt a comprehensive list! Across the aisle from us were ITCH Publishing, who had a shiny new graphic novel available in the form of Willie Hewes’ “Amaranth”, and just down from them were Emma Vieceli and Sonia Leong (who brought along copies of her new collected graphic novel of “Once Upon a Time”). To add to the new work, new collective Inspired Comics was there with an anthology titled “Slice of Life”. Inspired’s members were all successful applicants on the StripSearch comic studio scheme for 13-19 year olds – young talents to watch for!

To everyone who stopped by our table, and all the other exhibitors whose work we adored (special nods to Naniiebim, whose Mephistos we all ended up with a copy of, as well as the When Pigeons Weep guys, as well as New Think books and Willy MJ of “Eekeemoo” (who gave me art!)), thank you for making the weekend a great success and a really fun time ^_^

Birmingham International Comics Show report