Comic Con came to the little town of Telford England on Saturday. Cosplayers, Universal trailers, and watching as Will and Chris went crazy over the cast of Red Dwarf, which no doubt was awesome, I found myself at home as I strolled through Comic Book Village. With names like Zombie Bear, Killer Bunnies, Madame Butter Scotch, Moon, and Twisted Dark, who wouldn’t feel a home within the square of these very talented people. We were able to interview a few of them, which was awesome, these interviews will be coming in an accompanying video, but I got to interview to myself via my handy dandy Dictaphone.
Twisted Dark is a psychological thriller anthology series written by Neil Gibson, its one of THE first comic books that actually made me say, ‘Whoa’, upon reading the first story. Neil Gibson explains that he came up with the story of Twisted Dark while working at his old job in the middle east, he looked out the window. He sawhow the labours worked and the difference between the riches and poorest survive, ” It was very interesting to me, I found it very striking and I wanted to write a story on it. That was about four years ago and I’d never done anything creative before that. I was interested in comics and tried to make one. People seemed to like what I did.”
Madame Butterscratch by Lisa Cummins was another booth visited. Comic follows the adventures of the owner of a tea shop who is one of the worlds deadliest assassins. Currently there is a kickstarter for Madame Butterscotch to create the third book in the series.
And finally, Moon, a comic based on something really awesome. The moon is a detective, it has been falling out of the sky every morning for two thousand years, putting on a suit and fighting crime. That is crazy awesome. Moon was written by Dan Thompson and drawn by Steve Pentold. It is not available in any stores but only on their website. I got to have a little chat with Artist Steve, who gave some advice to all the soon to struggling artists out there, “Draw like the dickens!” He proclaims, ” Just draw and draw and draw and draw and draw and draw…” He says “An art degree might be useful but nobody is going to look at that piece of paper with the degree on it and say you’re a good artist. They are going to look at your portfolio. Your work is more relevant than that piece of paper. If you want to be a professional, get that degree, learn the tools of the trade, but if you just want to draw comics, then just start drawing.”
There are so many talented comic writers and artists at MCM Midlands, but that was just one part of this festival of the fantastic, there were also Cosplayers and we were able to get a few interviews with them as well, check out our video on MCM coming soon. Watch this space!