Catching up

Agh, long time no blog.

Ok.

Previously in Modern Monstrosity Land...

LEEDS THOUGHT BUBBLE

As widely reported many other places, this year's Thought Bubble is considered to be convention of the year. Just like last year's was. It was waay bigger in scale this year but the atmosphere remained the same, the focus still on the small press side of things, with a few retailer stands dotted around selling the usual Superman/Spider-Man back issues and cutsie Manga crap. All the big-name creators did their signings at the back of the hall, with an Artists Alley of sorts running along the side. This layout stops fanboys from queuing in front of your stall and reduces crowding, y'see? Other event organisers take note.

Large showing of cosplayers as well, more than you get at Bristol or Brum. I'm ammune to them after withstanding 'em in larger numbers at the London MCM Expos twice a year.

Star of Thought Bubble. He almost swept everything off our table with geeky glee at one point.

The best bit was the after party which took place in a big sexy casino. Small press lowlifes mingled with top names (or just Mark Millar, who Alex Fitch threw me infront of to tell him I was an extra in the Kick-Ass movie. Mister Millar smiled and quickly found someone else to talk to) and we hit the dance floor hard (with one of the Thought Bubble team, Mike, bangin' out the hits from his laptop), highlights including Kieron Gillen's messiah act and Matt Badham removing his tshirt at the height of the dancefloor mayhem and then being politely asked by Emma Price to put it back on. Oh, and the wrestling, which I think involved myself, Oli Smith and, god help us, Jake Harold.

Thanks to Tamsin, Lisa and the rest of the Thought Bubble crew for another wickedsyles convention. More next year please.
Here's my favourite Thought Bubble report, by Claude TC of Reckless Youth.

Next..


COMICA AT THE ICA
Again, last year's was great and I knew to expect similar things this year, especially with the involvement of the mighty London Underground Comics. Curtis and Terrorist outsold Tales From The Flat, since most customers were going for the handmade aesthetic over the more superheroey vibes of TFTF. I also got me a Curtis and Terrorist cake from Marc Ellerby's girlfriend, Anna. Everyone else got personalised cakes at Thought Bubble except me and I had to threaten suicide in order to get one at Comica. It worked and it tasted yum.
Again, great post-con drinks at the local 'spoons around the corner which I think ended with me getting bummed by Doug Noble on a sofa. Possibly. He's insatiable

Josceline Fenton looks on whilst Sean has another stroke.

And then...

KICK-ASS THE MOVIE
For one day I was an extra in the movie adaptation of the Mark Millar comic, Kick-Ass. I nearly kicked Jonathan Ross' wife in the face and watched some girl from Desperate Housewives moan about being given a Tesco's sandwich to eat. It was a fairly open set too, so we were able to wander around, stand behind monitors and watch stuff get filmed. Good food as well.

And most recently...

LONDON UNDERGROUND CHRISTMAS
Our third and final event of the year was, of course, a great success. LUXmas acted as both an exhibition and comic convention, with displays of art by the core LUC team. There seemed to be a fairly constant flow of people during the day, with plenty of confused looking drunk people coming downstairs in the evening and spending a few quid on some comics before returning to the safety of upstairs. Great music all day also courtesy of allsorted ipod playlists and DJ's including Modern Monstrosity's own Robo Jimo. I even managed to hammer out a load of Curtis and Terrorist covers during the twelve hours spent there, despite being powered only by free beer (yes, there was free beer, that's just how LUC roll baby).
Video diary of the event here. There's swearing.

Frazer Irving, Cassandra Conroy and Emma Price. Word.

The final LUC Camden Stall EVER is this Saturday. Myself, Oli, Sean and Dan will be there, come down and buy some stocking fillers.

And in other news...

The Dorrito-powered boy wonder that is Jake Harold has been working away very hard on serialising his Justine Tyme epic at his new site. It started off as being updated FIVE DAYS A WEEK, which he kept to like the freaky robot man that he is. You can now catch a page of the goodness every other day. Check it.

The Dan Lester Mysteries, reviewed by Richard Bruton over at the Forbidden Planet blog.

Creatively, it's been a pretty lazy year from Modern Monstrosity, with only TFTF#7, The Dan Lester Mysteries and the TFTF 24-Hour comic coming out (and I don't really reckon a 24-hour comic even counts). Next year though, we're cutting back on conventions and concentrating on more output and our own LUC events with our brothers in arms. We've got a fairly definitive timeline planned out which should see 2009 end with the star-studded Tales From The Flat #10.
Anyway, to make up for our heavy procrastination this year, every day from Friday December 19th through til Christmas Eve, we'll be publishing a page of the Tales From The Flat Christmas Special, a 6-page, full-colour Christmas adventure with the TFTF crew! We've been meaning to do a Christmas story for ages and this seemed like the perfect chance.

That's all, we're up to speed now. More before the new year.
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