Emma Vieceli Art Gallery

I return from BICS, and am ALIIIIIIVE!

Well, all in all, I had a sterling weekend. I was a little nervous about heading to my first event without Sweatdrop as a whole. This time it was just little me and Sonia Leong; all exposed with no Sweatdrop stock to hide behind. However, after a sparkling and shiny Friday night launch party (also launching Tony Lee and Dan Boultwood’s ‘Hope Falls’ - check it out!) we got into the swing of things pretty quickly! It was truly awesome and I am suffering post-con blues in a big way. I met so many fabulous people, but special shoutouts go to Jamie McKelvie, Kieron Gillan, Marc Ellerby, Leigh Gallagher and the rest of the Saturday night posse who saw fit to hang out with Pud and myself. (Photo evidence can be found at warrensllis.com, much to my chronic embarrassment. haha)
Those guys ‘rawk’. I feel I made a lot of friends over the weekend, and I look forward to seeing them all again, hopefully very soon!

And now, a note from our sponsors - not really. (disclaimer, I’m about to ramble. No harm is meant)
:
As a long-term comics fan, I adore being able to head to events like Bristol and Birmingham. I love shows like The London MCM Expo very much because of its hugely broad appeal and it will always be a special show for me, but with these comic shows, it’s the intimacy and the pure comic goodness that really floats my sequential art boat.
I know there are talks of the shows changing and bringing in more of the anime side of things, and I for one really hope that they don’t go too far down that route.
“What’s this?” I hear you say, “Emma? Long term anime fan, NOT wanting to see more anime?”
Hear me out ^_^
It’s not that I want to halt their growth in any way, just that -for me - why fix what’s not broken? Why go down the route of anime when, technically, it does not have to come hand-in-hand with comics? Manga and comics are one and the same, but much as manga and anime do indeed have their crossovers, would we expect to see Disney turn up to the Bristol show? No. Because Disney deal in animation and not comics. Sure, animation and comics are close on the geek map, but why single out anime as a form of animation that needs to follow its sibling like a pocky-fueled Alsatian wherever it goes?

I also see issues with the fanbase crossover. Your average ‘comics’ fan is likely to be checking out Death Note from the manga offerings at the moment; likewise, your average manga reader could well be picking up Runaways with a lot of interest (have I mentioned that to me manga and comics are one and the same? Good)…now imagine that same ‘comics’ fan watching Naruto and wearing a headband. Imagine a Naruto fan picking up Runaways. It doesn’t quite work in the same way. I know this even from talking to some fans at the event. Though there are exceptions (myself included for that matter), on the whole I’m not sure that anime fans and comics fans could necessarily work together in an intimate environment; they are very different beasts with very different tastes - each with their own wonderfulness. With the MCM Expo it’s not an issue as the place is a marketplace for all walks of geekdom, but in what is meant to be a pure comics show? I’m not so sure.

Aaanyways, I’m rambling away here. I hope I made some semblance of a point. Keep comic events pure. Sequential art for the win! Keep Expo’s unique and special in terms of cross-culture events. That’s what I’m saying..yeah ^_^

So, Birmingham was AWESOME! Roll on Bristol!
I also look forward to seeing some of the wonderful comics chappies at the aforementioned geekfest that is London MCM Expo. Just a week to go!