#elcaf2015

Last weekend was the busiest I’ve been for a long time! On the Friday night I attended the launch of one of the books I’ve been helping to promote with Avery Hill Publishing. It was really exciting to be part of launching this debut graphic novel by US comic artist Tillie Walden as I had loved it the minute I read it prior to publication. It’s a beautiful, strange and sad story with incredible atmosphere... if you’re interested in hearing more about it Tillie did a really great interview on the Comics Alternative podcast which you can listen to here! I was quite involved with this book from the printing to the promotion stage so it was great to see it generate so much interest over its launch weekend. 

Following the launch I had to be at ELCAF (the East London Comics & Arts Festival) to set up at 9am on the Saturday. I was sharing a table with the amazing Felt Mistress and Jonathan Edwards which was a lot of fun. And we were next to Tiny Pencil and Viv Schwarz!

(Photo thanks to Deadly Knitshade!)

For me the experience of tabling at two-day festivals like this is wonderful but also exhausting. As someone who’s much more at home left alone in a quiet studio than being surrounded by people I find it a real effort to get through so many hours! I also had a fairly quiet first day in terms of sales which meant that I went home on the Saturday feeling disappointed, then the Sunday far exceeded my expectations and I made more than double. So it was a rollercoaster weekend for sure!  Although I came away really pleased with how it had all gone by the end of ELCAF, I was a bit sad that I’d missed out on meeting Annie Koyama of Koyama Press, a Canadian publisher that I really admire. She was taking a rare holiday to visit the festival and give a talk, and I’d been in touch with her prior to the festival to tell her about Tillie’s book. But then the day after ELCAF, out of the blue I got invited to drinks with Annie and a few other people (including Tillie and her dad who’d accompanied her over from the States) ...so I got to say hi finally! I got this amazing comic from Joe Decie (that he drew in 24 hours at last year’s LICAF festival) and a notebook from Annie.

It was great way to end a really exhausting weekend (and a good lesson to myself to be brave. My first instinct on getting invited along was to say no out of fear and tiredness, but I went anyway and had a lovely time. Big thanks also to my pal illustrator Mike Medaglia for coming with me and making it easier!)

I almost forgot: I launched a new book of my own at ELCAF! It was the first outing of the second issue of my on-going series Katzine. There was a nice feature recently about it on The DIY Eye which you can see here. 

I’ve had a super busy weekend up in London. On Friday, I saw the Forensics exhibition up at the Wellcome Museum in Euston, London along with their permanent exhibitions, Medicine Man and Medicine Now. I highly recommend anyone to go and visit the Wellcome Museum. (The Forensics exhibition has finished now).

http://wellcomecollection.org/

On Saturday I went back into London with genozo to ELCAF (East London Comics & Arts Festival) with our work friend. I also got to see the wonderful harleyrossillustrates and waiwaipang too! ELCAF was fantastic. It was filled with incredibly talented artists and designers all with unique art styles and I left feeling truly inspired.

Just a few of the prints & books I bought there...