London Comic Con 2017 Report!

Hey everyone! Let's do an entry in English, for all my (possible) International readers!

I love doing these kinds of convention reports, both for my self (to remember what was good and not so good about them) but also to let other con goers and artists that might be interested in knowing a bit more about them.

So, here's a long overdue report from this year's London Comic Con, back in 27th-29th of October:

I had been trying to get here before, but the tables at the Comic Village (the comic artist part of the convention) is really, really diffucult to snatch (like at most big conventions nowadays). They release them in the begining of August and one table with one entrace ticket costs £80 (very fair price for an event with over 100 000 visitors!).

The Comic Village, pre opening.

 I was a little scared to go alone, so I brought two comic creator friends called Sam and Nora, who call them selves Studio Dhuppi and make the LGBTQ comic Come Queer With Me. Check them out!
My boyfriend also tagged along and helped me out a whole lot, plus was a great travel companion.

Me and Sam at our table in the Comic Village.

My issue with not going before was that I did not have any new comics in English that I could sell. But since Mjau! was Kickstarted with Phoenix Dreams Publishing the month before, we could do a quick print run of 50 exclusive "pre release" books, that I could sell at the con!

My side of the table! I sold Nosebleed Studio's 10 Years Jubilee Anthology!

 The convention was huuuge. This is a photo of just one part of one of the spacious halls filled to the brink with nerdy stores, companies, studios and asian fast food restaurants.

And here's some photos from the Comic Village! There was soo many tables there. Rows and rows and rows with fantastic artists, creations and projects!

One thing I actually am a big fan of is the fact that Comic Village has a ban on selling fanart. So all the se tables was original artworks! Compared to any other con, where the Artist Alley usually overflows of often unlicensed fanart and many times stolen trademarked logos etc., this was such a breath of fresh air for the artist community. Instead of competing with fanart (which because of the original characters being Internaional franchizes with huge PR budgets, that some fanart seller is leaching upon) we where actually on equal playing field!

Don't get me wrong. I love fanart that are made to show the original creator you love their works, or made as part of a fanart competition held by the original artist. But selling it? No. Unless the original artist and copyright holder have given you their written permission to profit from something they have worked hard on to build up, then that fanart seller is a thief. That's my honest opinion. So the Comic Village rule of banning fanart is in my mind the most legal and fair way to organize such an event.

Let's "meet" some of the artists at the con!

Two artists that caught my eye was Tom Oliver and Claude TC because I really liked both their styles and themes; fantasy and comedy! Go check them out! Plus awesome fancy prints~

These three amazing artists travelled far, just like we did, for this con! They are Marvin, Mrion and BLOP from France! Just jaw-dropping art and interesting stories, from historical to fantasy to slice-of-life.

 Last but not least,I really liked Dan Scarlett's style, a bit of manga mixed with more animation-ish styles, if you know what I mean.

As always, these trips makes perfect "date-trips" for me and my bf too (because when you date a workaholic like me, you have to live with all date-trips being partly work!). So we crammed in some tourism too, and just like when we went to New York to visit Comic Con, we make sure we check out some dinosaur sceletons while traveling. National History Museum and Brittish Museum made the trip perfect!

All in all, London Comic Con was just as amazing as I expected. Not as big as New York Comic Con (but still HUGE) but in some ways I liked this trip more. Probably because I had a table this time, I love experiencing a con from sitting at an artist table selling. And it was great being at a con and actually being able to speak to the buyers that come up to your table (not like when I visited DoKomi in Germany, my German is terrible), and network a lot with other artists!

Sam, Nora and I also got to be interviewed by the UK culture website The Panoptic. Check out the interview, where we talked about why we decided to come to London Comic Con, about self-publishing and working with publishers.

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Here's some tips for you who would like to sell at London Comic Con in October one day:

1. Make sure to get a table in the Comic Village (this is the hardest part!). Keep your eyes at their Twitter account in the end of July/beginning of August. Remember to also book extra tickets when booking the table if you are more than one artist at the table.
2. Book flight tickets and hotels waaaaay in advance, they are hard to catch the last weeks before the event. And get the Oyster Card for the subway as soon as you arrive in the city.
3. If you travel far, by plane, you might want to ship your books/merch instead of carrying it in your bags. We asked the hotel and got to ship the books to them, they were so kind to take them in and we could pick them up when checking in.

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So I highly recommend this con for anyone who wants to go sell at a comic convention in the UK!

Thanks for reading!