Posted by Pete

The mighty Kev F Sutherland emailed with news and a request which I figured it'd be best to pass on: (75% of this is a form letter - figure out which bits for yourself)

As you may have heard, the COMICS 2001 festival will now be taking place in Bristol on May 26 and 27 2001.

Official announcements have yet to go out, but as the very hub of comics information on the net I thought you ought to be the first to hear about it. Our previous plans, to move the event to Glasgow as part of their city-wide event, have been changed as they have had to make unexpected alterations to their schedule.

So, for the third year, Britain's Official Comics Festival will take place on Bristol's harbourside, and this year looks set to be the biggest and best event yet.

This is the relevant bit...

Re: Small Press. I'd very much like to put Small Press into the big arena. The whole purpose of my events (Comics 2000, DreddCon et al) is to bring comics to a big new public, not just have them meet the same old dwindling number of obsessives. So, can you come and can you help?

Who's hot? Who's new? Who's doing comics that I can tell the world about? Send them my way and I'll try and invite them to Comics 2001 and make the party one worth shouting about.

I very much want to ensure all the Small Press comics that appear on your site are available for sale to the public at Comics 2001 - and I'm not in this to make money out of the little guys either (that's what Forbidden Planet and DC are for).

Who's hot? Well, I have a vague idea but I really haven't got my finger right on the pulse of what's going on at grass roots level. In fact events like Bristol are essential for me to find out about new small press comics.

So, who's new and hot and doing interesting stuff? Who should the public be introduced to at Bristol? Since Kev has been so magnanimous and described me as a "hub" (although I suspect that wa part of the form letter, no one's ever called me a "hub" before and I'm flattered) I reckon I'll be taking a table this year. Since Chris Staros will probably have his Top Shelf stuff there's no point competing with him, so maybe the old BugPowder distro will be revitalised for one weekend only? If Andy Luke is going we'll make it a BP/TRS2 teamup, or something.

So, who have you discovered in the last 12 months who makes you squeal like a piggy? Do let me know.

Here's the rest of the press release...

With anniversaries including Dennis The Menace's 50th birthday and Spiderman's 40th to guarantee us major media coverage, we are expanding into a newly built venue (previous attendees will remember it was a building site last year) featuring an exhibition hall with increased floorspace and access, air-conditioning, a drive-thru goods lift and state of the art conference facilities, plus an Imax cinema showing The Simpsons in 3D (and, as you'd expect, much much more).

For the third year running, ticket prices will be frozen at the pocket money prices set in 1999, and with our event falling on a Bank Holiday weekend we look forward to attracting even more visitors than last year's record 3000.

We are already taking bookings from dealers, publishers and exhibitors wishing to participate in Comics 2001. For dealer and exhibitor space only, contact Mike Allwood of Area 51 Comics. For all other enquiries, including sponsorship and promotions, events, ad space in the programme (scheduled for publication in Feb 2001), press and publicity, contact Kev F Sutherland

2:05 PM |

Thursday, November 23, 2000