So the Goon Meet was fun. I was a tad concerned that hardly anyone would show but at its height there were over fourty people, internet people, flooding Printworks and completely displacing the surprisingly sparse St. Paddy's day celebrators. A time was had!Earlier in the day I popped out of the tube at Stepney Green and was amused to see that I wasn't too far from the Gherkin. But first I was off to the UK Webcomix Thing, primarily to hunt down John Allison and make him sell me a couple of his books for money.
Though I was taken back a bit by what felt like a pretty steep entry fee (four pounds), I had to remind myself that the University where this was being held was probably charging an unrealistic sum to ask of individuals trying to cobble together a forum/market for a bunch of self-employed artists and writers. Having grown up with a pair of the former and having been close to their own troubles and travails, I can say with a modest amount of authority that a lot of renters seem to think that because creative types are usually not schooled in business, that they should be gouged at every opportunity because (as the theory goes) they will not know they are being gouged - or even if they do, they'll be too timid to do anything but make polite mumblings long after the fact.
I was pleased to meet John Allison for a few minutes as he kindly doodled some signatures in my purchases (the third and fourth SGR collections). I think he was in a nautical mood as the accompanying thumbnail sketches were of Ernest Cromerty & Desmond the Fish-man. Plus, when I asked to take a picture he chose to look out upon the sea.
Afterwards I had a thorough browse around all the tables. I wound up being, rather unexpectedly, a bit stuffed by the end of my tour as more than half the webcomic tables had free snacks laid out to draw people in. There was a wide range of talent and some of the art blew my tiny little mind. Aside from biscuits and cupcakes, I also picked up a bunch of fliers and free comics to investigate later. One thing that I was pleased not to find, were any comics which seemed like near-clones of either of the two ideas I've narrowed my own webcomic notions down to. Heck, I didn't even see one comic which used drawn characters over photographed backgrounds - which gives me hope that that style hasn't been sucked dry of all novelty and flavor.Some, of course, were horrible - but that's par for the course. I had very little sympathy for a quite elderly lady, who seemed like she would have been better suited to being an amusing comedic foil in a sitcom than an actual person in real life, that was selling her comics which all circulated around the evils of "music" and "a shame-free life". There were also the usual cluster of folk who thought that drawing a penis with a felt-tip marker and including references to Jeffrey Dahmer made them avant-garde.
Oh well! After I left I enjoyed a long and rambling journey towards the Gherkin (which didn't seem to be open to the public that day, sadly) and then across The City to the Goon Meet in Farringdon...
Here we see The Monument, which is explained fairly well in the second picture I took of it.
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4 comments:
Oliver I have walked the steps up that monument and thrown a paper airplane off the top. I then descended and collected the paper airplane.
I wish my life was shame-free.
Technically, Oliver's wording implies that a shame-free lifestyle is, in fact, evil. You're on the right track, Tom! Rack up that there shame, boy!
Rad! Was it your basic model paper airplane or are we talking of such a model as might have had those stablizing flaps in the back of the wings?
Haha...man I should have taken a picture of that old ladie's books. The covers were horrifying. I mostly recall one which preached against teen pregnancy (which I am also against, to be fair) that had a young woman hung on a noose made from her child's umbilical cord!
I am not in favor of that!
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