TBC Bedford 2024

 Last weekend I went to the comic convention formerly known as NICE, now renamed To Be Continued, in beautiful downtown Bedford. The name had changed but the celebration of graphic storytelling remained. A small but perfectly formed con, TBC was yet again a haven for fans of comics and comic creators. Top name guests included Alan Davis, Sean Phillips, John Wagner, Adi Granov, John McCrae, Mike Collins and Paul Cornell, along with many other up-and-coming talents. There was also an emphasis on genre fiction authors this year, with the likes of MR Carey, AY Chao and Eliza Chan adding a new dimension to the expo.

I'd only been in the lovely Bedford Corn Exchange a few minutes when I made my first purchase: Ian Gibson's The Lifeboat, from the publishers of The '77 Comic. This was the final graphic novel from the sadly-departed writer and artist, and a beautiful piece of work. I'd spoken to the Man From '77 ( sorry, didn't catch his name ) last year, and he'd been enthusing then about Gibson's upcoming work, but sadly the creator passed away only a few months after that. 

Isn't it a gorgeous cover? Obviously reminiscent of the classic Halo Jones strip, but a creator-owned, passion project for Gibson and a reminder of the singular talent the comics world has lost. It was a poignant purchase, which I've only skimmed so far, and I'm looking forward to giving it some proper time and attention.

On a lighter note, I caught up with my old bloggin' buddy, Peerless Pete Doree, and bought a copy of his Essential Showcase Presents: Stan & Jack. This cavorting collection of Pete's stellar strips is fantastic fun and the ideal gift for the Armadillo in your life. 'Nuff Said! ( Apologies for lapsing into Stan-speak there... it's cataclysmically contagious. ) Pete had previously said he would personalise the book with a sketch and I asked him to draw me a Thing...

...Benjamin Grimm, that is. Pete had never drawn The Thing before and, as he's such a notoriously difficult character to draw ( Ben, not Pete! ), I felt slightly guilty about my request. But, I'm sure you'll agree Pete knocked it out of the park with his spectacular sketch of Bashful Benjy. It was great to catch up with Pete: we had a good old chinwag about comics ( of course ) and he also made time to duck out of the con and go for lunch with me and Sarah. Top bloke!

Of course, I also went longbox diving and picked up a few goodies. Fittingly, I found a couple of groovy Jack Kirby mags for decent prices:

And this all-time classic Amazing Spider-Man, which I've been after for many years. It's slightly creased and, although I was tempted to buy a slightly better condition copy for £15 more, I was happy to pick up this beauty:

Plus a few more magnificent mags:

These last two were purchased from the artist/writer himself, the always affable Mike Collins... and were signed at no extra cost. Nice.

While I was doing this, Sarah was walking the mean streets of MK40 and took some cool photos on her tour...

I also briefly bumped into my other old bloggin' pal, Mighty Joe Ackerman. Joe hadn't been very well recently and wasn't sure if he'd make it, but turned up with a mate who was looking after him. Sarah and I popped out of the building briefly, saying we'd catch up with Joe on our return, but missed him. I've been trying for literally years to get me, Pete and Joe together in one place and one time but it never seems to work... even when we're all in the same building. 

Hey ho, that was a minor disappointment in what had been a lovely day. Same time next year?

Comics comics comics

Yes, comics. 

Specifically a few mags I've picked up recently, most from the aptly-named Fantastic Store on the Isle of Wight. Fantastic Four no. 56 ( Nov. 1966 ) is slightly older than me and is in slightly better condition than me. This was one of the few affordable issues of the Lee / Kirby FF that I didn't own, so £25 for a decent-looking copy seemed reasonable. "Klaw, The Murderous Master of Sound" sees the return of Ulysses Klaw, the Black Panther's nemesis who, while only being introduced a couple of issues previously as a murderous soldier of fortune, has now been upgraded to become a creature of solidified sound. Not even Charles Atlas could transform eager young incels that quickly. With an ill-defined plan to lure and capture the Panther, Klaw launches an attack on the Baxter Building, only to have his solidified-sound arse kicked by Reed, Sue and Ben ( Johnny is off on a quest to find his missing Inhuman girlfriend, Crystal, and mope about like a proper moody teenager while he's doing so ). This issue, which also features cameos from the Black Panther, The Inhumans and the Silver Surfer, is a minor segment in the sprawling super hero soap opera which was the FF of Stan & Jack's glory years, but it's still good fun. Kirby's bombastic action scenes are as explosive as ever and he finds, er, space to slot in an impressively weird denizen of Sub-Space ( aka the Negative Zone ), prompting The Thing to utter the immortal dialogue "Nuts! Ya can buy my share'a sub-space for a plugged nickel!" as seen below:

I've never really been into war comics, but this couple of anniversary issues with their cool Joe Kubert covers seemed worth a look.

The Unknown Soldier no. 250 ( April 1981 )

The Traitor Without A Face is a full-length story ( unusual in a war book of the time ) which leads us to believe the bandage-faced anti hero has swapped sides and is cozying up to Hitler and co. Just about all of DC's war heroes ( including Sgt. Rock, The Losers, Mlle Marie and even the Haunted Tank ) turn up to take the Soldier down. Of course, it's all a double-bluff, as the semi-Mummy is actually on a secret mission to shut down a nazi germ-warfare project. It's a typically outlandish, logic-defying story from "Zany" Bob Haney, with some fine layouts from old dependable Dick Ayers and lush inking from Gerry Talaoc.

Weird War Tales no. 100 ( June 1981 ) is less successful and more of a mixed bag. The main story ( Dinosaur Convoy by writer Mike W. Barr, and artists Bob Hall and Jerry Ordway ) is a crossover between The Creature Commandos and the War That Time Forgot series. Neither artist seems very comfortable with the subject matter and it all looks very bland, certainly nowhere near as dynamic as Kubert's cover illustration. More interesting is back-up strip The Scavengers by John Warner and the enigmatically-named Vacatan, which is a dark fable of feudal Japan with moody artwork and some surprising black humour.

Howard The Duck no. 2 ( Dec. 1979 ) is from the post-Gerber era, when Marvel were attempting to relaunch the temperamental fowl in a B&W magazine, without his co-creator ( let's not forget Val Mayerik! ) and without Comics Code restrictions. The magazine and strip were, of course, short-lived and suffered without Steve Gerber's idiosyncratic, acerbic stories and philosophy. The first strip in this issue is a bitter swipe at the House of the Mouse for threatening to sue Marvel over the Duck's appearance, and forcing the character to change his image, in theory to look less like D****d D**k... which he never really did. In the story, failing clothing designer Wally Sydney ( ha ha sounds a bit like W**t D****y, get it? ) whips up hysteria about the fact that animals are naked (?), causing the Cleveland branch of the Moral Majority to go around picketing pet stores and the like. "Illegalize pet porno!" they shout at one point. The upshot of this madness is Howard ends up having to wear trousers and Sydney makes money by selling more clothes. The satire is pretty clumsy and Howard acts totally out of character by giving in to the pants pressure, but at least the artwork by Gene Colan and Klaus Janson makes up for it. The second story, featuring the return of Howard's first nemesis, Pro Rata, the financial wizard, is overlong and unfunny, with Dave Simons' inks being a poor match for Colan's pencil work. In one panel, it looks like one of Colan's images of a half-dressed Beverly Switzler ( Howard's human gf ) has been redrawn, possibly by Simons. So much for the lack of editorial interference...

Crazy no. 63 ( June 1980 )

By 1980, Crazy had been daring to be dumb for quite a few years and was on its last legs. I didn't expect this mag to be particularly great, but you rarely see these in the wild so I thought I'd give it a go. As a humour mag, this issue is about as funny as Embalmers' Weekly* ( now in it's 150th year of publication! ) but it does feature another Howard the Duck appearance. Unfortunately, this Roger Stern-scripted strip is even more pointless than the Bill Mantlo stories in Howard's own mag. There's some nice artwork by Vicente Alcazar, but that's about it. The Apocalypse Now parody features some pretty decent caricatures of the movie's cast, but that's all I can really say about this issue of not-so-Crazy-actually...

The Titans no. 1 ( Week ending Oct. 25th 1975 )

This purchase was purely out of nostalgia. I was intrigued by Marvel UK's unusual, landscape format back when I was ( *checks notes... OMG! ) 8 years old and The Titans was an instant hit with me. Unfortunately, I didn't get the first issue and have never owned a copy since that dim and distant year of 1975 so, for £6.50, I finally picked up that "Fabulous First Issue". There's an overdose of Kirby's Kosmic Kreations inside: Jack Kirby's artwork takes up the first half of the comic, with classic tales of The Inhumans, Agent of SHIELD and Captain America. The King even gets a writing credit on the Inhumans strip, which was rare for his career at Marvel. There's a lovely reprint of the first solo 1960s Sub-Mariner strip, "The Start of The Quest", with some cool, aquatic artwork by Gene Colan ( he's getting a lot of love in this post ) and the much-maligned Vince Colletta. The whole issue is a great package, which introduced me to some groovy Silver Age stories back in the day, and is fun to finally read. No free full-colour poster, unfortunately, so the Quest continues...

And, to finish, here's the wonderful Fantastic Store where I picked up these cool comics. If you' ever find yourself on the exotic Isle of Wight, I'd recommend you drop in and sample its delights.

*You'll be astonished to learn that Embalmers' Weekly doesn't actually exist. But maybe it should.