Creators @ Glasgow Comic Con 2015 – Part 1

GlasgowCC15  CCA Exterior
The fifth Glasgow Comic Con took place over the weekend of 4/5 July 2015 near the centre of Scotland’s largest city. Organised by Black Hearted Press, GCC has been based in the Centre For Contemporary Arts, the CCA, for the last three years which is an unusual place that appears to have originally been 2 three-storey buildings with an alley or courtyard between them.

GlasgowCC15 CCA Interior
This has now been glass roofed over leaving a tall central atrium and a befuddling array of staircases and aerial walkways that punch through original walls and make modern doorways out of old windows. Five different areas, some easier to find than others, within the CCA had sales and guest tables in addition to the small talks area on the ground floor next to the veggie café, the bar on the first floor, and the Big Draw room on the second.

GlasgowCC15  Art School
GCC also used the Glasgow School Of Art (GSA) Student’s Union, another amalgam of old and new, which is opposite the section of the GSA that was partially destroyed by fire in 2014, the road outside of which is still cordoned off. While it is just behind the CCA, the Art School Union it is up such a steep hill that its ground floor entrance is actually above the roof level of the CCA.

GlasgowCC15 Hill
While no photo could possibly show off just how steep the Scott Street hill felt, for those not used to the area that hill became something of a talking point over the weekend. To give you some idea of the difference in height, looking at the red building in the middle distance, the entrance to the CCA was at the level the cars are parked at and the upper sales level of the Art School Union was about the same height as the top row of windows, if not higher. The cosplayers and additional sales tables where at the nearby Renfield Centre on the Saturday with some of them relocating to an extra but smaller part of the Union on the Sunday.

downthetubes has already covered the convention with a preview and a review of the event and here we present a selection of the creators that were there over the weekend.

GlasgowCC15 Nigel Parkinson
Under their massive Beano poster in the CCA atrium no one was going to miss artist Nigel Parkinson and colourist Nika Nartova as they busied themselves with drawing after drawing of Beano characters. In addition to this they were also giving away copies of the Beano Activity Comic that is normally only available when buying a children’s meal at the Brewer’s Fayre chain of restaurants.

There are more details of Nigel’s work on his blog.

The new Beano website, which includes games and videos, is available here.

GlasgowCC15 John Higgins
Artist John Higgins is best known as the colourist of Watchmen, but he also coloured Batman: The Killing Joke, and it should not be forgotten that he is an artist in his own right having worked on many British and American titles including 2000AD, Death’s Head, Hellblazer, and has both written and illustrated his own Razerjack. More recently he illustrated the “Curse of the Crimson Corsair” strip that ran through the Beyond Watchmen titles.

There are more details of John’s work on his website.

GlasgowCC15 Tanya Roberts
Artist Tanya Roberts is a familiar face at Scottish comics events having worked on Titan’s Star Wars: Clone Wars comic, Boom’s Toy Story and IDW’s TMNT. Her latest title is Plagued: The Miranda Chronicles, written by Gary Chudleigh and published by GCC organisers Black Hearted Press, which has reached its third issue. Plagued, set in a dystopian future where magic mingles with science, won the GCC’s SICBA award for Best Comic with Tanya getting Best Artist for her work on the first issue.

There are more details of Tanya’s work on her DeviantArt page.

There are more details of Plagued: The Miranda Chronicles at the Black Hearted Press website.

GlasgowCC15 Al Ewing
Back in the days of the Hi-Ex convention up in Inverness Al Ewing was a regular guest who was just moving from his fan writing in small press titles like Zarjaz and Solar Wind to being a regular script droid on 2000AD and Judge Dredd Megazine. Since then he has expanded into Jennifer Blood for Dynamite, a selection of Avengers titles for Marvel including Captain America and the Mighty Avengers as shown here, and he is currently working on Titan’s Doctor Who: The 11th Doctor.

There are more details of Al’s work on his website

There are more details of Titan’s Eleven Doctor title on their website.

GlasgowCC15 Bambos Georgiou
Greek artist Bambos Georgiou learnt English by reading comics and went on to turn his interest into a career by working for titles such as 2000AD, Deadline, A1, Knights of Pendragon, Revolver, and Crisis. He was also one of artists on the Wallace and Gromit newspaper strip and is co-founder with David Lloyd of the Aces Weekly e-comic. Bambos, as well as having the most regularly misspelt name in the GCC publicity, spent the weekend drawing Marvel superheroes for the attendees including Captain America as shown here.

There are more details of Bambos’ work on the Marvel Database.  

There are more details of Aces Weekly at the title’s website.

GlasgowCC15 Darryl Cunningham
Writer/artist Darryl Cunningham non-fiction books began with his Psychiatric Tales, based on his own experiences as a health care assistant, moved through the myth busting Science Tales, which even got updated to a second edition, to his current look at the world financial crisis, Supercrash. For many attendees on the weekend of the Greek referendum, where they were voting for a financial package that was no longer on offer, this critically lauded book seemed like an obvious choice for a purchase complete with sketch and autograph. Darryl will be back to Scotland on August 31 when he will be appearing at the Edinburgh International Book Festival discussing ‘Who Hijacked the Global Economy?’ along with Katrine Marçal.

There are more details of Darryl’s work on his blog.

There are more details of Science Tales and Supercrash on the Myriad Editions website.

There are more details of Darryl’s talk at the Edinburgh International Book Festival on the BookFest website.

GlasgowCC15 Adam Murphy
Another writer/artist known for his non-fiction is Adam Murphy, who was at GCC with his colourist wife Lisa Murphy, although his weekly strip in the Phoenix comic couldn’t be more different from Supercrash. In Corpse Talk Adam’s cartoon alter-ego literally digs up the bodies of famous people from history and interviews them. As bizarre as educational grave robbing in a children’s comic may sound to the uninitiated, Corpse Talk is an excellent strip that has run in Phoenix since Issue Zero and its first compilation, entitled Corpse Talk Season 1, is now on its third printing with the second compilation due in September 2015. Before then, like Darryl, Adam will appearing at the Edinburgh International Book Festival where his Phoenix Comic Workshop is already sold out but there are currently tickets still available for the Comic Consequences that he will be participating in on August 31 with fellow Phoenixers Laura Ellen Anderson and Gary Northfield.

There are more details of Adam’s work on his website.

There are more details of Lisa’s work on her Tumbler.

There are more details of Corpse Talk on the Phoenix website.

There are more details of Comic Consequences at the Edinburgh International Book Festival on the BookFest website.

With thanks to all the creators for allowing their photos to be taken.

There are more details of the Glasgow Comic Con at its website and Facebook page.

Part Two of Creators @ Glasgow Comic Con 2015 is here.



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