Looking Back at Lawless: A Celebration 2022

Richard Sheaf dropped in on Lawless in Bristol last month, back on the British schedule for the first time since 2019, and reports not just on this hugely successful event, but offers some insights into making a comics gathering a truly memorable experience…

Lawless 2022 - Photo by Richard Sheaf - Autographs

(Don’t forget there’s still opportunity to bid on a signed copy of this year’s fantastic Lawless programme, and get some other fine goodies too – bidding closes at 10.00pm tonight, Saturday 4th June. Find out more here, or simply join the bidding here on Facebook)

Comic convention organisation is a nightmare. For the perfect event, you need guests, that then need to be looked after all day; a good venue, and accommodation; ideally, a bar, too. To complete your “venn diagram” of the ideal event, I’d love a convention programme to guide attendees, you’ll definitely need plenty of volunteers to help you out, have comics for sale, a variety of talks/panels, and original art on display. Plus, short queues when it comes to attendee opportunities to meet the guests, good transport links – and probably a million other things that, as a punter, you never even have to think about when attending a convention.

Getting all these things right is so hard that I’m amazed any convention can return year after year. Returning means you got most of that long list of things right last year; and now you’ve got a better chance to get things right this year and then next year, and, hopefully the enthusiasm that drove your first outing is still there, and the convention can run and run. That we see this happen so rarely, outside of enormous events that can take over Excel or Olympia, is not intended as a slight or criticism of any event organisers; just a recognition that there are so many variables that need to come together to make a convention work, anywhere.

Lawless 2022 - Photo by Richard Sheaf - Panel with Mike Dorey and John Higgins
Mike Dorey and John Higgins on stage during Lawless 2022

So it was a complete pleasure to attend Lawless: A Celebration 2022 in Bristol on Saturday 28th May (full disclosure: I was given a press pass for the event); and to see what can happen when an event hits that sweet spot tight in the middle of that convention venn diagram. The expansion of the convention to two days this year shows a level of confidence in the show that is richly deserved, with some 300 2000AD and British comic fans attending. There are few independently-run conventions that span a full weekend in Britain, Comics Salopia, the Lakes International Comic Art Festival and Thought Bubble among them, so it’s good to see another event running across a a full two days of programming.

I was only able to attend on the Saturday, but since the guest list was virtually the same for both days, Mike Collins a late addition to the Sunday, it meant I had a chance to see all the guests, go to the comics exhibition and catch up with a few people. Doing all of that and going to all of the panels was just impossible – there were six panels on the Saturday and five on the Sunday, virtually back-to-back. There’s so much to see and do, you can’t possibly fit it all in.

For anyone who’s not been to Lawless yet, here’s the general (really simple sounding) idea… hold it in a big hotel about five minutes walk from a really big train station and have four function rooms.

Function Room One, the biggest, contains a great selection of British comic artists and writers – hello to John Wagner, Dan Cornwell, Brian Bolland, Clint Langley, Glenn Fabry, Lew Stringer, John Higgins, Mike Dorey, Steve Austin, David Roach, Boo Cook, Alan Hebden and plenty of others.

In almost all cases, there was virtually no queue at any table, or if there was, it was just one or two people and even then, often because an artist was drawing something so it was actually good to be in the queue to see the drawing happening. (Yes, even the queuing is good at Lawless!).

Most artists had original art for sale, were doing very reasonably priced sketches or taking commissions for more complex pieces (either to be completed later or after the show had finished). The show is such a great opportunity to meet artists and buy art directly from them. Simon Davis had lots of Thistlebone pages, Dan Cornwell had loads of Rok of the Red art, and David Roach and John Higgins all had plenty of art for sale, too.

Lawless 2022 - Photo by Richard Sheaf - Dan Cornwell art

A quick shout-out for the Brian Bolland queue; which, yeah, was the longest queue there, but approximately half a mile shorter than it would have been at a big MCM/LFCC event, I’m sure. It was well martialled and, in fact, the time taken to get through the queue was not down to the number of people in the queue, but because Brian just enjoyed chatting to everyone he met. And he had a lot of people to meet!

  • Lawless 2022 - Photo by Richard Sheaf - Art by Mick McMahon
  • Lawless 2022 - Photo by Richard Sheaf - Art by David Roach
  • Lawless 2022 - Photo by Richard Sheaf - Art by Lew Stringer
  • Lawless 2022 - Photo by Richard Sheaf - Art by Graham Bleathman
  • Lawless 2022 - Photo by Richard Sheaf - Art by David Broughton

Function Room Two is for the panels. Get yourself one hundred+ chairs, a rotating selection of speakers and interviewers, and off you go. Eleven panels over the weekend meant you could have spent virtually the whole weekend in here without having to bother with the rest of Lawless at all. A good range of topics was covered, everything from “2000AD – The Early Years”, to “War Comics”, to “Rok of the Reds”, to “Doctor Who comics”, and lots more). I only had time to go to one panel, but if I had been there for the Saturday and Sunday, I’d definitely pace myself more and go to more talks.

Function Room Three is for the independent comic creators and traders. This room deliberately had fewer tables in it than in previous years (it’s the smallest room and can get pretty packed pretty quickly) which was a good COVID-19-driven decision, but it did mean I spent the least amount of time/money in here. Dave Broughton tells me that Saturday was really busy, but Sunday less so. Hopefully, this room can get back to nearer full capacity in 2023.

Function Room Four was for the comics art exhibition. At the last show, in 2019, this was filled with Carlos Ezquerra art. (After all, the show that year was sub-titled “A tribute to Carlos Ezquerra”). This time around the exhibition was more general, but filled with some absolutely superb examples of British comic art. You want a few “Thunderbirds” double-page spreads by Frank Bellamy from TV21? You got ‘em. “Dan Dare” art by Keith Watson and Eric Eden from Eagle? Sorted. Pages and pages of art by Look-in favourite, Mike Noble? Check. Plus, art by Don Lawrence, Wilf Hardy, Ron Embleton, John Cooper, John Stokes, John M Burns, and others.

  • Lawless 2022 - Photo by Richard Sheaf -
  • Lawless 2022 - Photo by Richard Sheaf -
  • Lawless 2022 - Photo by Richard Sheaf -
  • Lawless 2022 - Photo by Richard Sheaf -
  • Lawless 2022 - Photo by Richard Sheaf -
  • Lawless 2022 - Photo by Richard Sheaf -
  • Lawless 2022 - Photo by Richard Sheaf -
  • Lawless 2022 - Photo by Richard Sheaf -
  • Lawless 2022 - Photo by Richard Sheaf -
  • Lawless 2022 - Photo by Richard Sheaf -
  • Lawless 2022 - Photo by Richard Sheaf -

This room is slightly further away from the other function rooms and I always worry that it doesn’t get the footfall that the other rooms do. It certainly deserved to be busy. Graham Bleathman, perhaps best known for his Gerry Anderson TV shows cutaway art, was in here too, selling comics and doing sketches. This was a superb exhibition and many thanks to the owners for sharing their art.

Lawless 2022 - Photo by Richard Sheaf - The 77

I haven’t even touched on show sponsors The77 Publications and their titles, including Pandora, launched at the show, or the convention programme; although I did have a great chat with Su Haddrell about the moment she realised she’d been immortalised in a drawing by Mick McMahon; or the amazing cosplayers, or the Saturday evening raffle, which, partly thanks to the inclusion of a Judge Dredd movie script complete with forthright notes from John Wagner to director Danny Cannon, raised £800 plus for the CALM charity.

John Wagner's annotated Judge Dredd movie script, sold at auction
John Wagner’s annotated Judge Dredd movie script, sold at auction

It was also great to meet, for the first time, writer and artist Colin Maxwell, attending the show in honour of much-missed downthetubes contributor and fine comics archivist, the late Colin Noble, Conrad Leiden, Eamonn Clarke, an David Roach.

There’s so much to do at Lawless, so be ready to get yourself a ticket for the 2023 version, being held on Saturday 27th – Sunday 28th May 2023, again in Bristol, book a hotel room and start looking forward to it right now. I’ll definitely be going back.

Richard Sheaf

Don’t forget there’s still opportunity to bid on a signed copy of this year’s fantastic Lawless programme, and get some other fine goodies too – bidding closes at 10.00pm tonight, Saturday 4th June. Find out more here, or simply join the bidding here on Facebook)

• Extra, unsigned copies of the Lawless programme (signed by The77 creators only) are available from The77comic.net. Proceeds are going to CALM

• Check out all that happened at Lawless and find out about future plans here on Facebook | Web lawlesscomiccon.co.uk

Lawless 2023

If you were at Lawless 2022, ace photographer was, too – and if you were one of the attendees he photographed you can but un-watermarked photographs here | danburgessphoto.co.uk | Check out his watermarked album of photos here on Facebook

The77 eighth Kickstarter from Lawless show sponsor The77 Publications is live here



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