Goldfish Bowl

Thingy 2006

Well, I am suitably knackered after this year’s Thing. Excellent chance to meet comic makers and have a nice chat, make some friends, learn some stuff, and not least get a lot of free stuff!

The Panels were on Promoting your comic and what to do about Reviews. Both were informative and interesting. I contributed to the first one, with a slightly lighthearted remark about caffinated beverages. I don’t think the panelists minded - much. Comic reviews was quite interesting too - if a little on the long side - and discussed what exactly a good or a bad review was. Podcasts appear to be a good source of comic review, which is something I wasn’t previously aware of.

I also got to see some new people and say hi to some old ones - most of whom didn’t remember me *cough* John Allison*cough*. This year - as opposed to last year - I decided to only link to people on the condition they answer one of my bizarre questions. So, here it goes.

The Tales from the Flat decided that their favourite length container was about 7 inches - or at least the length of a pint glass. (modernmonstrosity@ hotmail.com). Personally, I prefer a 24ft container, big enough to fit a reasonable office/70’s psychedelic den inside.

Mark from Pirates said that the best coloured pen would be black. A functional classic to be sure.

RANT comics’ favourite tube station had to be Canada Waters. The hidden treasures of the docklands.

Ding from DingBobikComics thought that the best kind of neon sign was one that said “Fire Exit”. I can’t say I’ve seen that many neon signs that say Fire exit, but clearly he has!

John Allison of scarygoround.com voiced his slightly indifferent passion for bendy buses, due to their flammable qualities. Sorry, their FORMER flammable qualities.

I confused Mr Madsen of Little Gamers by asking a number of probably Swedish-webcomic-artist-unfriendly questions, but managed to learn that his favourite film title (just the name, not the actual film) is Requiem for a Dream.

moog from Weebl’s stand at first thought the best image format was PNG, but later changed that to GIF - probably because it’s fun to make silly animations with them! I planned to ask Jonti himself what favourite minstrel was, but unfortunately he managed to evade me. Damn him and his mysterious ninja skills.

A representative of Raw Shark liked diet coke more than any other soft drink. if whoever I asked that reads this, tell me who you are! sorry I forgot!

Vented Spleen.com’s Tom (I think) thought that the least crappy urban bird was probably the sparrow. But they’re all a bit crappy, really.

Reckless Youth’s Claude said the best temperature was 30C. A bit on the warm side for me, but great for certain chemical reactions.

TwoSidesWide.com thought something, I’ll bet, but I’ll be dammed if I can remember what it is. I got on quite well with these guys, and we both admired our handiwork in the anthology. Which is pretty excellent I might say. It’s a possibility you might see some of their work in this kinda vicinity one day. HMM…. They might need some guidance in how to print stickers, though. HINT: Don’t print the stuff on the side that you peel off!

There you go! A bit more than your average “here’s a bunch of people I thought were interesting” list of links. Anyone I missed out, was probably because you were too busy for my inane questioning or I felt too guilty to look at your comics without enough money to buy any of them!

You were pretty lucky if you passed by the Comic Creator’s Guild stall - they had a bunch of Forbidden Planet’s excess stock which they were GIVING AWAY!! I reckon they gave me at least a tenner’s worth of comics. How COOL!

I think the best thing about this years Thing was the plastic bags which were provided for free stuff. A great idea. Maybe it was the panels. They were pretty sweet. Or the sweets…. hmm, dunno. There was definitely more free stuff this year. Which brings me back to the plastic bags…. oooh. Well, whatever, it was a great Thing no doubt about that.

So there you have it. A quick and dirty review of this year’s Thing. Anyone who I havn’t pestered before, I pester you now to GO TO THING 2007!