Over the weekend of the 6th and 7th of June; Dave West, Colin Mathieson (AccentUK) Colin’s son Scott and I attended the Copenhagen Comic Con.
Dave, Colin and Scott are regular visitors to the event but fer me it was me first time.
We touched down in Copenhagen Airport early Friday afternoon our suitcases heavy with
a whole heap of books.
I reckon we musta taken around 300 or so between the four of us.
And let me just say that some of those Anthology titles are downright heavy.
We found the venue easily enough (an old slaughterhouse don’tcha know) and spent an
hour or so setting up, ready for Saturday, then having a good look round as other folk
were busy setting up.
Up early Saturday morning ready for…well I wasn’t too sure what to expect, customer-wise.
However once the doors opened I was pleasantly surprised on the numbers coming
through the doors and even more at the number of customers buying Accent Books.
By the end of the first day we were all a bit surprised in just how many we’d sold.
AccentUK had a new book on sale: - “The Troll” written and drawn by Martin Fink
(creator of another of AccentUk’s books “Man of Glass”)
Martin is a Danish artist and he readily agreed to sit at the table to sign and
draw some sketches throughout the weekend.
Dave had made up a fair few WESTERNoir sketch packs and by the end of the day
we’d sold all of them. Luckily I had the foresight to bring more sketches so we could
make up some more (just in case).
I also know that the way things were selling I’d have to sit and sketch some more
so we could keep up with demand.
So I sat down besides Martin and both of us had a good old time sketching
and signing the books that seemed to fly off the table.
I didn’t get to see or hear the guest speakers, the main one being Art Spiegelman
because I was too busy at the Accent stand but I was over the moon when Colin
asked Peter Snejbjberg to pop across to the table for a chat and to sign his book
"Marlene" that I bought across with me.
We sat and chatted a good half hour talking all things Scandi-noir. He had to get back
to his table but not before I gave him a issues 3 & 4 of WESTERNoir
(Colin had given him a copy of books 1 and 2 at an earlier con a couple years prior).
Sunday seemed just as busy as the Saturday and when we did a final tally of books sold
at the end of the day we were well pleased with sales.
Several of the titles had sold out including the 21 WESTERNoir sketch packs Dave
and I had put together over the weekend. In fact towards the end of the day we
were apologising to folk because we’d sold out the books they wanted.
For the third year running record sales all round. Dave and Colin were well pleased
when we left the venue on Sunday evening and so was I (it meant our suitcase were
a hellava lot lighter going home).
Sunday evening and dinnertime found the four of us sitting around a table in the
“London Pub” in the pleasant company of Garen Ewing (author and artist of the
wonderful Rainbow Orchid: - it had been translated into Danish (Jagten På Regnbueorkidéen)
and he was there signing books and doing sketches at his publishers table.
Garen was also staying at the same hotel as we were so we would all meet at
breakfast to chat and plan the days) and Clíodhna Lyons a terrific Irish artist
who kept us entertained with tales of her many adventures abroad
visiting loads of different countries.
Also with us were Søren Pedersen, founder of the famous Fantask comics shop,
and his wife Vibeke:- very good friends of Colin and Dave’s.
They’ve known the couple years, from their very first Convention many many years ago.
And what a corker of an evening it was too.
Monday was a day of sight-seeing with Søren. He took us to a fair few memorable places
that the tourists don’t usually visit, including the large guns (now inactive I might add)
that point towards the Swedish coastline.
Seems that they weren’t the best of neighbours’ years ago and relations
between the two countries were a bit…well tense.)
Monday evening we’d been invited for dinner at Árni Beck Gunnarsson home for a
delicious meal with his lovely wife Mie and their two young daughters.
Dave promptly scarring the girls for life doing his “pulling his thumb off and
putting back on again” trick.
Tuesday was a quick visit to the tourist side of town…
well I had to buy a prezzie for Karen didn’t I and a visit to the
two biggest Comic shops didn’t hurt either.
Then off to the airport to catch the flight home…
All in all a rather splendid visit, where I made many new friends,
sold loads of books ( a new record) and drank Danish beer…
What more could a person ask for…
The next convention is in two years but I’ve already told Dave and Colin to count me in.
Saturday the 13th Dave and I were scheduled to do a signing
and a bit of sketching at the grand re-opening of Geekbox Comics
(Now called Geekbox). Colin couldn’t make it because he’d already
made alternative arrangements with his wife but we assured him we could cope.
Bigger premise, more gaming tables, in store Café and an area for original art to
be displayed as well as bigger displays of Comics and books, we readily
agreed to give the owner Dave Stevens AccentUk’s support.
Dave is a fan and big supporter of AccentUk’s books, stocking
WESTERNoir, Stephenson’s Robot and other titles for quite a while now
so it only seemed right to pop a long and set up a table to show off the books
the store hadn’t seen: -All the Anthology titles mostly.
Dave (West) had already set up the table and selling books by the time I got there,
Which is always great to see.
. Dave (Stevens) had the deputy Mayor along to officially open the store,
and it didn’t take long, once the doors opened to fill up with folk. Some to
play games, to chat and buy comics others to see just what was happening.
All in all it had a terrific vibe going for it.
Dave and I didn’t expect to sell many books (we weren’t really there for that)
but surprisingly we sold a steady amount, not big numbers but enough to
put smiles on our faces…Afterall we really hadn’t expected to sell much at all.
By 4 o’clock we decided to pack up which we did in next to no time…
thanked Dave… for inviting us and left him to it.
A quick walk to the car and tally of book sold and we realised
that it had been a good day.
In fact with these two events and the three earlier this year it seems
that folk are keen to read all things AccentUk, which is good fer me
‘cause it’ll keep me on WESTERNoir fer some time to come.
No comments:
Post a Comment