Thought Bubble is the event for comics creators in the UK (and beyond). That’s what I’ve always heard about Thought Bubble. It’s a convention I’ve been meaning to go to, but there have been too many factors in the way.

It’s during National Novel Writing Month and I was running the Brighton community for a while. It’s right near Christmas. I didn’t have the money and everyone always goes on about how expensive it is. I go to a lot of conventions each year and would be abandoning my partner yet again.

I don’t have those excuses this time… well, Christmas is always going to be a factor, but that’s fine and this is actually a convention my beloved would enjoy going to!

After faffing about a lot, I pulled the trigger, booked a hotel and tickets for the con. After years of seeing a lot of people I’ve collaborated with, wanted to collaborate with and was a fan of going there, I was going to join them!

The Journey Up

It’s quite the train trip to Harrogate, but I had my partner and my Kindle accompanying me. As we got closer I’d see some people sketching on the train. Comics people were less easy to spot in the wild than board game people, but they were still there.

Apparently we didn’t have the worst of it. Speaking to Matt Hardy, the traffic and the weather meant an eleven hour drive. Others mentioned similar amounts of time and one even had a breakdown on the way. On BlueSky there were several people mentioning flights into Leeds being rough. It sounds like trains were the way to go.

The Premier Inn

The hotel was… fine. I saw some comics folks taking breakfast around the same time as me and Emma. We had a view of The Majestic from where we had breakfast. It was taunting us by looking all fancy and Overlook-ish. The worst of it was a lack of plugs by bedsides, although Emma did find one on her side, and someone who was snoring loud enough to get through the walls to our room. I’m used to a bit of noise and can get to sleep through most interference, but it was incredibly distracting.

Harrogate

Harrogate itself looked pretty and had a few book shops to check out with our remaining time on the Friday. 

There were some Christmas decorations up, although the theme seemed to be, “ominously red”. With an evening ahead of us, we went to the Everyman to see both the little comic shop section and the third in the Now You See Me franchise. It was incredibly stupid, but in an entertaining way. Emma was even given some fancy playing cards which were a promotion they had a lot of going spare as not enough people turned up to the premiere.

Saturday

We had breakfast, went out of the Premiere Inn and luckily saw someone who was headed to Thought Bubble, so we were guided to the optimal route over to the entrance.

The halls were incredible, like a smaller comic fair stretched out to eternity and with nary a Funko Pop in sight. We had a couple of missions to do which would help us orient ourselves to the con.

First up, I had to drop off Explosion High to the WIP Comics stall and introduced myself to the folks there. I’ve contributed to the digital version of the most recent WIP anthology, but still feel fairly new to their group. I picked up a graphic novel for Mike Armstrong (of WIP and Explosion High fame, also a dear old friend from my days as a sixth form comic nerd). The final early mission was to see Matt Hardy to check in and see how he’s doing.

He was busy doing his sales patter and had already been having a good morning selling Thunder Child. The comics looked gorgeous, and I also got to see physical copies of Vehi-Kill in a collected format. It’s the book that sold me on Norrie and Faye Stacey as people I needed to collaborate with.

Speaking of which, I only briefly saw Norrie, who Matt introduced me to but I only realised it was him after we’d parted ways. He wasn’t exhibiting and I didn’t get to give him the attention he deserved. Hopefully we’ll meet again before too long. 

After a week of faffing around writing and re-writing a pitch for the 2000 AD writer’s talent search, I put my name down. Up to twelve people would be selected and there were about twelve when I went to the stand. Later in the day, it had already run to several pages, so I wasn’t sure about my efforts.

Emma found a sticker trail which took her most of the day and for £2 looked like an incredible time. She found so many stalls she wouldn’t have gone to without it and had made a note of several places to go back to and buy comics from.

As far as famous folks, I didn’t really speak to any of them, but I saw people chatting to Kieron Gillen and Paul Cornell, I saw the mysterious ‘box of treasure’ Al Ewing left behind at his stall when he was busy either on a panel or wandering about.

I think I was the one to crack out of me and Emma, when I saw some cute bird badges and a book of interviews about Marvel’s Ultimate Universe. I’m a sucker for inside baseball talk, so I had to check it out.

I saw Doctor Doom and Valeria Richards, and told Doom I was an admirer of his work. 

There were a lot of panels I’d put down to check out and made it to two of them.

Silence! To Astonish was a convention classic and I admit I’d only heard of both podcasts when they had a crossover with some other comic podcasts (and Al Kennedy’s appearances on them in the years since). They had Kieron Gillen, John Allison, Al Ewing and Megan Huang guest starring, answering some bizarre questions, doing challenges like sewing trousers or at one point taking over the podcast.

Next up was 2000 AD – The Galaxy’s Greatest Panel. As readers here will know, I’m late to 2000 AD but have fallen in love with it over the last few years. Chloe Maveal (aka KLO-E from the 2000 AD podcast) hosted Garth Ennis, Sean Phillips, Jock and Kelly Kanayama on the panel. It was my first time seeing most of them in person and good fun going through their history with the comic.

Having spoken to Matt about the fabled mid-show party, I was told to head to the Majestic instead as it wouldn’t be as loud and there would be some comics folks to chat with. I went to dinner with my beloved and as she has a vastly smaller social battery and had some work to do, she went back to the hotel while I went to the Majestic bar, ordered a whisky and awkwardly sat around looking for any comics folks. There was an Indian wedding which had some great fashion, but was definitely not anything comics-based. I worked on my two-minute pitch for 2000 AD and eventually saw some comics folks congregating near the front of the area.

Once I found comics folks, I had a really nice night, chatting with Dave Taylor, Bruno Catarino, Barry Nugent from Geek Syndicate, and one more person who sadly I didn’t ever get the name of. Matt Hardy and Rob Jones came by after a little while, so it was a night filled with old friends and new.

Sunday

We got up with enough time to chill with breakfast and check out, then walked over to the convention unaccompanied this time. I was still going through my pitch in my notepad and seeing if there was anything I could trim or change.

Emma was hunting down the harvest stamp trail which luckily I’d realised Faye Stacey was organising. We went to their stall and grabbed a list, then Emma went off scouting while I had a bit of a wander.

As time drew near to the pitch panel, I bumped into an old customer of mine from the comic shop, who was also one of the backers I knew from my old Explosion High Kickstarter. We compared our experiences of the con until I realised it was time to head to the panel.

Writer’s Talent Search

I was nervous about pitching and what the other competitors would be like. An edgelordy looking guy was muttering about heckling in the 2000 AD panel and fortunately didn’t actually do it. The group were lovely and we were all psyching each other up at the front of the queue to get in.

The panel were Rob Williams, Leah Moore and Paul Cornell, with Michael Molcher hosting. I’d heard him on the 2000 AD podcast, and it’s always interesting seeing a podcast host in person for the first time. He was good at acting like he was goading gladiators to fight, but also really being pretty supportive.

I was early in the running and drawing on the confidence of pitching my project rather than myself, I feel I did pretty well with “A Bird Pecks at a Mirror”. I made eye contact with the panel and with the audience. I kept to time (I think… Molcher didn’t tell me I’d gone over). After my pitch, I made notes, trying to get names of the other competitors and how their pitches went. The winner and honourable mention were definitely my two favourites (other than mine).

While it feels like a terrifying experience up front, I found it pretty exhilarating to do. The people were all nice and the panellists were genuinely interested in the pitches. Paul Cornell was very thorough in his attitude towards what a Future Shock needs. Rob would get folks to go back and elaborate on some elements, freed from the two minute pitch time. Leah picked up some fun hooks and genuinely seemed to enjoy a lot of the suggestions.

Personally, I intend on going to Thought Bubble again and I want to try pitching again. I know it’s a bit of a lottery, but it was a fun one.

I met up with Matt and Emma afterwards, explaining what went down at the panel. Emma and I had a last wander round the halls, collected my unsold comics from the WIP stand and eventually made our way back to the station for the long ride home. There would be some time to wait, but we had a lot of comics to entertain ourselves with on the way back.