Blog Archive: July 2025

Doctor Doom in Peckham
On Friday afternoon I found myself travelling SOUTH to distant PECKHAM where I was due to perform the official WORLD PREMIERE of Data and Doctor Doom at UAL's Creative Computing Institute as part of London Data Week. It was a very very hot day to be schlepping across the tube network with a backpack full of GEAR, so I was delighted to arrive in the sophisticated environs of THE HUB, where there was no air conditioning but there WERE loads of fans all set up to keep things COOL.

After a moment of sitting down saying "OOF" I got myself set up with the MASSIVE screen in there, so that the scene was set as below:



The screen there was WAY bigger and also CLEARER than any screen I have previously used, which was slightly FRIGHTENING but also dead good when, for instance, I showed the slide of 266 comics, cartoons, books, radio plays and games in my corpus and you could actually SEE the covers properly! It also meant I could put the main title slide up and people would SEE if from all the way down the corridor and know where they were going.

I did some nervous pacing around and soon we had a hardy crew of DATA FIENDS in the room. It felt a bit weird to be sat in the same room IGNORING each other so instead we had a lovely chat about other shows people had seen, either on London Data Week or on various Fringes. When I was doing revisions for the shows I had originally put in a bit of CROWD WORK at the start, as I'd been told that was a good way to make everyone feel they were having An Unique Experience, but I ended up taking it out because that sort of CROWD WORK always feels fake to me (e.g. "where are you from/what do you do for a living?" sort of thing). It was only when I was heading home that I realised we had done CROWD WORK together anyway, although I would use the non-comedy terminology of "having a chat" instead.

Anyway, just after 3.30pm we LEAPT into the actual show itself and it was... pretty good! I made a LOT of mistakes but had cunningly made everyone aware this was likely beforehand and they were just plain LOVELY. Best of all, when we got to the end someone asked if they could ask a QUESTION and this led to an impromptu Q&A session, which was not only really good fun but also RIDICULOUSLY NERDY at times. I didn't think a show about data and superhero comics could GET much nerdier, but it definitely did!



There were a whole lot of LEARNING POINTS for me, having done the revised show in front of an audience for the first time - not least of which is CALM DOWN it is FINE - but it was a thoroughly enjoyable experience with a thoroughly delightful audience. The tour is now officially ON - next stop Watford!

posted 14/7/2025 by MJ Hibbett
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Buster In Brussels
Last week I was in BRUSSELS where I had a lovely time, mostly but not entirely attending the Joint Conference of the International Bande Dessinee Society and the International Graphic Novel and Comics Conference, which in case you are not aware, is a conference about comics.

I have been to this particular conference MANY times so I know lots of other people who go, and in particular know the people who go to THE PUB, so did that. I also did a presentation about some of the stuff I'd learnt from doing The Funny Comics Fan Club. Cunningly I recorded the audio on my phone and then SPLICED that together with the slides to make the audiovisual extravaganza what you can see below:



As you will hear, I had FUN doing it! I also very much enjoyed the other panelists' papers in my session - including one about Sweet Tooth from Whizzer & Chips - and indeed a whole lot of the other presentations. There was one slight INCIDENT, where I made a REMARK at the end of a discussion panel which did not go down very well AT ALL with several people, but other than that it was a whole HEAP of good times. Most exciting of all, they announced that next year's conference will be in LEICESTER, which is not only a bit easier to get to but FULL of nice pubs, some of which have not even been knocked down yet!

posted 8/7/2025 by MJ Hibbett
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The Where, What, How And Whom Of Doctor Doom
Apologies for the QUIET round here for the last week or so, I have been away in fabulous BRUSSELS for the International Graphic Novels and Comics Conference, which was GRATE!

More on that anon, but for now I wanted to draw your attention to a new VIDEO what I have done for one of the songs in the show, The Where, What, How And Whom Of Doctor Doom - THUS:



As ever, all shares, likes, tweets, whatever-it-is-on-Bluesky etc etc would be hugely appreciated, not least because there are A FEW tickets available for all of the shows so it would be lovely to get the word out more widely. Also, obviously, if you happen to be in Camberwell, Watford, Buxton, Bedford or Camden over the next few weeks it would be RUDDY DELIGHTFUL to see you there!

posted 7/7/2025 by MJ Hibbett
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