On Sunday I headed into old London town to attend my first ever COMICS MART. I have read about such affairs from afar for most of my life, not least in the FANZINES I used to buy as a teenager, where they seemed like super glamorous affairs where heroes such as Alan Moore etc wafted around buying drinks for other legends and revealing top secret secrets of future storylines. I longed to be there!
In the intervening decades, however, I was aware that things had changed somewhat. The sort of thing I dreamt of is now called a Comic Convention (although they tend not to have a huge amount to do with comics and are more about MOVIES), whereas the actual COMICS MART had stuck to the business of LONG BOXES (i.e. cardboard boxes full of comics) to be flicked through and bargains to be sought. Still, it was quite exciting to be actually GOING to one, and I arrived with a pocket full of CASH hoping to come away with a big pile of British comics ready for future episodes of The Funny Comics Fan Club.
Friends, it did not quite work out like that. The signs were good when I entered the MASSIVE hall where the mart was being held, as I saw before me table after table PACKED with long boxes FULL of comics. However, as I made my way around the room I realised that they were pretty much ALL American comics. Now, obviously, I was expecting this to be mostly the case, but I wasn't prepared for the almost complete lack of British comics. Even 2000AD was in short supply, but British humour comics of the 60s to 80s were almost entirely absent - in the end I found THREE stalls that had ANY British comics, and most of those were either Whizzer & Chips (which we've done), The Beezer (which I've already got) and, for some reason, Hotspur. My GOODNESS but there were a lot of issues of Hotspur!
After some diligent flicking through boxes, many of which were hidden UNDERNEATH the stalls, I eventually came away with 8 different comics, which did not feel like quite the HAUL I had hoped for. I also attempted to publicise the podcast a bit with some FLYERS what I had made, but that didn't go terribly well either. I did FOIST them on a few stall holders I spoke to, and though most were friendly some of them gave the distinct impression that they DISDAINED the very IDEA of a podcast and would be placing the flyer in recycling as soon as they could find an appropriate receptacle.
There was a weird sort of ATMOSPHERE overall that was a bit like that, like everyone was very much ON THEIR GUARD and I must say I came away feeling a bit UNNERVED by the whole experience. I wasn't expecting it to be glorious festival of glamour that I had read about in the back pages of Fantasy Advertiser, but I was surprised to find how DEFENSIVE everyone seemed to be. I can sort of understand it - traditionally comics readers have been outsiders and thus the target of BULLIES, and so perhaps one builds up those sort of defenses as one goes along - but I was surprised how pervasive it felt in what you would hope was a SAFE SPACE.
However, despite all that I did manage to ACCRUE a mighty HAUL of comics, and hopefully managed to spread the word around, so it was all good in the end, and The FCFC is powered up well into next year!
Of course everyone was on their guard! That's what happens when your T-shirt and/or outlook says I WILL BE BLOGGING THIS. posted 10/10/2024 by they just want to shift some product. quietly.
