Mad Scientists storm Caption 2010

(cross posted from Bugpowder with the kind permission of Daniel Fish): The Mad Scientists have retired back to their mountain core fortresses following another successful Caption in Oxford this past weekend.

I had a fun time, meeting up with the usual crew, plus a few I hadn't yet met, and attempted to create my own Frankenstein's monster with a mixture of Beer, Burgers and Comics, using my by then ink-stained fingers.

On arriving Saturday morning, after a quick browse, and depositing my new Trevor the Ant minicomic on the freebie table, I drew a page of stickers with the Dino-Saw-Us crew (Tim Winchester, Philippa Rice, Lizz 'Lizz' Lunney et al), then took part in Jeremy Day's (formerly Jeremy Dennis) apocalyptic jam comic workshop.

Then PJ Holden, who's currently working on 2000AD and the new STRIP Magazine, gave an informative interview with Matt Badham, which was followed by Lost Girls co-creator Melinda Gebbie's revealing conversation with Jenni Scott.

Paul Gravett hosted the Webcomics panel next, with PJ, Tozo creator David O'Connell, Philippa, Lizz, and Sydney Padua, making her comics convention debut (creator of the excellent Lovelace and Babbage webcomic, which I'll be catching up on as soon as I've written this).

John Miers gave a talk next, which I missed, but heard was excellent, and would have been right up my street. You can buy his book online, its beautiful stuff.

The art auction followed, then Atomik Burgers for dinner, closing with Tony Hitchman's Mad Science quiz, then back to the B and B for cocktails and dancing girls.

The next DFC Library books, out in September 2010

Sunday followed (as is traditional), starting with the DFC Library panel - Sarah McIntyre and Neill Cameron showed off the first six DFC Library books (I still can't decide which is my favourite), and shared reminiscences of the much-missed DFC Comic.

(I had the pleasure of looking over Sarah's shoulder while she sketched Melinda Gebbie - See her page for the results, )

Paul Cornell chatted about his work (Knight & Squire from DC Comics sounds great), then Sydney Padua clued us in some more on her webcomic, and her work on animation for films including Clash of the Titans and Iron Giant ("Suuupperrrrrrrmaaaaannnnnnn!!!!").

Wrapping the event off was Darryl Cunningham, who discussed his experiences which inspired his Psychiatric Tales book and other work, then the 'Comics as Mind Control' panel followed, and we all shuffled off to find our ways home.

I haven't seen those dancing girls since...

Web Links

• Official Caption web site

• Sean Azzopardi
"I was only attending the Saturday this year, but had a good time. There was a good range of talks, and a better variety of guests this year...."

• Caption 2010 By Matthew Badham


• Darryl Cunningham at Caption 2010

• Caption 2010 Report - Part 1 - by co-organiser Selina Lock

• Sarah McIntyre's CAPTION write-up

• Jenni Scott
"Mostly mellow, definitely fun, great guests and panels..."

• There's also a growing set of photos from the event on Flickr.