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.

Caption 2010 'Mad Science' Art Appeal and guest update

For anyone interested in exhibiting artwork and/or donating artwork to the Caption auction, part of Mad Science Caption 2010 at the East Oxford Community Centre on 31st July - 2nd August, the organisers tell downthetubes they can accept artwork right up to the opening day of this ace British small press event.

However, if you'd like your artwork to appear in the Mad Science Caption 2010 souvenir printed booklet then they will need a 300dpi scan, or hard copy of the artwork by 13th July. Any queries to jay.ealesATgooglemail.com.

Guests already lined up include Sydney Padua, animator and creator of the superb webcomic, The Thrilling Adventures of Lovelace & Babbage (sample above), which sees Victorian scientists Ada Lovelace and Charles Babbage fighting crime; Al Davison, who will once be providing one of his fabulous drawing workshops, bringing along stock from his Astral Gypsy Comic Shop, and is also designing the Caption t-shirt this year; and John Miers, who will be doing a talk about a large-format project, Babel, exhibited as part of last year's Comica, that uses a wordless pictorial language to interpret the biblical myth.

Jeremy Day will kick Caption off on the Saturday morning with a workshop; Tony Hitchman will be providing us with one of his fun quizzes on the Mad Science theme.

This year's Special Guest is Melinda Gebbie, who started out in the American alternative comics scene in the 1970s and is now best known for her collaboration on Lost Girls with Alan Moore; Sarah McIntyre will be interviewing Darryl Cunningham about his new book Psychiatric Tales and his other work; and 2000AD and incoming Strip Magazine UK artist PJ Holden, will be talking about digital comics.

Other guests are Paul Duffield, artist on Warren Ellis' FreakAngels, who will join the webcomic panel, Neill Cameron and Kate Brown, who will be talking about their DFC Library books, Mobot High and Spider Moon.

• Caption report they are also experiencing a few problems with the Caption website at the moment, so you can also check the Facebook Event page or Livejournal site for the latest news.