Photo Review: Dundee Comics Expo 2013

Saturday 30 March saw the inaugural Dundee Comics Expo at the University of Dundee. The university had been running the event that is now known as the Dundee Comics Day since 2008, a day of creator talks normally tied into an artwork exhibition plus one or two sales tables for attendees to buy books relating to the guests. It crosses the divide between a comics convention and an academic conference and is often highly social with guests chatting to the attendees in the university foyer between talks.

The Dundee Comics Expo came out of an idea the university lecturers had to run a Dundee comic mart but, with the desire to have an education element of workshops or talks, coupled with their contacts within the industry, that comic mart idea soon grew into a small convention. The university Tower Building where the Dundee Comics Day takes place provided the lecture theatre for the guest talks and the Baxter Suite (above) for workshops and sales tables, indeed they even managed to squeeze extra sales tables into the suite, more than were shown on the event’s map, without it feeling crowded.

The university’s College Hall (above and below), a bright and airy hall that was very reminiscent of the Harland and Wolff drawing offices that the RMS Titanic was designed in, and just at the rear of the Tower Building, provided the rest of the sales table space. Indeed given that so many comics conventions have their sales tables in places with no windows, the College Hall with its high ceiling and large windows was a very people friendly space.

The guests included Costa Award winners Bryan and Mary Talbot, along with artists David Lloyd, Hannah Berry, and Nigel Dobbyn, all of whom gave talks and were happy to sign books. Local creators there included Gary Erskine, Alex Ronald, Team Girl Comic, Jim Alexander and Jim Stewart all selling their wares plus DC Thomson put on a Commando display including some of the merchandise that is normally only available directly from the DC Thomson shop. Needless to say, since it was a University of Dundee event, the students of the MLitt in Comic Studies and the DJCAD Comics and Animation courses were there promoting their UniVerse titles including the new Anthology Three which was launched on the day.

The Baxter Suite area also provided a small exhibition of original artwork although I wonder how many attendees actually realised that there was original artwork on display from adventure artists like Steve Yeowell and Colin MacNeil or humour artists like Ken Reid and Dudley D Watkins as they walked into the main suite area. Above is original artwork for Faceache from a 1972 issue of Buster by the master of the humour comic strip, Ken Reid, while below is the original artwork for Oor Wullie from the 19 November 1944 edition of The Sunday Post by Dudley D Watkins, one of the finest all round comics artists the UK has ever produced.

The day ended across the road from the university in the Dundee Contemporary Arts (DCA) venue where the excellent Judge Minty was screened with two Judge Dredd art-droids in attendance, and was then followed by DeeCAP, a performance event for comic creators. The DCA bar also provided the main evening meeting place for those who did not rush off to see the new Doctor Who companion.

The Dundee Comics Expo had a constant stream of people throughout the day but never seemed that busy perhaps due to it being split over three areas. As the first event of its kind taking place on a cold Easter Saturday in Dundee outside of term-time it was perhaps understandable that it was not as busy as it could have been but with big name guests and completely free of charge, it deserved a bigger turn-out than it seemed to get. However that benefited those attendees that were there as no long queues for any given guest or sellers tables meant that there was time to chat to all and sundry and that it made it a laid back and friendly event.

Art-droid Alex Ronald and his new self-published title Outpost: Black Sun, a prequel to the second Outpost film, with sepia art by Alex and written by Rae Brunton and Steve Barker. There are more details of the title at Alex’s blog.

Team Girl Comic show off their latest issue, TGC 7, which is available from their website which also has the beginning of their new weekly web-comic.

Nigel Dobbyn sketches his latest creation, the children’s story book character Dave The Diver. There are more details of this and Nigel’s other work on his website.

David Lloyd promoted his on-line comic Aces Weekly with a special deal of a free sketch when people bought a subscription to volume 1 – it proved rather popular.

Jim Alexander shows off his latest title Planet Jimbot title, Amazing And Fantastic Tales, which he launched on the day. There are more details of this and his other titles on his blog.

In disguise on the Commando table, deputy editor Scott Montgomery and editor Calum Laird with some of the Commando merchandise available from the DC Thomson on-line shop.

There are more images from the Dundee Comics Expo 2013 courtesy of Joe Gordon on the Forbidden Planet International blog.

Team Girl Comic Issue 7 Now Available

Scotland’s favourite all-female comix collective, Team Girl Comic, have just released their seventh issue.

TGC 7 is a 28 page, A5 size, anthology featuring an eclectic mix of short comic strips by female writers and artists from a wide variety of backgrounds and ages, from absolute beginners to professional artists.

The colour cover is by Penny Sharp and the black and white interior features contributions by Gill Hatcher, Evy Craig, Nondo, Jef Sinclair, Anna Clark, Claire Yvette, Honeypears, Cacachute and Claire JC Stewart in which they revisit the girl comics of yore, party like it’s 1949 and bash those bothersome bullies.

There are more details of Team Girl Comic on their website, blog, Facebook page, and Twitter feed. 

Team Girl Comic issues are available to buy from their online shop as well as selected comics shops in Glasgow, Edinburgh and London.

Team Girl Comic will be at the Dundee Comics Expo (Table 20, Baxter Suite) on Saturday 30 March 2013. 

Team Girl Comic Issue 6 Available At Thought Bubble

The Glasgow based collective Team Girl Comic will be appearing at Thought Bubble on the weekend of 17/18 November 2012 where they will be releasing their new Issue 6 complete with a colour cover by MJ Wallace.

Earlier this year TGC ran a Kickstarter campaign to raise money to fund Issue 5 and this proved so successful that the collective were not just able to print Issue 5, for which they increased the page count to 44, they were also able to reprint their sold-out earlier issues. Issue 5 was even adapted for Kindle and it is available via Amazon.

In addition to all six issues of their main title for sale at Thought Bubble, they will also have a selection of new TGC tote bags, postcards and badges available for sale as well as a selection of solo offerings by various Team Girl Comic contributors. These will include framed prints by TGC Issue 5 cover artist Coleen Campbell and TGC editor Gillian Hatcher's other titles, Go Wildlife which is also available on Kindle, and the flip comic Taxidermy Tales co-produced with Adam Smith.

Glaswegians won't be missing out on the Issue 6 action as the collective has scheduled a launch night for the issue at The Old Hairdressers in the city's Renfield Lane on Sunday 25 November starting at 7pm. They plan to turn the mezzanine floor of venue into a mini comic mart with a "drink 'n' draw" station. Entrance to the launch night is free and there are more details on the event's Facebook page.

There are more details of Team Girl Comic on their website, blog, Facebook page, and Twitter feed. 

Team Girl Comic issues are available to buy from their online shop as well as selected comics shops in Glasgow, Edinburgh and London.

Team Girl Comic will be at Thought Bubble 2012 and their table is number 7 in the Royal Armouries Hall.

Team Girl Comic Issue 5 Kicks Off

Back in May, Glasgow's Team Girl Comic collective began a Kickstarter campaign to raise the money to publish issue 5 of their title. Their target was $1000 (Kickstarter being a US site) and, remarkably, they reached it in five days flat.

Their Kickstarter campaign went on to raise over $1700 which allowed them not just to go ahead and print issue 5 but also to expand it from the title's usual 28 - 32 pages up to a remarkable 44. It also allowed them to get their sold-out back issues reprinted.

TGC issue 5 is now available and is an anthology featuring short comic strips by female writers and artists from a wide variety of backgrounds and ages, from absolute beginners to professional artists.

The issue includes many regular contributors such as Gillian Hatcher, Colleen Campbell (who created the front cover, above), Penny Sharp and Evy Craig as well as newcomers Amanda 'Hateball' Stewart (left), Elena Vitagliano and many others. It is available to buy now from the TGC website and will soon be available at Plan B Books in Glasgow, Deadhead Comics in Edinburgh, and Gosh! and Orbital in London.

The next event that Team Girl will be participating in is the Glasgow Merchant City Festival where they will be taking part in Comics Night at the Scotia Bar on 26 July 2012. They are planning to have an exhibition of their work, lots of drawing on the night as well as a comics-themed pub quiz.

There are more details of Team Girl Comic on their website and Facebook page.

Team Girl Comic editor Gillian Hatcher talked to downthetubes about the title here.

Team Girl Comic Kickstarted

A week ago we mentioned the Kickstarter campaign that Glasgow's Team Girl Comic collective were running to finance the publication of TGC issue 5 and possibly reprint some of their sold-out back issues. It has been the most viewed blog piece on downthetubes over the last week even if the Kickstarter video, featuring TGC editor Gillian Hatcher and issue 5 cover artist Coleen Campbell, was incompatible with our Blogspot format. Our thanks to Gillian for pointing us towards the YouTube version.

So we are very pleased to hear that only a week into their campaign they haven't just reached their target of $1000 but are now over the $1200 mark. This will allow them to reprint issues 1, 2 and 3 as well as finance their attendance at more conventions and comic marts over the next year.

The Kickstarter campaign will continue to run until Friday 8 June 2012 so there is still time for more backers to jump on and plenty of Team Girl rewards still to choose from with the top reward, of the offer of a night on the town with the team for an $80 pledge, having so far been taken up by three backers.

Of the 48 backers so far registered, some come from as far as France, Portugal and the United States while, based on their first names, there is approximately a 60/40 female/male split.

There are more details on the Team Girl Comic Kickstarter page.

There are more details of Team Girl Comic on their website and Facebook page.

Team Girl Comic editor Gillian Hatcher talked to downthetubes about the title here.

Team Girl Comic Are Kickstarting Issue 5

The Glasgow-based Team Girl Comic collective have been active in Scotland for the last couple of years selling their main Team Girl Comic title, as well as the individual contributors own titles, around the various comic shops and events in Edinburgh, Dundee and Inverness as well as in their hometown. With back issues selling out and a new issue due in the summer, the TGC team, including editor Gillian Hatcher (left) and contributors Coleen Campbell (centre) and Clare Yvette (right), are now looking to get their main title onto a firm financial footing with a Kickstarter initiative.

TGC editor Gillian Hatcher says on the Kickstarter site, "In the past, we have funded Team Girl Comic entirely by ourselves, with no external support. It’s great to be independent, but it also limits our print runs. Raising money through Kickstarter will enable us to print more comics with more content. We’re also hoping to use any extra funding to reprint the now sold-out TGC issues 1 and 2, to keep all you completists happy! Our overarching reason for asking you to offer us a little bit extra this time round is to help Team Girl Comic take a step toward becoming more sustainable in the long term."

Their aim is to raise $1000 before Friday 8 June 2012 to fund the publication of TGC issue 5 in time for various summer and autumn comics events. Gillian describes issue 5 as "A5 size with a colour cover and 28+ pages of black and white comic content. We’re expecting this to be our biggest issue yet, with contributions from a whole range of TGC members old and new."

As always with crowd funding there are a list of incentives in exchange for pledges running from simple PDFs of the next issue at $5, up to a full set of Team Girl Comics along with four TGC postcards and the backer's name in issue 5 for $35. The single biggest incentive, of a night out in Glasgow with the TGC team, has already been snapped up and after only a few days they are already over a quarter of the way to their target.

There are more details on the Team Girl Comic Kickstarter page.

There are more details of Team Girl Comic on their website and Facebook page.

Team Girl Comic editor Gillian Hatcher talked to downthetubes about the title here.

Comics Creators At Hi-Ex 2012: Part 2

Having taken a lot of photos of the various creators at the Hi-Ex comics convention, which took place at the Eden Court complex in Inverness last weekend, there was never going to be enough room in the main downthetubes review of the con to include all the images. Instead we present a selection of those images of the creators along with links to their websites, blogs and/or Facebook pages. They are in no particular order and the first part of this photo feature is here.

Artist Nigel Dobbyn has an eclectic selection of titles to his credit from The Beano's Billy The Cat to 2000AD via Thunderbirds and Transformers. The image he is showing here is entitled Primeval Priest and is available to buy from his website.

There are more details of Nigel Dobbyn's work on his website.

Glasgow's small press Team Girl Comic have four issues to their name as well as a selection of individual contributors' own titles and did a good trade, particularly on the Saturday. Shown here are editor Gillian Hatcher (left) with contributors Coleen Campbell (centre) and Clare Yvette (right).

There are more details of Team Girl Comic on their website and Facebook page.

French artist Michel Rodrigue is currently resident in Scotland and having been at the previous Hi-Ex was back this year on the Cinebook stand. His Cinebook titles are the two modern Clifton titles Jade and Black Moon which he was signing and sketching over the weekend. He is also the writer of the French series Sybil La Fee Cartable which is on its third book in France and the first book of which has just be translated into English by Papercutz as Sybil The Backpack Fairy and he was more than happy to sketch and sign copies of it as well.

There are more details of Michel Rodrigue on Lambiek.

There are more details of Sybil The Backpack Fairy on the Papercutz website and of Clifton the the Cinebook website.

From pink fairies to something rather darker and artist John Higgin's RazerJack, the death-bitch from the Twist Dimension. To promote RazerJack, John produces illustrations at each of the conventions that he attends and here is the image that he was working on on the Sunday at Hi-Ex.

There are more details of John Higgin's work on his website and of RazerJack on its Facebook page.

Write and artist Ian Sharman is also editor of Orang Utan Comics and AAM/Markosia as well as writer of Alpha Gods and Hero: 9-5. He took part in the Hi-Ex Pitching and Portfolio session on the Sunday. His latest title, as seen above, is Hypergirl.

There are more details of Ian Sharman's work on his blog and on the Orang Utan Comics website.

Perhaps the most unusual graphic novel available over the weekend was writer and animator Leslie MacKenzie's Gaelic title Cuir Stad Ak An Stoirm Shneashda which translates as Stop The Snow Storm. With art by Shona Shirley MacDonald, it uses the idea that the first peoples of Scotland were not from the south and Europe but from the north and the Arctic regions. As part of the publishing deal with the Gaelic Books Council the title will not be published in English for several years.

There are more details of Leslie MacKenzie's work on her website while Cuir Stad Ak An Stoirm Shneashda will be available from the Gaelic Books Council website.

A comic strip with killer STDs in it just sound like the sort of thing that should be in CLiNT magazine and the editorial team of CLiNT obviously thought so too. As can be seen above, artist and writer Monty Nero's Death Sentence started life as a small press comic but will get a new lease of life, and a lot more exposure, when it begins in CLiNT Vol 2 No 1 very soon.

There are more details of Monty Nero's work on his website and blog.

Artist Will Pickering worked on the Burke and Hare graphic novel published several years ago as well as contributing to a number of Glasgow based small press titles. He was also displaying Black Hearted Press' Gabriel title written by Jim Alexander.

There are more details of Will Pickering's work on his blog.

Londonderry's Uproar Comics came together through the city's 2D Comics Festival and its 2D Collective offshoot. They publish the Zombies Hi title which is an anthology of the main ongoing Zombies Hi story backed up with short zombie text stories and comic strip and has reached its fourth issue. Set after a zombie apocalypse within the defensive walls of the City of Derry, the comic is widely distributed within Northern Ireland. Artist Kevin Logue (left) drew attendees as zombies while writer Danny McLaughlin (centre) drummed up support and artist John Campbell (right) worked on pages for forthcoming issues.

There are more details of Zombies Hi on the Uproar Comics website.

Last and by no means least, especially since one of her titles is Eagle Award nominated this year as Best European Comic, is Irish writer Maura McHugh. Her two titles for Dublin's Atomic Diner Comics are the Eagle Award nominated 1920s mystery Jennifer Wilde and the supernatural Roisin Dubh as seen above.

There are more details of Maura McHugh's work on her website.

There are more details of Jennifer Wilde and Roisin Dubh on the Atomic Diner website.


The first part of Comics Creators At Hi-Ex is here.

The Hi-Ex website is here.

The downthetubes review of Hi-Ex 2012 is here.

Team Girl Comic Issue 4 Now Available

The fourth issue of the Glasgow based Team Girl Comic is now available featuring twelve different artists presenting fifteen short comic strips.

This issue sees the return of Jude Stoo, Claire Yvette and Jessica Hatcher and has first appearances from MJ Wallace and Claire JC Stewart. With front cover artwork provided by Evy Craig, the issue also has a story by the team's youngest contributor to date, 11 year old Jasmine McPhee.

Issue 4, as well as previous issues, is available for £3 from the TGC website and the Team will be taking a table at the Glasgow Charity Comic Mart on Saturday 10 March 2012 which is taking place at the Britannia Panopticon Music Hall in Glasgow's Trongate between 11am and 4pm.

Before then Team Girl Comic editor Gillian Hatcher has been invited on to the Women In Comics panel at the Glasgow Film Festival on Thursday 23 February at 15:15 along with crime novelist Denise Mina, Phoenix writer/artist Kate Brown and animator Penny Sharp.

There are more details about Team Girl Comic at their website and Facebook page.

There are more details of the Glasgow Charity Comic Mart at its Facebook page.

There are more details of the Women In Comics panel on the Glasgow Film Festival website.

Dundee Comics Day 2011 - Other Voices

downthetubes has been reviewing the Dundee University comics events run by Dr Chris Murray for many years, long before they were labelled as the Dundee Comics Day, and those reviews were often the only independent record of those events. Indeed Dundee University regarded those reviews highly enough to link through to them from their own website. So it is good to see that this year's Dundee Comics Day has generated many more reviews and comments than normal.

Laura Sneddon at Comic Book Resources provides a detailed review of the event talks with lots of quotes from the guests.

Ariadne Cass-Maran at Graphic Scotland reviews the event and points out the lack of female guests without actually suggesting any female creators that could have been invited. Indeed this is the first Dundee event for many years not to have any female guests who, in the past, have included The Beano's Laura Howell, Vampire Academy's Emma Vieceli, Manga Shakespeare's Nana Li and Metaphrog's Sandra Marrs as well as Northumbria University's Dr Mel Gibson.

Rich Clements and Vicky Stonebridge of Inverness' Hi-Ex comics convention show the sense of community that exists amongst comics fans in Scotland by giving DCD a glowing review on the Hi-Ex blog.

Gillian Hatcher of Team Girl Comic, who just might have managed a sneak preview of one of the runner-up entries in the Tartan Bucket Prize, enjoyed her day and hopefully made some useful contacts as well.

Writer and former Tharg David Bishop remembers John Wagner's words of wisdom.

Artist Katie Morrison reviews the day with a good selection of photos.

And finally, a selection of people from the 2000AD Online forum discuss the day.

Comics Scotland: Team Girl

The Team Girl collective, who now consist of upwards of twenty female writers and artists, have been making a name for themselves recently, not just with their small press Team Girl Comic which is now on its third issue, but also by holding talks and workshops in locations as diverse as the Glasgow Film Festival and the International Alternative Press Festival in London. Team Girl Comic editor Gillian Hatcher (above left with Coleen Campbell right) talked to downthetubes about how the team got together, what inspires them and what their plans are for the future.

I first had the idea of starting a female comic group about two years ago. I’d been making my own comics for a few years before that- just photocopied zines- but was starting to feel a little isolated as I didn’t have any female friends who were into comics, and as far as I could tell at the time I was the only girl in Glasgow making comics (this of course turned out to be untrue). There were a few reasons why I wanted the group to be all-female. Firstly I didn’t think that my work quite fitted in with all the male-created comics coming out of Glasgow. Also I felt that Team Girl Comic had to be exclusively female, at least for the time being, as there are comparatively so few female created and female oriented comics out there right now in the indie comics scene. I wanted it to be something that was appealing to women readers and non- intimidating for the creators. From my own experience, women are more likely to be lacking in self-confidence when it comes to showing off their work, and it’s been great to see women pick up Team Girl Comic and say ‘hey, I could try that!’

We want the group to be inclusive and constantly evolving, so we welcome women and girls from any background, age or experience. This means we’ve got artists from their teens to their forties, professional artists to engineers, experienced cartoonists to people trying out comics for the first time.

To get the group started I began by looking to the people around me. I knew my friend Katie Pope had drawn comics in art school, and my engineer friend Iona Mowat had mentioned she sometimes drew comics but wasn’t publicising them. My little cousin Emma McLuckie liked to draw and my younger sister Jessica was up for giving it a go, so that was the beginning of Team Girl Comic. Very quickly word got round and those other women in Glasgow who were drawing comics, such as Heather Middleton and Penny Sharp came forward, as well as whole load of other contributors. Some heard about it through their friends in the group, some found us online or met us at comic and zine fairs. The first issue had just six contributors, the second twelve and the most recent issue had fourteen, and there are now more than twenty artists in the loop. It’s quite a lot to manage but we want to be as fluid as possible: contributors can be as committed as they want to be, keeping the comic fresh and varied.

As for the comics, each issue is a collection of short comic stories. There are no rules about what the comics can be about so we get a whole variety of submissions: autobiographical, sci-fi, cute animals, feminism, observations from our daily lives. Although most of the stories are written by adults for adults, we want to make sure Team Girl Comic is something a younger girl could pick up and perhaps be inspired by. Obviously being all girls the stories come from a female perspective, but we don’t set out to be especially ‘girly’ and the comics are read by both men and women more or less 50-50. This is exactly the way we wanted it to be: a comic that appealed to any gender but might also draw in some women who wouldn’t normally pick up a comic book.

Although the content isn’t all girly, the design of the comics so far has been very much influenced by the classic girls comics and magazines that some of us enjoyed growing up, such as Bunty, Twinkle and Misty. A lot of us also grew up reading the ‘boys’ comics too like The Beano and X-Men, as well as things like Tintin, Peanuts and Calvin and Hobbes.

These days I think most of us mainly read indie graphic novels and collections, from Sandman and Maus to Persepolis and Blankets, but there are a fair number of us who are into our superheroes and manga too. I think the growing popularity of such graphic novels and their gradual acceptance as genuine literature has drawn a lot more women towards comics in the past few years.

The main point to Team Girl Comic is that it’s supposed to be DIY and fun, but if we can promote the ‘cause’ of women and girls in comics at the same time that’s great. So as word has got round and we’ve got a little press coverage, we’ve been invited to do a few workshops on the subject of women and comics for both the International Alternative Press Festival in London and the Glasgow Comic Con. This was perhaps helped by the fact I volunteered to do a presentation on making your own comics for the Glasgow Film Festival, which had a comics theme this year. Although we’re not experts in female comics it’s obviously something that interests us a lot, so we were able to lead discussions around what women and girls want from comics and what we could do about it. It was concluded in these workshops that although the situation is definitely improving, there is definitely a few gaps in the market when it comes to comics for girls and the world of comics can still be especially intimidating to a female newbie. We didn’t of course arrive at the ultimate solution to these problems, but it was great to hear the thoughts and experiences of regular female comics readers and creators, some lifelong fans others quite new to the scene.

We don’t have any more workshops planned at the moment but we will be attending several fairs in the near future, the big one being Thought Bubble in November (expect issue 4 by then, featuring even more new creators!). In the meantime you can buy Team Girl Comics from our BigCartel shop online or from various comics shops around the country.

We can’t believe how quickly the group has grown in such a short space of time and the positive responses we’ve got from the readers has been so encouraging. Our main plan for the future is to just keep going and going, making more and more comics and engaging with more people through our stories and events.


Team Girl Comic is stocked in Orbital in London, Plan B Books in Glasgow, Deadhead Comics in Edinburgh and OK Comics in Leeds.

There is more information about Team Girl on their blog, which includes links to their on-line shop, and also on their Facebook page.