Weekly Roundup Vol. 7

Many Meetings (that's a Tolkien title, right?)

Welcome to this week’s roundup! And what a week it was (if we include last Sunday). I’ll take this opportunity to thank everyone for their continued support!

MCM Comic Con

A week ago today I was at MCM Comic Con in London’s ExCel, the third time I’ve been there this year. I won’t get into the disappointment of the lack of communication and organisation from the ‘organisers’, and instead will focus on the positives.

I met so many kind fellow creatives, not as many comic artists as I thought I would, but it was still an uplifting learning experience. I chatted to Marc Laming, the illustrator of quite a few Star Wars comics I own. He signed an issue and answered my questions about getting into comics, working with artists, and he pointed me towards another stall on Artist’s Alley, Matt Garvey. He’s a comic writer whose got a whole YouTube channel dedicated to helping people like myself navigate getting into comics as a writer. I’ve barely scratched the surface of his content so far but he was so nice to talk to - I’d recommended checking his videos out!

I attended a massive panel with four of the six main stars and writers of BBC’s Ghosts, then a much smaller one on indie publishing which included Michael R. Miller (who I met first at the earlier MCM comic con, when I found out we started self-publishing at the same time!). The panel was hosted by Mark Stay, who I knew from when I listened to an interview with

Gareth L. Powell

on his podcast, the Bestseller Experiment. He was super supportive to talk to - it’s always nice to hear ‘keep going’ from writers more successful than myself. I’ve just found Mark’s interview with Michael, so I’ll kill two birds with one stone (there’s gotta be a better expression) and link that episode here. Go and support both of those gents.

I love when authors have some bonus stuff to give you with a book. There’s extra stamps and a personalised signature inside too!

I also met and got a book signed by R.J. Barker. I was recommended his tree-related fiction by

Jendia Gammon

. Here’s her interview with him:

I always like to ask authors querying advice, and R. J.’s main advice was to make my synopsis as boring as possible! I’m excited to launch into his book… sometime - I have a very large TBR pile.

I then headed to ‘In conversation with

Kieron Gillen

’. It was a very inspiring conversation, to hear about all he’s done and doing. I mainly know Kieron through his brilliant runs of three of Marvel’s early Star Wars series. His Darth Vader #1 from 2015 (that he signed!) may have been the first comic issue I got. His enthusiasm for storytelling, and the way he talked about receiving work from an artist, being the first audience member to see your own work come to life, was amazing to soak up. I chatted with the interviewer first afterwards (he was a comic artist too), and he was filled with great advice about finding artists online. It was great to talk to Kieron about his ‘second daughter’, the original Star Wars character Doctor Aphra, and receive his advice about ‘breaking in’ to comics.

All in all it was an educational and inspiring day! (I also bought too many Star Wars 30th Anniversary collectibles…)

Writing throughout the week

I’ve caught up with some friends this week, but there’s been plenty of time for writing too (and researching…). I now know the full layout of Roman St. Albans, but have loved bringing it to life, thinking about the temple, shops, the inner rooms of a townhouse, or even deciding which play should be performed at the theatre! I suppose I hope to visit someday, to see the remains of places I’ve described the crystal seeing. Next stop will be writing about Roman London.

I also dedicated the time to going through

Russell Nohelty

’s Writer MBA courses that came with a subscription to his newsletter (generously given as a trial to free mailing list subscribers). It was very interesting to learn how much he breaks down the structure of his books, all the way up to advice on editors and covers and blurbs. I’ve also scoured through the archives of all his interviews and advice for getting stuff out there, building an audience and plans to release books.

A wonderful day in London

There are too many staff at the British Museum for them to recognise me, but maybe the statues remember me. Anyway, I was back there yesterday as I was going up to London anyway. I managed to go through all the downstairs Assyrian and Greek stuff, so fascinating to me (and some research if the crystal short story will go through Athens, eventually.) I learnt about some interesting sites I didn’t know existed in Greece and the surrounding areas. I particularly liked the earlier Bronze Age Greek stuff, the objects that crossed cultures, that mixed mythologies and artistic styles, like a sarcophagus with Greek patterns and scenes.

Just before the museum closed I popped upstairs to photograph a few Romano-British things I hadn’t before, some mosaics from London that I might write about next week. It was an interesting experience to see the doors slowly closing, to be ushered out at the back of a crowd, leaving empty museum rooms behind us.

Then I popped into Forbidden Planet and couldn’t resist these two:

I love the variant comic cover on the right, how it features Star Wars’s own mythical bird and of course Ahsoka, recently the star of her own show, though this cover celebrated 15 years of the animated Clone Wars show. Star Wars Celebration this year changed my life, so when I saw that the shop still had the convention-exclusive cover to Star Wars Insider, the magazine, I finally caved and got it. I talked about an aspect of my Celebration experience in my first post:

After a small shopping spree I headed through Covent Garden to the BFI. Christmas was already in full swing with lit up trees and giant hanging bells and baubles. I haven’t walked the Southbank for a long time, so I had a little explore there before heading into the BFI’s Riverfront Bar for a reunion with some of my fellow screenwriters from a course at MetFilm School I completed earlier this year. (Shoutout to those of you who read this newsletter!) It was great to catch up and be immersed in film discussion again. That course also changed my life as well I think, not only with what I learnt about screenwriting but about working creatively with a group, building the courage to approach people with my own ideas, something that paid off a bit at comic con last weekend.

This week’s (comic) books

This segment showcases the new additions to my research and fiction collections. Another fine selection of the ongoing Star Wars Marvel comics arrived this week.

The Dark Droids crossover is going strong, and look, there’s another Ahsoka on The Mandalorian’s cover! That’s it for this week…

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Thanks for reading! Let me know how your week went, if you feel like it.

Cheers,

Harvey