Thought Bubble wasn’t like other cons, in many ways.

For example, most cons are in sheds of varying sizes. Thought Bubble was inside this baby.

In the basement, admittedly, but to get there, you had to go through the thing, including a good gawp at some of its genuinely spectacular interiors. It’s exactly the sort of place where Americans, I suspect, believe we hold all our cons, gathering around with our hounds to sip tea and discuss the intricacies of the class system.

But instead, we drank heavily. Kitten and I got there on the Friday afternoon, where we hung around and went shopping before the launch party, where Kitten went from Whiskey to the Rum to the Wine, where I went to the Wine to the Vodka. I don’t remember getting to the place where we’re staying. I woke up drunk, and with a complete fear that I’d somehow misplaced the Dinobot Hunt art the incredi-nice and Ex-SAS (No, really. Would he lie?) Barry Kitson had given me. But it was there. God protects drunks and their Dinobot imagery.

Off to the con (Idle note to marketers: Shrooms - “The Blair Witch Project on Acid”. Blair Witch on Shrooms, surely?) where we spent the time working on turning our hangovers into life and our drunkeness into hangovers, respectively. Also, selling a load of phonograms and talking shit at people. We’d brought a load of scripts and pieces we used to make the comic, and had set up my Laptop showing a screenshow of all the photo-reference we used. This most tedious computer display in the world clearly managed to transfix passersby, trying to work out why on earth we were showing pictures of the inside of club toilets and empty streets. Lots of people popped by, including assorteds bods we knew from previous lives. Special marks must go to Seniath, who brought me news of the Companion Cube and the Luke Haines fan who was really lovely, despite her tendency to detail the times she stalked him. Or John Moore, just for a break. The hall seemed busy, especially for the first year of a con. By all accounts, they made money, which is quite the achievement for a debut like this. Certainly all the creators seemed enormously happy.

Most of which piled onto a panel about working on comics in America, which was headed by an avuncular Pete Doherty and descended into glorious ranting (And, on one occasion, the panel just started talking to each other as if in a pub, ignoring the audience for a good ten seconds before realising they were actually in front of a bemused audience). Afterwards, off for a Curry in a place with amazing decor and equally amazingly bad service (We got in at 8, had one course, and only got out at 11. It took them multiple tries to complete a task as simple as getting us a bottle of wine. Meal, when it arrived, was delightful. Company certainly was.

British cons tend to mix up groups anyway, with fans and creators mingling in a way they simply don’t in the US. But there tends to be a certain cliquishness anyway - not a bad one, just because of the people they know better. There’s a monthly comics drink-up in London for Pros, and McKelvie’s been going for a year, and barely talked to any of the more established ones, as he spends all the time in the corner with Frazer and Spurrier. It’s life. However, at a smaller con, I found myself sitting next to all sorts of luminaries. Which was fine and fun and great looking at the pages of Talbot’s post-Alice-in-Sunderland project, until a bottle and a half into the meal when I had a moment of existential panic in a SHIT! THAT GUY DREW ENIGMA AND THAT GUY DID LUTHER ARKWRIGHT!

I gripped the table until it went.

(Actually, Fegredo and I mainly talked videogames. I had no idea. I probably should have told him more rude stories about Ste Curran).

After that, back for more drinks and increasingly baroque conversation where we tried to arrange every comic creator in the world into an order of hardness. Marc Ellerby was second from bottom, the poor chap (In passing, we met his lovely girlfriend, who is clearly too good for him. Though, as I put it the morning after, a dead dog in a bag full of shit would be too good for Marc). It kind of got mixed up where Al Ewing started throwing in alternate versions of characters (”What about a David Mack with an enormous head and tiny tyrannosaur arms?”). The resultant discussion of the relative merits of Ewok Simon Bisley and Dalek Simon Bisley lead to Al’s comment which I immortalise in the title for the piece. There is foilage though.

Heading back, we also saw a late-nights 4am-opening cheap-pastry specialist Gregg’s. Which had bullet-proof glass and a bouncer-outside. We were in the North, clearly.

Morning after, a breakfast during which I somehow managed to write a hefty retrospective of Cannon Fodder for RPS. Posted it on the train with its Wi-fi during the 2-minute silence, which was ignored by a load of cunts on the train, including one of the service people making an announcement. Al had a similar experience back in Leeds. It made Jamie and my fists itch, frankly, and when you’re as monstrous as I am, you don’t get many opportunities to feel righteous. It was like being a Daily Mail reader for the day, except for something worth getting annoyed about rather than having once met someone who wasn’t from the home-counties and REALLY BEING FREAKED OUT BY IT.

And that was Leeds Thought Bubble. Just really lovely. Thanks to everyone we met, and especially everyone involved in the festival. Will definitely try and go next year.

Next weekend: Dublin’s festival. Which I still don’t have anywhere to stay. Man!