January's Almost Over

Every year I think about doing a review of the last year for one of my blog posts in January and I tend to put it off, each year it happens later and later into January. So this year I'm not going to do it, it's clearly not working.

Instead I'm going to share some interesting things. Here are some photos from a very long time ago, photos of things which are vaguely interesting or that went wrong in an interesting way.

The Typewriter - A Marvellous New Invention

When I was about 7 my mum introduced me to a typewriter. I had already become familiar with the keyboard layout due to playing games on the family Atari and Commodore64 computers, I think this was an attempt to prove that keyboards weren't just for games but also for creating things. It worked. I would spend hours typing stories, occasionally getting frustrated as keys locked together or didn't quite leave a perfect imprint on the page. 

The typewriter was a strange halfway house between the speedy input of the computer keyboard and the almost illegible, up hill/down hill, laborious handwriting I possessed at the time. I can honestly say that I learned to write on a typewriter. I already knew how to use words, I knew how to put them into an order that made sense but this was the first time I'd used them to create a story, a worthwhile read.

Understandably I have a bit of a soft spot for typewriters, I like to imagine that in dusty archive rooms and certain offices they are still the standard for producing documents quickly. This could be wishful thinking, I have no proof either way.

At the Newcastle Green Festival Mike was using his typewriter to document the weekend. Mike makes zines (zine-it-yourself), quite often using this typewriter. 

"I'm Tweeting." Mike said in response to my curiosity over the content of the pages.

I was surprised by the group of fascinated children that soon gathered around him, surprised that they didn't know what a typewriter was. In the end I was surprised that I had been surprised, of course they wouldn't know what a typewriter is, the computer has completely replaced it. Even my own use of a typewriter was a bit of a novelty. 

"Oh wow, what's thaaat?" 

The response to hitting a key and creating an instant mark on the paper was absolute delight. The classroom computers must seem so disconnected compared to this, having to first type, then tell it to print and then wait for the print. The typewriter might seem like brand new technology to the unfamiliar eye, so instant and responsive, rewarding writers with a real time printing of their words. No messing about with print dialogue or page size. 

Each of the children had a go on the typewriter and not one of them wrote 'Hello'. They were very enthusiastic about it, wanting to type something they would be proud of, after all it's in print. At the same time they weren't overly precious about their creations, it didn't concern them that it wasn't perfect. They typed whatever came to their mind. It's probably rare for children to have something printed without it first being approved by someone else. Having the opportunity to create something of their own, not school work and see it appear on paper as they typed must have been a joy. 

There may not be a place for the typewriter in the modern office or school but maybe there is still a place for it on the desks of children. To make fun stories, with instant rewards. 

Adventures at Beamish

Having fallen behind in my blogging I need to bring to your attention my recent adventures at Beamish.

The #npwalk gang managed to get ourselves some after hours access to Beamish, along with a whole load of other photographers. With large cameras covering most of our faces we were hardly the most photogenic crowd. Possibly the reason why most of us took the approach of avoiding crowd shots.

Here are a few of my favourites of the day.

Paper Jam Exhibition at MiN

What have I been up to? Lots.
Recently with the Paper Jam Comics Collective I've been busy exhibiting my illustration work at Made in Newcastle. I did one brand new piece for the exhibition as well as showing my page from Art and That, the rather blurry photo courtesy of my phone.

The theme for the exhibition was loosely based around History and That anthology which we first unveiled at Thought Bubble. There was a rather delayed launch party of said anthology on the Friday which doubled as the closing party for the exhibition. Many were in attendance and there was much fun had.

We also left some blank comic panels and a box of words on the table in the gallery for the week so that people could take part in our "famous" 24 minute comic challenge. Two words, one comic, 24 minutes. I have managed to rescue all the ones that we left for us to see and will be scanning them and uploading them to the Paper Jam Comic Jams blog very soon.

What else have we got. Ah yes... view the exhibition closing/History launch party in photographic glory. It's like being there... only without sound, movement or the majority of the senses.

 

MCM Expo

So, as you may or may not know last weekend I went to the MCM Expo. It was a great load of fun.

We started off on the Friday to give us plenty of time to get there and settle down, we were just leaving York when I let out an exclamation that should not be heard by young ears. I had left my DSLR camera at home, the charger was in my bag but the camera itself was not. I have never been more glad for my ancient compact in my life! I'd stuck it into my case the night before as a backup and partially to record video with. It became my camera for the weekend, this is partially why I have less photos than last year as the camera in question takes about 2 minutes to realise you want it to take a photo.

So anyway on the Friday night we hung out with a bunch of people who were messing on outside the Excel centre, was quite funny as my sister seemed to turn it into some sort of basic fight game.

   

None shall be spared in her quest to take over the Expo!

It wasn't long before the effects of the long train ride were felt and we retired to our room for the night.

So then came Saturday, despite early entry tickets we didn't get into the Expo until 10, which worked out okay considering people without tickets had to wait even longer! There was a queue for the queue, so you can imagine the fun time we spent all lined up.

   

We finally got in and were greeted with the usual mixture of bright shiny things, scary tall things and very fun, very loud things. The day was full of fun and much comic buying! I spent a lot of time hanging around the small press tables, buying things. I saw a few panels and generally had fun. We were there all day really, as were most of the table holders. I made the mistake at breakfast that thinking the man sat about 5 tables away was John Allison, when it was actually Marc Ellerby, in my defence they were wearing the same shirt and glasses, it was an easy mistake, they really shouldn't cosplay as each other so often. 

But the real question is, where's Wally?

The ranks started to thin out towards the end of the day, everyone was headed to the pub, by the time I got there I saw a very large amount of glasses around Warren Ellis and Ben Templesmith (what do you expect), who were deep in conversation, I dared not interrupt them, it seemed very important. So as you can imagine the bar was filled with comic creators, it was all very very fun, had a jolly time chatting with Jon Scrivens, Ian Sharman, David Wynne, Stephan Burn and many others who I am very sorry if I have missed you out, give me a prod and I shall correct this oversight. We soon moved on from the pub (as it closed) to the bar at the hotel, where we seemed to mutate into a strange impromptu karaoke group. What was in those drinks?

Sunday. I woke up feeling rather tired, my feet hurt and I really needed a shower. So once I had grabbed a shower and had some breakfast we were queued up for Expo day two. The line was nowhere near as long this time, thankfully, and we were soon inside. My sister celebrated this fact with high fives.

And when we got in well... there were just so many amazing cosplays, not sure why but it seemed like there were more cosplays on the Sunday, it could just be that we could see them better because there were less people, I don't know. 

        

And of course there were the panels, an amazing set this time, really enjoyed the artists vs writers, was great fun and we were bribed with a free comic!

   

Then there was the Sweatdrop Panel, these guys had a new book out for Expo called Telling Tales, it's an amazing book, the cover is so shiny, the art is so nice and the whole thing just fits together so well! You should pick it up from their website!

 

The trip home was long and boring, I didn't sleep but I surfed the web.

Here's a photo of EVERYTHING I bought while at Expo.

So in short, the London MCM Expo was EPIC! I had lots of fun. Yay.