V for Vendetta at Sci-fi Weekender

The expected high-light of the second day at Sci-fi Weekender 2013 was, for me, a stage version of the classic V for Vendetta. This was on late in the afternoon after a few panels and I sat through those to secure a front-row seat.

That proved to be an excellent plan as the play had tremendous problems with the sound system and I think that only those of us in the front-row could hear most of it. Even then when the action was on the far side of the stage it was hard to follow the action at times.

An attempt was made to recover the situation by littering the stage with microphones but all they did was cause the actors to stand motionless as they spoke in to them to no effect.

OK, gripe over. The sound system was diabolically awful, and should have been fixed, but I was seated nicely in the front row just a couple of metres from the action so for me things were not too bad.

The play was a fairly direct retelling of the original comic book version, as you would expect, and I recognised many of the passages, The stage was thinly set this V's hideout on one side and a multi-purpose office on the other. The large space in the middle could belong to either setting or be one of its own, such as Larkhill Resettlement Camp where V's story began.

The lack of staging was not a problem and our imaginations driven by the actors' words was enough to conjure up the required images. A little red lighting helped with the explosions too.


Thanks to the staging and the need to be stationery there was not much acting required, not that much was required as the story is all about dialogue, such as V explaining to Evey what he is doing and why.

Both V and Evey played their parts well. V strode around the stage in his mark with purpose and menace while Evey was every inch the fragile young woman that she was meant to be.

Of course the strength of the play is the original story and that is still a belter after all this time, I first read the comics in 1988 and it was first printed in 1982. I've reread the comics since then (and bought the collected edition despite owning the individual comics) and watched the film a few times so the story is familiar and still it gripped me with its drama and poetry.

I was hoping that V for Vendetta would be a highlight of Sci-fi Weekender 2013, and it was.

Sci-fi Weekender 2013 (SFW4)

I enjoyed Sci-fi Weekender 2 (then called SFX Weekender) because comics featured heavily and I had a busy day attending panels.

This year, SFW4, was rather different. I knew that the comics element would be a great deal less but that there would be some. It was also in a different location, Pwllheli rather than Hastings, and an excuse to spend a few days in the unknown territory of North Wales was another attraction.

Besides, while I am not up to date with the current science fiction programmes or books I have enough of both in my history to be comfortable spending a couple of days immersed in the oeuvre.

And I had free tickets.

The very first session in the main hall was one that I wanted to catch. It was Dez Skinn giving a talk on Revisiting The House of Hammer, the magazine he created and edited for 23 issues.

I had heard of House of Hammer but it was a little before my time and I had not read an issue. I was interested in the subject though because I liked the old Hammer films and also because Dez has done many things in comics since then, notably with Warrior.

What Dez had not done was learn how to use a PC and the technology defeated him despite helpful advise being provided from the floor. Technical problems came to be a feature of SFW4 and significantly marred the event.

In the end Dez managed to fill only half of his allotted slot and that was with the help of some long pauses and a long lame joke.

The few things that Dez managed to say were interesting, particularly the insights of the intense mechanical process producing magazines used to be. It's called cut and paste for a reason.

Over the next couple of days I attended several panels. None of them was astonishingly attractive beforehand or amazingly insightful afterwards but they were all good enough to listen to.

With this blog in mind I even took a few notes. They make even less sense out of context than they did at the time but they are all I've got so I'm going to include them anyway.

Youths are more open to women writers than adults. Some women choose to use gender neutral names, such as Raven Dane and E J Newman. Higher standards of behaviour are expected from female protagonists. Men can be drunks and drug addicts, but not women.

Digital media lets you do everything that pencils and brushes can do, and more, but the ability to rework everything can be a curse as well as a blessing as nothing is ever truly finished. Hand-eye coordination can take some learning, with the hand on a tablet and the eye on screen, rather than both on the paper. Digital media first changed the way that comics were produced, then the way that they are consumed and they are starting to change the way they are constructed.

The publish industry has a ingrained prejudice against shite books. Books are never finished, they are just abandoned.

One of the unexpected treats was the talk with an artist now known for his storyboard work on Game of Thrones, which is why he was there, who had previously worked on 2000AD and we were treated to some stories and art work from that time.


We spent a lot of time talking about genres, what happened to Space Opera? There was an audience vote on whether Star Trek and Star Wars are Science Fiction or Science Fantasy. There were mixed results but the (wrong) consensus was that Star Trek is Science Fiction and Star Wars is Science Fantasy. I'd not call Star Wars Science Fiction as the science in the story is immaterial to the plot. Magic, i.e. The Force, plays a far greater role. Dr Who is Science Fiction as he always uses technology to solve the problem.

There were other treats too.

SFW is a fan convention and that means cosplay. I did not recognise a lot of it but there were some obvious characters from Dr Who, Alien, Star Trek etc. and a couple of Hit Girls too. So I took a picture of some judges.

A little away from the two rooms where the panels were held was a cinema, of sorts, where I went to see Galaxy Quest. There was something both ironic and appropriate about seeing a film that pokes gentle fun at conventions at a convention. It was well received by a full house, and rightly so. I thought about staying up for Alien but that was on just a little too late and I cannot claim that I have not seen it for a while.

There were merch stalls and it was good to see Tim Perkins there promoting Worlds End as well as being a panellist. I bought a copy of the book and a few other things as well. I was expecting to buy more but the Forbidden Planet stall only had the obvious comics that I either had or was not interested in. I would have bought Saucer Country and got Paul Cornell to sign it if they had had any.

Sci-fi Weekender was harder work and more of a struggle than it should have been but it did enough to keep me entertained for a couple of days, just not enough to be certain of going again next year.

SFX Weekender: Beyond the US - The wider world of comics

The final session I saw at SFX Weekender looked beyond superhero comics at how the medium can be much more than that and took examples from beyond the UK and USA to show that.

Bryan Talbot was on the panel again (no problem with that) where we was joined by Pat Mills (not pictured) and two others who's names I did not catch as I had rushed upstairs to but Heart of Empire for Bryan to sign (which he did!).

All of the panellists told stories of how comics flourish in other countries which was both encouraging as it showed that the is some really good stuff out there but also dispiriting in that it can be hard to find even if you start looking for it in a comic shop.

Indeed comic shops came in for a fair deal of criticism for sticking unintelligently to the USA format and not learning about and promoting other material.

There are some exceptions and nice things were said about Page 45 in Nottingham, OK Comics in Leeds and Gosh in London.

We were also given some tips on where to start our own comics adventures and I'll be trying out Persepolis, Blacksad, Maus, Phonogram, Laika and Mouse Guard before too long.

Interestingly most of these are anthropomorphic (ok, so Laika was a real dog) but it was not just Bryan that was recommending them.

Another interesting panel discussion and this time one with real value as were given tantalising glimpses of the rich world of comics and shown the first steps to take to get there.

SFX Weekender: Tie-in and shared universe fiction

The session on tie-in and shared universe fiction might not have been the sort of thing that I went to SFX Weekended for but it sounded interesting enough and it meant that I could keep my hard-won front-row seat for this and the following session too.

There were a couple of names I knew on the panel; I've read several of Dan Abnett's stories in 2000AD and in various Marvel Comics (e.g. Guardians of the Galaxy) and I'd seen Ben Arronovitch on the Dr Who panel earlier that day.

There were a few times that day when panellists were repeated, but that's a good thing when the panellists contribute knowledgeably and appropriately. There was no repeating of favourite stories here.

The conversation flowed immediately and we were treated to many insights in to the life of a writer working within the boundaries set by other people.

And perhaps the most interesting aspect of this was the way that a pre-defined world and characters takes some of the hard work away from authors, leaving space to play with the story.

The differences between canonical stories and spin-offs filled a large part of the session. During this Stephen Baxter produced an old Stingray book that I recognised as I have a copy in the attic!

We also learnt that Dan Abnett had been commissioned to write a Primeval story that the producers wanted to tell but which would have been too expensive to do on TV.

There are various reasons why copyright owners want to extend their franchise in to print media ranging from the obvious one of making more money from the brand to finding a way to keep fans engaged when the main product is not available.

The obvious example here is Dr Who that was kept going for several years in books and audio. Similarly the Warhammer books let game players in to the world of space Marines and Tyranids from places other than Games Workshop.

From the author's perspective there is the need to play within the rules and that's a question of getting the tone right (would the character behave like that?) as well as the continuity. And the continuity problem is getting bigger all the time as the back-catalogue grows. Imagine how much a new Dr Who or X-Men writer has to read and watch.

Ben Aaronvitch also made the interesting point that writing within a shared universe means a writer has other people they can talk to about their story, e.g. to discuss exactly how a character would behave in a given situation.

So what I initially treated as a fill-in session proved to be much more than that and I learnt a lot and gained even more respect for authors.

SFX Weekender: Bryan Talbot on the anthropomorphic tradition

Having got a back seat for the previous session I was well placed to leap for a front-row seat when the sessions changed and Bryan Talbot returned for his solo set.

This was the third time in little over a year that I seen Bryan give his talk on "Grandville and the Anthropomorphic Tradition" and it still informs and entertains.

The story does change a little each time, when I asked Bryan about the presentation beforehand he said that this version had more pictures of funny animals, and so it did.

It also had all the old pictures too which gives me the excuse to pick the Kamandi one this time.

As always, Bryan spoke quickly, clearly, intelligently, knowledgeably, charmingly and enthrallingly on a subject he is clearly very interested in. There is so much content in the talk that it easily bears a second and a third listening.

I got the impression that SFX saw this session as something of a filler, something ready on the shelf that they could reuse, but that mattered not to me as I was just delighted to be able to see the talk again and from the front-row too.

The only disappointment at that time was that I was unable to get Bryan to sign Heart of Empire due to my complete failure to buy a copy. That story has a happy ending later.

SFX Weekender: Dual Britannia

In the second year at secondary school (that's year 8 in new money) there was a period when the boys ran from one class to the next to get the envied desk in the back corner by the window. Winning that was a badge of honour but it also put you in last place in for the next race facing the prospect of a desk at the front next to the teacher.

And so it was that my front row seat for the first two sessions of the day turned in to a pretty poor one when I had to move downstairs to the Screening Zone for the next session.

Never mind.

In Dual Britannia authors who had presented alternative Englands (particularly Londons) discussed the attractions, approaches and issues in doing so.

This was a fascinating talk for me, particularly as the only author who's work I knew was Bryan Talbot.

Over the next half hour or so several ideas emerged, some of which were slightly at odds with each other due to the authors' different perspectives.

London has familiar landmarks, e.g. Big Ben or Crystal Palace, that can be morphed in to new realities to mix reality with fantasy.

London has real places that suggest fantasy. A good example of this was Neil Gainman's Neverwhere which reinterpreted places like Earl's Court, Old Bailey and Knightsbridge.

There are alternative Londons (fantasy) and obscure Londons (real).

Michael Moorcock is generally though of as the inventor of alternative but similar worlds with his Eternal Champion stories. He invented Steampunk too!

I had reasonable hopes of the Dual Britannia session but these comfortably exceeded due to the wide range of knowledgeable contributions from the diverse panel. This was exactly the sort of thing I went to SFX Weekender to see.

SFX Weekender: Dr Who panel

Having secured a front-row seat for the first session of the day I stayed there for the second on the popular theme of Dr Who.

On the excellent panel were four writers who have told stories about the good Doctor on TV and in books over a number of years. And this time we had a moderator too to push things along and to keep some sort of structure to the debate.

What followed was a very insightful look at the life of a writer that raked through a large range of subjects including, writing for children and adults, TV and books, then and now, humour and horror, series and episodes, Sarah Jane Adventures, politics, gay role models and lots more besides that I probably should have made a note of at the time.

I especially enjoyed Toby Whithouse's accounts of writing for the modern Doctor where the demands of the audience mean that the pace has to be relentless to keep the kids involved and the plot clever enough to keep their parents involved too.

Toby wrote one of my favourite episode, School Reunion, and he told us how Russell T Davies said that it was too slow at one point and the way to fix that was to kill another child.

And that story hints at the one minor problem that I has with the session. I recognised the story School Reunion because it was set in a school but the Who fans threw episode titles around like confetti and none of the others meant anything to me at all.

Throughout the session, what came through strongly was each writer's passion for writing and for taking that mission seriously through research and planning.

Equally evident was their enthusiasm and the session was lively and totally engaging. I'd not call myself a Whovian (though I never miss the program) but I was totally enthralled by the discussion and was surprised and disappointed when it lost out to time and had to end.

SFX Weekender: 2000AD panel

The fist session on the Saturday of SFX Weekender was on 2000AD and i was not going to miss that!

Driving down from London in the grey morning flecked with intermittent rain still got me there before most of the weekend residents and so I was easily able to get a front row seat for the 2000AD session that started they day at a leisurely 10am.

On stage we had Al Ewing (author of Zombo and Judge Dredd), Leigh Gallagher (artist on Defoe) and Keith Richardson (head of the graphics novel line).

There was no facilitator for this session and that hurt as the session got of to a slow start while the panel worked out what they wanted to talk about.

But these are all creative types and so do not need much prompting to get talking and a few questions from the audience helped too.

And so we learned some things about the new Dredd movie, what it's like to draw him and to write stories for him, the Nikolai Dante saga will end next year, one day soon you'll be able to buy Zombo underpants and, best of all, there's an iPad app on the way.

A bit disjointed and unstructured it may have been but, despite the early out for them and us, the panel entertained and informed easily and before you knew it signals were being passed and it was time for session to end.

I doubt if the session did much to win new fans to 2000AD but those of us who already were fans had a good time.

Clint Langley is a real star

I had a fun day at the SFX Weekender and in telling that tale I'll start and the end, which was the best bit, thanks to Clint Langley.

I'm a big fan of Clint's artwork for 2000AD and have written about it a few times here over the last couple of years and so I was delighted to see that we was part of the 2000AD delegation.

Sadly I was kept busy in sessions until late in the afternoon and missed Clint's official signing session but I was able to catch him when he returned to the stall not long before it closed. I then expressed my admiration for his art in much the same gushing manner that teenage girls use for the latest boy band, but with slightly less screaming.

Clint was very approachable and signed my copy of ABC Warriors enthusiastically, as author Pat Mills had done earlier, and with the same gold pen.

But the unexpected icing on the already rich cake was the sketch of Slaine that Clint drew for me. It was worth going to SFX just for that.