Broken Frontier

Day 3 at the Long Beach Comic Con for hot British publishers Com.x, the guys responsible for such acclaimed collections and OGNs as Cla$$war, Razorjack and Path. Com.x Publisher Eddie Deighton rejoins Broken Frontier today to update us on the latest adventures of himself, Com.x co-publisher Ben Shahrabani, Com.x marketing director Jon Sloan and upcoming OGN '45' writer Andi Ewington. In amongst the official business, the gang are letting their hair down. But just who is the biggest Com.x party animal? Find out below...

Read Part One

Read Part Two

October 3, Day 3

As is usual with most of these conventions; as the days roll on, so does the increase in alcohol consumption. We've done pretty well so far with the exception of Andi, we've all been extremely disciplined and adhered to a strict schedule and minimized our alcohol intake, knowing that we have full days ahead of us to get through. I guess Andi didn't think about the fact that we had two more days at the convention to go and decided to hang out with Ben Jackendoff and the guys from the West Coast chapter of CBS (Comic Book Sunday) on the Friday night. We're not quite sure exactly what happened to them, but we hear he ended up jive-dancing with two of the Archaia Press girls and he's now on first-name terms with the owners of the Irish bar across the road from the Con.

Andi, getting some love from Dave Ryan.

Anyway, on to the day's events. With Andi feeling slightly worse for wear and experiencing selective memory recall, he and Ben head to the centre whilst Jon and myself head off to purchase the PS3. We turn up at the store at one minute to 10am to find a queue forming outside the videogame store. Not sure if there is a new release of some kind, but we decide against waiting and go purchase an actual Blu-Ray player instead. Turns out this is a good decision as it costs half as much as a PS3. Great. Onwards.

Andi and Richard Hatch - Great guy.

Back at the booth, we're now operating on all cylinders – booth, comics, trailer. It's all go. The atmosphere is great and the floor is really busy, but not in a cramped or claustrophobic way. We have a few people drop by the booth to say "hi" and welcome us back, many of whom I recognise from San Diego way back in 2003. They seem quite pleased that I recognised them and I surprised myself that my memory hasn't failed me, considering I can't usually remember what day of the week it is.

Is this the droid you're looking for?

We also do a few portfolio reviews at the booth, even though our review session isn't until Sunday (hey, we're nice guys). Some really cool work is shown to us and it looks like we might have found someone for one of our own projects we want to release next year. Result. Jordan Raskin also dropped by to show us his work. Jordan was working in comics about ten/fifteen years ago and has been lured back in by the bright lights, fame and fortune (?). Looks like we'll have something for him to work on, too. What with announcing Duppy'78, Nicodemus Flynn and Monster Myths yesterday, we have even more cool stuff to release in 2010. All in all, the show has been very positive for us so far.

Left to Right - Andi, Tim and Ben Jackendoff, from CBS

So, for the rest of this update, I've decided to hand the reigns over to my colleagues so that they can add their input and insight (hey, why should I be the only one typing this stuff up at midnight?)

Andi: The morning for me was really daunting. This was it. For real. We had felt that Friday was a dry-run for the hordes that would descend upon the show today. I was really excited, there was a constant buzz of activity around us, with lots of admiring looks at our stand. By return, I was left stunned by the numerous cosplays that strolled past; every preceding one left us speechless, and a few should have been banned (The overweight, yellow, cat-suited Kill Bill fan for one, and the Xena Warrior Grandmother for another...). Still, we embraced it all in the spirit that it was meant. The rest of the show, I 'geeked out' on the likes of Lou Ferrigno, Vernon Wells, Thomas Jane and Richard (Battlestar Galactica) Hatch (Who I may add was a real top bloke – even ended up with his email address, but that's another story...) Anyhow with our signed souvenirs under our belts we were spurred on to enjoy the rest of the show.

Andi and Richard Starkings – Can you see where this is going...?

Jon: Well, just to add to Andi's comments, there was an awful lot of flesh on shot at the Con. Some of it welcome, much of it not. The one thing I do love about these shows though is having the chance to stroll around and check out artists’ work that hadn't come to my attention previously. One person we spent some time with was Stuart Sayger, an incredibly talented guy whose work is just stunning. We checked out the portfolio and chatted about English fine artists. This guy does know his stuff and has so much passion for the drawing; he'd even sketched an incredible Batman on the paper cloth covering his table. I plan to head back over there today to see if he leaves it behind, it's THAT Good.

Nurse and... oh, you get the idea....

The rest of the day I spent being Andi's photo-bitch as he proceeded to drag me around every booth looking for celebrities and, more truthfully, booth babes to be photographed with. He even persuaded a couple of LA County Sheriffs to come over and handcuff him for a pic. As nice a gesture as that was, I'm not sure that LA's finest should be pandering to the sexual deviations of an odd Englishman. Thankfully, we were away from the booth when they came back.

Eddie: So, after another good day, we decide to celebrate – not only the day's events, but the fact that it is Ben's birthday. We head out to dinner, then over to the Irish bar Andi frequented the night before. We hit the bar and, to our surprise, Andi hasn't been barred, so we walk in to find Tim Vigil sitting in a corner, partaking in an ale. Some drinking ensues, but we decide that it's really not worth trying to hold conversation whilst the live band are knocking out renditions of "Devil Went Down To Georgia" at 103db, so we head back to the hotel. Now, I've got to say, not only is Mr Vigil a nice guy, but he's very funny. And he's even funnier after four or five drinks inside him.

Ben, celebrating his birthday with the great, big cake we got for him.

The socialising begins to wind down at around midnight. Looks like our bodies have become fully acclimatised to West Coast timezone. We all decide that now is a good time to head off to our rooms. Either that, or Andi and Mr Vigil may press-gang us into searching out a karaoke bar.

See you back here tomorrow for the last day of reporting and my overall impression of the show.

To be continued...