Hello! Gosh, it’s been a while, hasn’t it? Let’s start with a quick Q&A, addressing a question left as a comment on this very substack:
Now, look: as that commenter knows VERY WELL, I… have been a bit busy lately. If you cast your mind back to earlier editions of this newsletter, where I would be plugging all the upcoming Exciting Festivals And Live Events I was doing all over the country - well, basically, it was all of *that*. I’ve been out on the road encouraging kids to make comics from London to Dublin to Hull and at what has at times felt like all points in between. It’s been an absolute blur of travel and events, mixed with a fun side order of deadlines and ludicrously over ambitious comics plans, all coming together and culminating this weekend in the singular and brilliant event that was Phoenix Fest 2024 in Oxford.
Honestly I’m still kind of processing it all, but here are the edited highlights:
I performed a weird comics panto / performance art piece I’d written, with my son, on stage in front of 1300 people
I signed and sketched for 5+ solid hours
I got to spend all day and night hanging out with the very best people in the universe
I’d just like to say a huge thank you to everyone who came along and who were so uniformly delightful. Stepping out onto a stage like that, well, it was a LOT. But you were all so brilliant that within about ten seconds I went from “wow, one of my anxiety dreams has somehow come to life?” to “oh, no, this is going to be FUN.”
I’d also like to thank the entire team at the Phoenix, everyone who worked so ludicrously hard, for so long, to pull this thing off, and who did it so brilliantly.
But most of all I’d like to thank my co-star and collaborator, Evil Fake Alternate Universe (?) Neill Cameron -
…or, as I know him better, my son, Logan Cameron.
Now, as established above, I know he reads this substack, so obviously I’m not going to say anything too nice about him. But I will merely say that that was a weird and huge thing to be asked to do, and it is something that I quite literally, physically and emotionally could not have done at his age, and he stepped up and absolutely smashed it and I am in fact incredibly proud of him.
Ugghhh, see, I ended up saying nice things about him by mistake.
Anyway, it was incredibly wonderful to spend hours meeting so many brilliant and passionate readers of the Phoenix. I think maybe because it was a hometown gig for me, but I couldn’t help but think of myself at that age, when comics had been so huge and so important for me, but also something I’d enjoyed in a very isolated and increasingly embarrassed way. The thought that these kids not only get to love the thing, but to have that love encouraged and celebrated and supported, to the point where they can come along and be amongst thousands of other kids who love that same thing too… that to me is a very special and beautiful thing, which I feel very lucky to get to be a part of.
I realise that this is all getting a bit disgustingly wholesome and sincere, but let’s just keep it going, with a short list of just SOME of the amazing things I was gifted by Phoenix readers on Saturday:
a drawing of ‘Neil-Nut’.
2: The first issue of THE SAUSAGE HAMMER, a truly remarkable comic by young creators Ben De Granville, Jay Johnson, Fox Watson and Jasper Bazin:
(Seriously, this thing is hilarious:)
(I mean, just:)
3: A couple of cracking Alex and Freddys:
4: the pitch for a potential sequel to Mega Robo Bros “where Freddy goes to Japan and sits on a fancy futuristic toilet and it shoots water up his bum”:
…and, seriously, if anything was ever going to make me reconsider my stance on ‘when Mega Robo Bros is over it’s over, stories have to end and that’s actually quite important’: it is this.
And last, but not least:
5: CROCHETED ANXIETY DONUT!
I want to say a huge thank you to the creator of Crocheted Anxiety Donut - he was handed to me as I was being quickly hustled across a busy theatre from one signing spot to another so I am afraid I didn’t catch their name, but he is a thing of wonder and I absolutely love him.
Okay, that’s enough sincerity for one year I think! Lots of exciting stuff coming up but nothing I think I can usefully talk about yet so I will merely sign off with a traditional HEY BUY MY BOOKS PLEASE
Okay thanks bye
My two boys came to see you at the St Austell Festival and watched the Phoenix Festival virtually. They loved both your events and spend lots of their free reading your books and drawing their own comics which is lovely to see.