What a Con

Post-Thought Bubble Report! Heartwarmingness! Possibly a quick plug or two!

I spent this last weekend at Thought Bubble, the rightly-world-famous comics convention in Harrogate, where I was attending with the fine people of the Phoenix and doing workshops and panels and signings and stuff. As I’ve mentioned on here before it’s a few years since I’ve attended (because reasons), but I thought it was time to get back on the horse, and I suppose I hoped that going up kind of mob-handed with all the Phoenix guys would be such a different prospect that it would feel different, and new, and not just make me sad. And I am happy to report that this was 100% THE CASE. The whole event was genuinely brilliant and life-affirming and wonderful, and also so exhausting that it is now four days later and my brain is just starting to flicker back into some semblance of sentience.

Did I mention there was a whole gang of donut / bagel cosplayers? Honestly, WORTH THE TRIP ALONE.

Obviously it would be impossible to talk about all the amazing people I met and completely heartwarming interactions I had while sat at the Phoenix table over the weekend. But let’s just have one: the young artist who created this masterpiece, PHILOSOPHY PIG.

This kid was in my workshop, had loads of brilliant ideas and suggestions, and then drew this. A pig, asking itself:

• What is real, mind or soul? And which makes decisions?

• Who - or what - created atoms? And how? They would have to be made of atoms!

• I think, therefore I am? But am I?

We had a lovely chat later on, when I did my signing, and I commented on what fascinating questions these were.

KID: these are the questions that go through my head when I’m trying to get to sleep!

And it was just very nice to be able to tell her that these were the exact questions that used to go through my head when I was trying to get to sleep. And then I read Sophie’s World, discovered that I was not a crazy person for having these thoughts, and went off and got a degree in philosophy, which it turns out is a respected academic discipline that humans have been studying for thousands of years.

Anyway the reason I mention it is, it was just a lovely moment that I am grateful for and will take with me, and none of it would have been possible without the brilliant BSL interpreters that Thought Bubble had laid on for both my workshop and signing, to enable that young artist to take part. Huge thanks to all involved. Thought Bubble really is the best, and I hope that story gives you a little sense of why.

Oh and also there was that moment where a kid dressed as Tom Baker Doctor Who came over to the table, nerded out about Donut Squad at me, and then gave me a jelly baby. Did I mention that Thought Bubble is the best?

…a version of some of the above first appeared as a thread on my bluesky. I am on bluesky now! This is not exactly new, but I’m properly ON there now - it’s really blazed into life in the last couple of weeks and is becoming, for now at least, a fun place to hang out. Come find me there!

Also, A HELPFUL REMINDER that you can join me for a Phoenix Digital Workshop this Saturday where we will be learning how to draw donuts - so many donuts! - and maybe, just maybe, helping bring the Donut Squad back from their exile in a strange limbo beyond reality? Who knows. Stranger things have happened, right? Anyway, tickets available here!

SO MUCH exciting Donut Squad stuff to share soon, very soon, but for now I am off to have a lie down and try and coax my post-con brain back into something resembling life. Okay thanks bye xx