Lloyd and the Bear

So ever since I started attending conventions my big problem was how to show off my prints. Having them in a folder never seemed to work and I really wanted them all out on display.

As time went on and I had the odd lucky chance to have two tables I realised being able to spread all the prints out was the best choice BUT I really didn’t want to go to the expense of having two tables plus it felt kind of bad to be taking up a second table when there could be the next Jack Kirby sitting there with their awesome artwork/book!

My solution was to go with a set of grids which I noticed others using but me being me I had to go BIG and boy did the grids do that – so much so that I ended up calling the grids THE CAGE! And over time it changed getting bigger and bigger and then smaller but at all times it was tall and had a nasty knack of blocking out whomever was my booth neighbour.

But I’ve decided it’s time to let the cage go and try something different which I’ll have on show at MCM Birmingham this weekend. In part it was down to changes in booth setup (which admittedly I was too scared to ask about) but also I really wanted to have a display that was easier to build and take down plus had little chance of falling on someone (I am so clumsy and there have been times I’ve almost crushed someone when dismantling the stupid thing!)

I’ll post photos after the weekend but the new set up is pretty sweet, quicker to construct and also lighter! Less to carry around is good….

Hope to see you at MCM Birmingham! The guests look AMAZING! Yay!

More soon, bear hugs!

PS. At one point I was toying with adding a small disco ball to the centre of The Cage and creating a dance hall. It could have worked…. maybe?

So I’m going through updating the last lot of pages of the ever growing issue #12 of LatB and I came across these six pages which are to be completely wiped from the ‘new’ story.

I had a lot of love for this entire scene in my head back when I was planning it but when I got to doing the pages I felt that the beats didn’t quite hit right with Lloyds ‘death’ and then the joke of him bouncing back again which needed a lot more page room to work.

Of all these pages the final one I’m going to miss as I had a few hidden character messages in there plus I loved how using U.S.P.D equipment was an additional charge put upon our heroes.

But it’s not all a loss as the cause of Lloyd’s ‘death’ will play out the same and there will be some changes to his armour BUT there will now no longer be a stupid walkway that has NO REASON FOR EXISTING! And hey, it’s a bit of a story trope having the hero fight on some raised walkway and I fell for it myself. See, a walkway is fine. They are a thing but they have to have a functional reason for being there!

And this makes me want to have a rant about a certain sci-fi franchise that I do love very much…. See, in my mind one of the worst examples of a pointless walkway/fight scene was the Riker and bad guy alien dude in Star Trek Nemesis (remember, that’s the film where the aliens weren’t great with bright lights so obviously when they boarded the Enterprise Picard dimmed all the lights). My beef? Where was that walkway on the plans? What was it’s functional point? I know it’s a new Enterprise but shouldn’t we have seen it before?

It bugged me. And so did this scene I planned out. I could argue that having the control room being a direct drop beneath where the Enforcers were located allowed for them to get down there in an emergency but I seriously couldn’t come up with an excuse to where that walkway went.

I have walkway rage.

Anyways, goodbye six pages. You will be….. remembered?

And apologies for the Star Trek rant. I needed to do that(!)

On a more positive note I’ll be posting some of the new pages shortly! And hey, as I said at the start, issue #12 keeps growing! My original plan of 36 pages (an extra 12 pages from usual issues) looks to have been a bit out as I have WAY MORE things to put in to this issue! Yay!

More soon! Bear hugs!