From: SCOTT, Jenni
Sent: Friday, August 27, 1999 12:57 PM

A slightly belated convention report for CAPTION99, held last weekend (21–22 August) in Oxford, UK.

We’ve been holding CAPTION since 1992, and I guess it shows. On the one hand there was a comfortable atmosphere, with people very much enjoying their annual meet, greet, & drink up. On the other hand, the organisers were tired—only one main guest, only one panel each day. It’s turned into the annual overgrown pub meet of the UK independent comics scene, with a few sidelines thrown in.

The theme this year was spacecaption1999—shiny silver space rockets ahoy! The exhbition reflected this nicely—attendees were asked to send in space debris, which was enlarged, stuck onto card, coloured, and hung up for brightly-clad (and indeed space-suited) guests to wander around through. As always, this made a great contrast with the sober photos in the Oxford Union Society venue—these photos feature besuited Union committees from years past, with luminaries such as Tuppy Owens, Mother Teresa, and Mr Malcolm X represented amongst younger versions of various right-wing MPs.

The main guest this year was Bryan Talbot, taking time out from the inking of the final pages of Heart of Empire. He gave a very interesting and well-received slideshow presentation on storytelling in One Bad Rat; it went into quite a bit of detail on the tricks and techniques he used throughout the book. For instance, superhero comics are usually drawn with the reader’s eyeline below that of the hero or villain --giving the impression of looking up at the character and hence the impression of power inherent in that character. In One Bad Rat, the eyeline is at the main character’s own level, defusing that power-relationship. Or to take another example—the colour red is reserved in One Bad Rat for scenes depicting the abuse that the main character, Helen, undergoes, so that those scenes are visually marked as well as textually.

It was a very impressive presentation, but it did leave me with the question of how effective these techniques actually are. They make sense, and they sound like they should work, but it would be very interesting if there were some independent research into the effect that they actually have. Call me a picky scientist!

We also had a couple of overseas attendees—Martin Wisse from the Netherlands (on Reinder Dykhuis’ recommendation, I believe), Jean-Paul Jennequin from France, who is quite a regular now, and Fabio Gadducci, who is one of the organisers of the Lucca festival in Italy. It’s always good to make new links and see some more stuff from other parts of the world, so it was great that these people managed to make it to CAPTION.

There were also the usual UK suspects attending— Pete Ashton, Pete Pavement, and Howard Stangroom with their various comics stalls selling, respectively, general independent comics, Slab-O-Concrete’s best new material, and tacky 60s DC mixed with romance and queer comics. Paul Gravett was there—wouldn’t be the same without him—and Guy Lawley, who always helps bump up the auction total—and Nick Abadzis, though he has been working almost exclusively in children’s books rather than comics. Woodrow Phoenix (but no Ed Hillyer this year), Martin Hand & Jenni Cole, Terry Wiley & Dave McKinnon from Sleaze Castle (wearing the best spacesuits I’ve seen), Rachel House and Jo David (Rachel’s new issue of Red Hanky Panky is out now, with a flipdoublecoverspecialotherhalf giving us the return of Mark Connorton’s Hormone Frenzy), Sina, Andy Konky Kru, Matt Brooker (D’Israeli), and many more. One new person we were particularly pleased to see was Lee Davies, the guy who started the UK’s first head shop in the 60s. He was Bryan Talbot’s first publisher and in fact is republishing Brainstorm Comix in October this year.

Much of the day was taken up with chatting and sitting in the sun (with the odd break for Bryan’s lecture and Steve Whitaker’s usual fine workshop). In the evening there was the traditional entertainment of the National Theatre of Earth Prime, mangling another comics classic. This time the chosen work was, of course, The Adventures of Luther Arkwright; the first time such a work has been done in front of the original author. Phew—Bryan loved it—he was heard laughing louder than anyone else. Well, apparently—I could hardly tell, I was laughing too hard to notice.

Before that, however, we held the charity auction, raising money for the educational work done by the Cartoon Art Trust. Thanks to some lovely artwork, generous bidders, and steely glares from our gophers, we raised over 1,000 pounds! (I rather disturbingly found at the end of it that I’d ended up spending £100 myself—obviously there was far too much tempting stuff...)

The Sunday is a day of rest, with sunbathing as a program item (held in the bar if wet). There was one actual panel—creating your own world, a discussion of consistency and rigour in creating one’s comics universe. On the panel were Bryan Talbot again—very rigorous, to the extent of knowing what would be in a drawer in a room the reader never sees—Terry & Dave from Sleaze Castle—moderately rigorous, with a proper timeline but happy to fudge some things—and D’Israeli, who is more of the school of taking an idea and stretching the world to fit it in. (That’s how he ends up with flesh-eating radioactive haddocks, y’see.)

This light panel item over, the day wound to a pleasurably drunken close, at which point we were able to declare CAPTION officially finished.

Finished? Yes, we often say that this is the last year, we’ll never do it again—and find ourselves foresworn as temptation bites us in the unprotected rear. This year we mean it. Honest. And we’re going to spend our surplus just to make sure we’re not tempted again. (Call it a dividend.) However, faced with this dire threat of NO MORE CAPTION, some of the younger generation were seen getting together and plotting—so keep alert for possibilities in the future... I’m sure they’ll let you know.