Blog: Crossroads 2

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After spending most of the week in Weymouth I was back into London Action on Saturday morning when I rolled up at Somerset House to attend "Comics Crossroads 2", an CONFERENCE. I'd had to get up EARLY (on a Saturday!) so was feeling a little bit grumpy when I arrived, not helped by the usual Somerset House TOTAL LACK OF SIGNAGE, but eventually I tracked down the room the conference was happening in and things improved mightily.

For LO! it was a day of VERY INTERESTING talks. As I've said many times before, the cruel hardships of my professional life (hem hem) have led me to be TRAUMATISED by all the Stats Conferences I've been on, so I ALWAYS sit down in conference environments expecting to be BORED far beyond the boundaries of human endurance. Adjustment to my changed circumstances was QUICK on this day, however, as it was PACKED with Fascinating Topics, including the ZEITGEIST of 70s comics in the UK, Roy Lichtenstein, how colouring used to work, lots of talk about methodology, embodied concepts in metaphor and enclosed panels/bubbles. All right, I know that may not sound particularly THRILLING but honest, it totally was!

The best bit for me, however, came early when I had a cup of (POSH! DELICIOUS!) coffee with my supervisor and told him my ideas about combining all my VARIOUS PRACTICES to EXPRESS my THESIS. Rather than chucking the coffee at me and saying "Stop being silly! You have to do a Big Essay!" he was actually Quite Keen and even suggested ways it could be done. HOORAH!

So LIFTED was I that I was even BRAVE enough to go to the DRINKS after. Another thing I know from the aforesaid YEARS of Conference Attendances is that the DRINKS is where the main business happens, though in this case the business seemed to be just saying hello to some more members of my new PEER GROUP. Comics Studies is an EMERGING FIELD so there aren't THAT many people doing it, but they all seem to be very nice and willing to chat, it was good!

I swayed home where The References In My Paper was delighted - DELIGHTED - to get an hour long report about the whole thing, concluding with the idea that maybe, just maybe, this might actually WORK!


posted 11/10/2016 by MJ Hibbett

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