FantasyCon 2007 (Nottingham)

Our first FantasyCon. It was to be my way of saying hello to the small press stalwarts such as Pete Crowther (PS Publishing) & Chris Teague (Pendragon Press). Sure, there are lots more I can mention, such as recent addition Steve Upham from Screaming Dreams who kindly allowed me space on his table after I'd cocked up my booking. So Steve gets a special thanks. But Chris in particular was very supportive and gave Murky Depths a plug whenever he could, including a panel he was on.

Chris Teague (Pendragon Press) on the dark stuff

Steve Upham (Screaming Dreams)

We arrived Friday around 6 pm after getting somewhat lost in Nottingham looking for the Britannia Hotel venue which is centrally places just a few minutes walk away from the city centre. A rather glamorous and seemingly overdressed woman we spied as we booked in at reception made Liz wonder if she'd packed the right gear. We later met said woman in the bar with her husband and struck up a weekend friendship which resulted in an agreement to share a table at Eastercon next year.

You may have heard of Paigan Stone (AKA Sam Stone) who was hounded out of her teaching job by a local politician and the media after she had published a "controversial" vampire novel . Gabriele Caccini: The Vampire Gene - Book. Well, that's who our new acquaintance was. Sticking up whatever finger, or fingers, you choose to imagine at the "system", she had flaunted her beauty and cleavage to publicise her work and was secretly hoping that Golancz might be there to snap her up.

But backtracking a few steps we first of all settled in and headed for the dealer room and found Steve Upham who had bagged the best-positioned table directly in front of the doors as you entered. He had Neil Davies with him, author of the short story collection The Midnight Hour, which Liz tells me is a worth a read. We set up our little corner and grabbed dinner in the restaurant.

Screaming Dreams/Murky Depths table - everyone else has packed up. Liz and Steve are still chin wagging. Neil's a good listener.

One guest who particularly impressed me was Terry Brooks who brought a down-to-earth approach to a panel. Interesting to hear his pronunciation of Shanara to be so different from what you normally hear in the UK.

New publications were giving the opportunity to announce their wares during Saturday afternoon and it was only then I realised I was the only magazine present; everyone else was promoting their books. I was nowhere near as elequent as some publishers whose antics would have won them oscars elsewhere but at least I had the chance to vocalise briefly on what Murky Depths is all about.

Sales picked up during Saturday afternoon, not that this is the kind of convention where you should expect to do great business. With it's high membership price it isn't going to attract many fans unless a couple of huge names are present. It's mainly about mixing with others writers, publishers and artists and in that respect it succeeds brilliantly. Les Edwards, who produced the front cover for the Murky Depths Promo Issue 0, is a great supporter of the small press and hasn't allowed his success to alienate himself from the grass roots. He shows an appreciation for the efforts of publishers and was more than willing to sign all the copies I had with me of the Promo Issue 0.

One of the illustrators' panels (Les on the left). They need to do something with the bottles of water next year!

How the majority of visitors can stay up so late beats me. I fell alseep twice during the mammoth raffle on Saturday night. But we picked up three prizes, one being a copy of Weird Tales that was published back in 1954!

Neil Davies in the foreground waiting for the raffle

Somehow during the weekend I missed the results of the short story competition. I doubted that any of my stories stood a chance but you always hold a secret hope. Anyone know who won?

Just a few more weeks and Murky Depths will be airing at the International Comics Show in Birmingham. We'll be doing some special offers there too, like we did at the weekend. Speaking of comics, since Warren Ellis discovered Murky Depths our website hits have rocketed and since Sunday we have picked up four more subscription. Might not sound much to you but with an ambitious target of one hundred subscriptions by the time Issue 2 is published every one counts.

Will we be going to FantasyCon next year? You bet. And we'll only be a fifty-minute drive away rather than the motorway-clogged three that we had to navigate this year. Would I recommend it? Definitely, if you're an artist or writer. Not so much if you're a dealer, but table prices are so cheap it doesn't really matter. It's the networking that's the plus.

To all the people we wanted to say hello to but didn't there's always next year or one of the other conventions. We'll be hitting as many as we can. See you there.

Terry Martin
Publishing Editor