Birmingham Comic Show Signings: Dave Gibbons.

hurm...

It's kinda weird but I haven't been to many comic conventions, so I haven't experienced the sketch book phenomena where fans go from comic artist to comic artist and get them to draw sketches, (eeeh couldya do me a Wonder Woman with big jugs, that sort of thing) some have themes like a certain character, or all the 2000ad guys. Being decent sorts comic artists usually enthusiastically comply to a sometimes industrial style conveyor belt churning out of artist gems where people in other industries would tell the fanboy to go feck themselves.

For me at the Birmingham International Comics Show, the main thing I wanted was to have my almost falling apart and much loved copy of Watchmen (1987 US edition) signed by Dave Gibbons. He was extremely nice and chatted to fans while I was waiting in the queque about the progress of the movie, saying he had drawn three extra pages (alternate ending maybe?) to be used as storyboards and that Zach Snyder is using the original artwork as storyboards more or less which is heartening news. Anyway he signed my copy and did a Rorscharch sketch so I was a happy geek. I also brought some of the great 1993 mini series inked by him and written by Alan Moore, still criminally not collected in a trade paperback. 1963 was a great spoof of early Marvel with some great spoof ads.