Comix Influx Blog: No Barcodes

On Saturday Ellen Lindner and I went to No Barcodes – a big old get-together at Camden Lock Market run by the London Underground Comics collective. LUC run a weekly market stall in Camden but this week they expanded to half-a-dozen tables, and got a whole bunch of small-press creators to come down, man the tables,flog their wares, sketch, hang-out and basically have a good time.

We headed up to Camden in the afternoon (Ellen bearing copies of the nearly out-of-stock Whores Of Mensa #3) and quickly met up with Jeremy Dennis, another of the Whores of Mensa group. Jeremy is the queen of the bejewelled (or beblinged) comic, and we bought her lovely Angry Owl and Falling Leaves comics.

I also, picked up a couple of minis by Francesca Cassavetti – The Most Natural Thing in the world and Party Pieces. I hadn’t seen Cassavetti’s work before, and really like it. I’m definitely going to pick up the other issues of The Most Natural Thing In The World. I also bought Ooomoonaflii by Clare Power, a beautifully produced, full-colour comic, totally enchanting and barely scrutable, which reads like an all-too short hallucinatory kids’ story. I hope Power is prolific, ‘cos I think her work is great.

We later went to the a local bar and got to meet a whole load of people from the market, including Peter Lally (who creates The Bedsit Journal, along with Richard Cowdry), Sally-Anne Hickman, and Andy Luke. It was great to catch-up a little with Sean Azzopadi as well.

From what I saw and heard, the day was a great success, and should hopefully be repeated. It’s excellent to see this kind of enthusiasm, drive and focus within the UK comics scene, outside of the UK conventions. Congratulations to Oli Smith for having organised it.