The Late, Late, Late Convention Report... Fresh Out Of Soap

By Alfonso Crept

Spoof Central's weekend in Bristol, where the local girls polish up a treat compared to comics fans.

Report 1: Alfonso Crept's Nightmare

"My endearing memory of this year's Nerdcon03 would have to be what happened in the Holiday Inn at around 12.30am in the early morning of Sunday. I was having a quiet moment of reflection whilst pissing in one of the Holiday Inn's plastic palm decorations, because the queue for the men's was out of the building – Comics fans have small bladders and Holiday Inn's don't have armories of toilets – when a young man at the bar started ranting and shouting incoherently.

"Fuck Jim Lee! Fuck Jim Lee! Fuck Jim Lee!" He was shouting at the top of his voice whilst waving a £100 bottle of Bollinger around his head. 'Hello' I thought and positioned myself for a closer inspection.

"The young man, who it has to be said closely resembles the bald drummer and scorekeeper, George Dawes, from the UK TV series called Shooting Stars, was obviously distraught and I'm now beginning to believe that perhaps this was his reaction to the refusal of sex. I'm now believing what I heard was actually, "Fuck Jim Lee? Fuck Jim Lee? Fuck Jim Lee? I laughed."

"The other noticeable thing is the number of bald or shaven headed men there are. It might have been nice for a few baldf or shaven-headed women to have attened, it would have evened things out a bit. But I'm reliably informed that one of the Sequential Tarts has a 'Hollywood' but I was hit by the girl who told me when I asked if she'd ... you know? ... so to speak.

"But bald men do proliferate. Bald men and men with unusual facial growths or beards as they were once called. I counted over 200 bald men inside and for a while because most sported goatees I thought they were all the same person and that I'd cryogencially been frozen for 30 years and DC had cloned it's devoted fan ad infinitum. The thought turned bad when the clones all deserted to Marvel.

"There were also a lot of long haired men (and women) with beards or unusual facial growths as they have become known. I was also alarmed by the number of suede jackets and women with pink hair. The general standard of fashion was poor. I counted at least four Green Lantern T-shirts, someone wearing a ghastly Captain America shirt and most disturbing of all were the woman's underwear Jeff Smith was wearing - over his jeans.

"All in all it was a worthless weekend of exorbitent dealer prices and hidden cameras in the toilet ceilings. Great fun!"


Report B: Falcon Presto Talks About The Atkins Diet

What gives you bad skin, horrendous breath and lank lifeless hair? Two things. The Atkins Diet - a revolutionary diet designed around eating only meat, 100% meat. No sausages. No spam. Just pure meat. It's a protein only diet and the weight will fall off of you like jizzum on a pervert's keyboard. However, the other thing that suffers from the three things listed at the start of this report are COMICS FANS. The difference between Kate Moss's oily skin, breath like a rotting carcass and cocaine enriched hair and your average Green Lantern fan is about 300lbs. Comic fans could never go on the Atkin's diet because they love carbohydrates with their protein.

My comics festival was about three things. However two of them remained unfulfilled and the other is something I'm not sure you'd like me to discuss and I'm sure the young lady wouldn't want me talking about the amazing night of wild sex and passion we had. Ring me. Please!

I began my convention by looking for Karl Richardson. The completely unknown - completely non-existent - comics creator who was narrowly beaten by someone else for the prize of Best Newcomer. The someone else, an A Diggle, isn't really a newcomer, but hey, I didn't see any dancing girls and there's always dancing girls at festivals. After conducting a short interview with Mr Richardson I spent two hours in the toilets at the City Inn throwing up my dinner.

The next morning I came and went.

Saturday afternoon I struggled over to the Commonwealth place, paid my money and wondered why I'd got out of bed (there was a rather pert breatsed young lady taking up half of it). After sitting through a talk which I found embarrassing I stumbled into the cafe and ate three of the finest bacon sandwiches known to elves and fish.

Isn't The Sandman a great way to pull chicks?

Sunday morning I checked out of the hotel, popped into the festival, almost got run over by cars, spent an hour wondering why I was there. I haven't read a comic in eleven years. Followed Alfonso and Preston around like a misguided lap dog. Had an argument with an attendent when I found I'd lost my superpass. Dammit, I found nothing funny at all, apart from the small birthmark on... um... You did know about that, didn't you?

I'm having a bad time at the moment... My wife doesn't understand me. I can't help it if I've become totally immersed in the Study the Albanian Language At Home course. Can I? The cat shat in my hat. My eldest son isn't gay but should be. My daughter wants to be a secretary and some bastard stole my wallet in the Reckless Engineer. Why me?

The Atkin's diet is also similar to comics fans in that both parties' shit stinks.

I hate you all. I quit.


Report Trois: Preston Falco's Spleen For All To See!

Dammit. Dammit all to hell.

The Commonwealth building hung over the city, a great Victorian pile on gigantic granite blocks which seemed to merge almost seamlessly with the headland dominated by Temple Meads train station. I stood and looked down the hill to wonderland and beyond. It was Friday.

I was already really miffed because the two people I wanted to see more than anybody in the world weren't there. No Lois Lane - some joker told me she was a made up character - pfeh! The other, who I was assured would be there was Alan Moore or his alter ego Johnny Depp. Unfortunately Johnny Moore and Alan Depp were there, but no one, including me, knew who they were. Why? Because they were nobodies. Just like the majority of the *stars* at this massif event. I mean who the flark has heard of James Lee? Geoffrey Smith - he's that actor in the stupid piano player film isn't he? Didn't James Lee have something to do with the big band scene in the 1970s?

It wasn't hot enough. There wasn't enough obscenities on show. There were no noticeable Scotsman to annoy and most of all, the little fella, the guy who ran the place and looked like an aging Peter Pan with a bouffant hairdo and braces on his sideburns - what was he all about? When some beardy chap from DC introduced me to him he spoke 400 words at me in 11 seconds and then was gone with his little white tail stuck firmly in the air, while my tongue remained firmly in my cheek.

Comics conventions should be dealt with like streams of consciousness - you should just let it all come at once (or in Falcon's case, four times and a failed blow job).

My endearing memory was nothing to do with comics, but witnessing some guy near the river attempting to beg some money from some comic fans. The first one said he'd willingly part with the money for a bottle of mother's ruin for a copy of Green Lantern #76. The second one, a slightly camp chap with a limp wrist and a Legion of Super-Heroes T-shirt looked directly at the begging vagrant and said, "I'm not Scottish, he's not Irish and the other isn't an Englishman, so no jokes. OK?" While the third person, obviously a more intellectual and knowledgeable person asked what the money the tramp was asking for was going to spent on.

"It's for a bed for the night." So the man grabbed the hobo by the arm, and threw him in the river, shouting, "You can sleep with the fishes for free you scumbag!" and then he tipped £200 in change into the nearest drain while laughing like a slightly insane Bette Davis.

Of course, that didn't happen. But I had a lot of fun imagining it.

Bristol is a bit too posh for an event like this. It really should be held in a large pond in the north of Iceland.

See you next year.



Slow down my beating heart... This exciting episode of 'Fresh Out of Soap' was brought to you by those lovely people from Spoof Central and Silver Bullet Comics.

This week's main antagonists were: Alfonso Crept, sponsored by Honda and smelling slightly of baby sick. Preston Falco, sponsored by Salbutomal and looking a little bit like Harrison Ford, but black. And Falcon Presto, sponsored by Gloveralls, the makers of finest Duffel Coats. Mr Presto also appears courtesy of Swan Vestas.

This article has been edited for accusations of a sexual nature by Richard Johnston and/or Antony Johnston, who aren't related despite a similarity in their appearance.