Although clouds of volcanic ash kept most Americans away from the London Book Fair this week, the locals battled their way through, and there was even a Comics and Graphic Novel Pavilion, reports the Nuge at Geek Syndicate:
It was a pretty small set up, well smaller than I was expecting, although I did hear that some companies/individuals couldn’t attend due to the flight ban. The Pavilion, which was in one of the corners of the main hall and was made up of Diamond, Dark Horse (who weren’t there),Self Made Hero and Foyles. The space available was dominated by Diamond which I thought was a shame as I would have loved to have seen more indie companies there like Com.X, Markosia and Insomina Publications to name but a few. I think they could have got more benefit out of the space than having a massive distributor there taking up a third of the space. In a perfect world it would have been cool if Diamond could have sponsored that space and then giving it over at a reduced cost to some smaller comic companies.
The report includes a description of a panel featuring Emma Hayley, Ian Rankin, David Fickling and Paul Gravett which was standing room only, so Nuge hopes there will be more interest and a larger pavillion next year.
[Link via Joe at Forbidden Planet.]
Sounds like the first graphic novel pavilion at BEA in 2002.
All GN pavilions at BEA have been anchored by Diamond and their affiliate publishers. BEA likes to group subjects together, mostly as a convenience to attendees.
I suspect Panini and Titan had booths elsewhere.
Self Made Hero looks interesting, although they seem to license books from other markets. Random House’s Jonathan Cape imprint has many interesting titles. HarperCollins UK has the Discworld novels in backlist, and an extensive line of Agatha Christie GNs (!) Orion, part of Hachette, publishes Asterix. Egmont UK publishes Tintin, and rivals Panini for licensed comics (they own the post-1970s Fleetway archive).
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