Fanboying at the Excelsior Super-Signing in Bristol

Last weekend, I headed down my my local comic book shop for a very special event.

Excelsior Games and Comics has recently moved into a new spanking store in the heart of Bristol, which is quite simply superb. To help celebrate, I was chuffed to be asked to take part in their first major comic event – a super-signing featuring not one, but eleven top comic creators from all across the West Country.

Here we are in all our Sunday afternoon glory. From right to left, that's (takes a deep breath) Paul Cornell, Simon Furman, Dave Kendall, Rob Williams, me, Ben Dickson, Keiron Gillen, Lee Carter, Ben Oliver, Martin Simmonds and Simon Gane.

It was a really fun afternoon that gave us all a chance to catch up (you don't want to know how often we all try to meet up and fail abysmally!) and, of course, hang out with our fellow comic fans. Excelsior was positively heaving which was so great to see!

And when I say fellow fans, I mean it! Everyone who was in the building was there because they love comics, and before long, we were all swapping stories and talking about favourite runs, characters and comic events.

Which brings me to my own fanboy moment. I've known comic writer Simon Furman for over twenty years now, but first read his work back in his Transformers Weekly days when I was a huge TF fan. It's why, when I got the chance, I hired Simon and his regular collaborator Andrew Wildman to create a Power Rangers S.P.D strip when I was editor of Jetix magazine in 2005. Back then, I was deep in negotiations to win a licence for Future Publishing to publish a brand new Generation 1 Transformers comic here in the UK, and wanted both Simon and Andrew on board from the first issue. The Power Rangers strip was a way of introducing them to Future's kids department and also a way to say thank you for being such an important part of my own comic fandom growing up.

Unfortunately, the Transformers licence never came together - Future's board of directors at the time proclaiming that TF was a dead brand two years before the first Michael Bay movie - but we remained friends.

The one thing I never did back in the day was to produce my tatty, much-loved copy of Death's Head #1 for Simon to sign during any of our business meetings. It just didn't seem professional, but a part of me has always regretted it.

The Excelsior super-signing gave me the chance to put that right!

Thanks Simon! You have no idea how happy this makes me. The finally-signed number one has been added to the little Death's Head shrine in my studio.

Now, I just need to convince Marvel to let me write everyone's freelance peacekeeping agent, yes?

(And trust me... I've tried!)

If you missed the super-signing, do not fear... Excelsior still have a load of signed books in stock! Just head to their store on Merchant Street in Bristol or get in touch with them via their website.

Thanks to Ollie at Excelsior for organising the event! Here's hoping it's the first of many!