Comics and Birmingham

I am a fan. I started reading my older brother's Tintin books as a kid. Then picked up the Beano and Dandy annuals, Doctor Who and Star Wars spin offs and of course Marvel's finest - Spider-man and Fantastic Four.
I lapped up a six year subscriptiuon to Roy of the Rovers and can still name the best XI Melchester Rovers fielded.
By the mid 80s I hit my teens at about the same time comics grew up. I found my more anarchic tendencies fuelled by Judge Dredd and his fellow warriors at 2000AD, Frank Miller's Dark Knight and of course the Watchmen.
Life then took over - the Wolverine posters were replaced with the latest bands from the NME and the disposable income switched from comics and computer games to concerts, baggy jeans and alcohol. I later became a journalist and arrived at the Birmingham Mail. The comics and annuals ended up at the boot sale.
Thanks to Bryan Singer and Sam Raimi bringing X-men and Spider-man to the big screen, as well as this whole nostalgic trip in which us 30 somethings indulge ourselves, my love of comics has been rekindled. I discovered the likes of Mark Millar, Garth Ennis, Warren Ellis - and discovered they come from the UK.

At the same time a few comic related items started floating past our newsdesk at the Birmingham Mail;
The Digbeth arts group Hiatus were developing award winning comic artists.
The Midlands Comic Collective released its Anthology of local work to great acclaim
A group of industrious writers, artists and fans launched Birmingham's very own comics convention - which drew thousands to Millennium Point last October
Nostalgia and Comics was 30 years old - making a two page spread in the Mail last year.
And that Birmingham has a thriving community of writers and artists who are at the forefront of the industry - among them John McCrea, Hunt Emerson, Laura Howell, Ian Edginton, Tony Lee, Phil Winslade, Mark Farmer, Paul H Birch.

So here is a little corner of Birminghammail.net set aside to celebrate this wonderful art form and not just from this reporter's limited perspective. We have enlisted the support and boundless enthusiasm of Paul H Birch, an authority on comics and Brum, and Tony Lee, a fan, writer and man who shuns cufflinks.

Click Here for our take on the Birmingham International Comics Show: