You know, I'm still not quite in the right time zone.  I'm about an hour out, somewhere over the Atlantic, perhaps approaching the Irish coast.  I promised a convention report about Gallifrey, and I don't know how much of one I can sensibly construct right now, especially with many other things vying for attention, but I can at least proffer the promised photos.  Some of them.  
The White Robot has entered the party!


Dude, they're, like, cosplaying my unbound!  

That's me and Mark Brooks, the artist on our upcoming Young Avengers: Dark Reign.

That's the audience of that enormous Marvel panel I was on.

And that's the gang who make Captain Britain and MI-13, together for the first time. From the right, Editor Nick Lowe, myself, artist Leonard Kirk and Assistant Editor Daniel Ketchum.  

First off, let me point out that this is the day Captain Britain and MI-13 #10, the start of our new arc, 'Vampire State', hits comic shops here in the USA, tomorrow in the UK. It's an ideal jumping-on point for those who haven't tried the title previously. This blog, as always, will serve as letters page.

We've been having an amazing time in the city of New York, both personally and professionally. On Monday, we had lunch with Cap editor Nick Lowe, his assistant Daniel Ketchum, and artist Leonard Kirk. Photos were taken (I'll put up all the photos from the trip when I'm back in Britain). We talked about the story arc to follow 'Vampire State', possible additions to the cast, a possible crossover, what's going to happen in the annual. And we celebrated, this being the first time we were all in the same room, the teamwork that's got us this far. Then Caroline and I wandered down the island, stopping in bookshops and cafes and comic shops, taking the whole afternoon to do it, until we were in Greenwich Village, where we found the Peculier Pub (sic), where the New York Doctor Who group meets. That evening they were hosting myself and Tony Lee, who's celebrating the fact that his Doctor Who comic from IDW is now an ongoing. The group turned out to be great fun, full of personality, and many good conversations were had. As well as photos with Daleks and presentations of mugs. If you're in the NY area and you like who, these are the guys to go find. And that night the Podshock team were there too. Many of these folk will be following us to L.A.. I'm not drinking for 2009, but Caroline, on the real ale, had an Old Peculiar and two Arrogant Bastards. (Insert your own joke about how that sounds like a night at the Fitzroy Tavern.)

Yesterday we wandered around Central Park, then lunch with my old friend from Pocket Books, Jen Heddle. Then we made our way down to the Village once more, for dinner with Mary Robinette Kowal and John Scalzi, at a winery where Mary's husband is on the winemaking team, that being his speciality. Again, I lamented my non-boozy state. But Caroline is drinking for two. ('When's the happy event?' someone asked at NY Who when I said that. I just looked at them until all the pennies dropped.) Mary was celebrating the acceptance, that very day, of her first novel. Scalzi is in town being Scalzi, and has much to celebrate himself. Their company, as always, was of the finest. And at the end of the evening, we hunted for, and found, a wandering dessert truck, which provides chocolate bread pudding into the night.

What a humane and excellent city this is. I do think we've evolved to wander around the base of tall buildings like this as if they're trees. And whenever your eyes pine for the savannah, there's that huge park. Today is two more meetings, exciting ones again, and then this continuing convention moves on to the other coast. Until then, Cheerio!

Phew, well, that was a huge experience. NYCC still feels just huge enough, but any more huge and you'd need tasers to get from one side of the hall to the other. I staggered between two parties on the Saturday night, that of I, Fanboy (who later filmed a video podcast in which I'm very over-excited) and then that of the charming C.B. Cebulski, where I met Jim McCann's volleyball team and cheerleaders, Matt Fraction (more coherent than his Twitter feed, but just as entertaining) Rick Remender, John Barber and his lovely wife. It was also a chance to catch up with Hickman, Gillen and McKelvie and Marjorie 'Dark Wolverine' Liu. And finally, rolling in from what looked like their Senior Prom, so young and so well-dressed, the future Mr. and Mrs. Nick Lowe. P.J. Holden revealed that he'd got carried away and bought pick and mix M&Ms to the value of one hundred dollars. At the end I had to find my long dark coat from a rough pile of what all comic creators wear: long dark coats. I felt thoroughly slammed to the bosom of a rather boisterous but warm-hearted organisation, very New York. And it's a pleasure that meetings with various of them are going to continue into the week. Put together with a couple of other meetings, with equally lovely folk, and this has been a very creatively exciting weekend. Sunday was more laid-back, and we just popped back to the convention to spend money and shake Cebulski's hand on the way out. We were going to pop in to the pubs that had become the home of Brit comic creators over the weekend (there's always an encampment) and then go on to Jamie McKelvie's party (I now know so much about his love life, thanks for that, Jamie) but we went to see The Lion King (magnificent) on Broadway, and then chose from all these excellent Japanese restaurants, and in the end were just too knackered. Tonight I'm going to meet with the New York Doctor Who group at the Peculier Pub in Greenwich Village, but since they still haven't mentioned me on their website, this may be a trap. Or there'll just be an old man standing there, who'll say there was a Who group who met here, years ago, but they all died.

Those Young Avengers interviews have started to appear, here are two:

http://comicbookresources.com/?page=article&id=19890

And:

http://www.newsarama.com/comics/020907-DR-YA.html

And scroll down here for a preview of issue ten of Captain Britain and MI-13, which is out on Wednesday here, Thursday in the UK:

http://www.comicscontinuum.com/stories/0902/06/marvelfirsts.htm

As I said on that Marvel panel, thanks very much to everyone who's shown such support for the title, with banners, forum icons, etc.. It's greatly appreciated. Did I mention we're not cancelled? Until there's more to tell you, Cheerio!

Hello from New York! It is offensively cold, particularly at East-West crosswalks, but otherwise this continues to be one of my favourite cities. Day one of the Comic Convention was extraordinary. It was particularly cool to have Chris Claremont wander up to the signing and say hello. Good to catch up with Peter David, Mike Carey, Leonard, Diggle, Jon Hickman, et al. The Marvel party was, as always, rocking. I popped up on my first Marvel panel: row of creators; packed room; really enthusiatic audience, and was plonked next to Frank Tieri by Joe Q, on the basis that Frank was the most Brooklyn person he knew, and the two of us together would be like some sort of matter/antimatter reaction. (Joe thinks I'm very English, and if this is my niche then so be it.) Amongst all sorts of pleasing announcements concerning my friends and colleagues, Tom B let it be known that I'll be writing Dark Reign: Young Avengers, with Mark Brooks, who drew my issue of Young Avengers Presents (and having met him yesterday is a lovely chap) on art. This is a bit of a dream project for me. It's basically the Young Avengers running head on into a new group of, well, are they heroes or not? At any rate, they've stolen the Young Avengers' name. Our heroes are put in the same place as the original Avengers were put when they themselves appeared, how do they react to these new kids who don't really know what they're doing: fight; mentor; feel attracted to? How about varying degrees of all three? Here's Mark's cover for the first issue, and his character designs (I'll talk more about who each of these guys are nearer the time, and there'll be several interviews up over the next few days), both of which, I hope you agree, are awesome. Do find me if you can, meetings today, until tomorrow, Cheerio!

Packing for New York is made even more pleasant by Chris Roberson's wonderful review, part of his history of 'secret services', of the story of MI-13:

I'm very pleased that my short story 'Catherine Drewe' -

I'm trying to sort my life out before I leave for New York and LA.  So, swift meetings this week, a school appearance tomorrow, and, blissfully, today, finishing the first section of the novel, about a quarter of the whole thing.  So I've just popped in swiftly to mention three things: