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Comics Pub Meets: Southern England

In the first parts of this series I made a few points on the comics pub meet across Ireland, Scotland and Wales. Other type gatherings where cartoonists meet in smaller festival (or fistfight) include the well-known Boycott-con and Squat-con, sometimes confused with the Barcamp. Around 2001 a writer in the Rainbow Bridge APA informed his readers of Housecons, which I quite like: organised out-of-town friend visits with dvd parties. The Pubmeet in my time, is at the centre of all this. It doesn't have to feature sketching or comics on the table. There are anyway a few rules of sociability not obvious. In this column, I'm going to present a round-up of English Comics Pub Meets I know about.
 

Along the coast of Southern England is Cartoon County. Meeting "every last Monday in the month (except Bank holidays) from 6pm upstairs at The Cricketers, Black Lion St., Brighton...Bring your work, bring yourselves, any time until closing." writes Corinne Pearlman on the website's 'What's Going On?" section from March. I have it from good sources that these run more regularly than site updates allow. However, this demonstrates a rule: if you're not part of a well-knit group, check for up-to-date information. Amsel amelofbrockley(at)yahoo(dot)com may be a good point for getting in touch with the Brighton group.
 

A few hours up in the capital, PubDraw, made up of quite a few Camden Comics Group members, is now not running frequently. Of course, London is so well populated and linked by transport: seeing other people is a good thing too! It's highly probable comics meets occur. I also have unconfirmed rumours of a Comic Creators Guild meet somewhere in the capital (website link in) Sci-fi genre enthusiasts may wish to pop by the Shakespeare's Head on the third or fourth Saturday of the month, 12pm-9pm, second booth on the left. Contact Jackie or Joanna via the Facebook page.