I don't know about interesting stories but I was in the fortunate position of being there close to the start of comic marts and cons in Glasgow. Then, involved with FOCK - Friends of Clark Kent, a Glasgow comics group who met every Wed evening in a pub, we started organising marts. As time went on and 3 of us ran AKA Books and Comics in the city, we invited guests to the shop and to marts and eventually cons. So, the list of creators who turned up is rather long and, at first was mostly Scottish and British. This was the early days of 2000AD and we formed friendships with Alan Grant, John Wagner, Cam Kennedy, Kev. O' Neil, Mick McMahon. Lots of drink was taken. Then Dave Gibbons turned up followed by the likes of Alan Davis. Had a few great nights out with Mr. Davis in the early part of his career and I remember taking him to a Chinese restaurant and his reaction to his first taste of chili oil - surprised he survived.
Other guests who pitched up for shop signings or con appearances included, David Lloyd, Bryan Talbot, Alan Moore, who we also had coffee with in Angouleme - what a nice man. Some American creators appeared as we grew better known and, just to be clear, not all of them were on our invites, they were sometimes on tours organised down south. But they always seemed to want a night out in Glasgow. So Dave Sim, a couple of times ( don't recall much about those nights), Matt Wagner, Bill Sienkewicz (have I spelled that right?), and we got the great prize of Will Eisner, who was wonderful, full of stories, good company and an excellent dinner guest. And for me, even more importantly, Archie Goodwin. Such a gentleman and such a great loss to comics. I'm sure that Marv Wolfman was at that con in the Central Hotel but I don't remember much about his visit - or am I hallucinating.
At the Angouleme con in France I had dinner with Mike Richardson, whose only ground rule was that we didn't talk about comics. I did an interview for BBC Radio 4 while at Angouleme and Dave Gibbons told me his aunt had heard it.
Back then we often ran into Grant Morrison and, a bit later, had to chivvy Frank Quitely along and encourage him to keep going because he didn't seem to have a lot of confidence at the time. Vincent is a lovely person and so talented.
F.P. in Edinburgh had Chris Claremont up for a signing and we were to meet him the evening before. As we waited we wondered how we would recognise him as none of us had met him previously. Can I just say that from the back, the huge X-MEN logo on the leather jacket was a dead giveaway. That was a good night, wandering down the Royal mile for fish and chips, with a few drinks under our belts.
