We do enjoy serious and complex discussions at Octocon, but sometimes we just want to be utterly silly too. Check out our selection of quiz shows and comedy panels, and join the watch party in the Twitch chat or our Discord server! (All times in Irish Summer Time / UTC+1.)
Found Family Fortunes
We’re back with another episode of our epic panel quiz, Found Family Fortunes, with your host James Brophy! This time the Titancon family will be taking on the Octocon family to see who knows our audience the best. Friday 1st October 22:00 – watch on Twitch Channel One
Orbital Tidy Towns Committee
Dear Mrs O’Hanrahan, Thank you for your kind letter, we do hope you were able to find replacements for the petals of your solar collector and that the compensation for the loss of your husband in the pebble dashing incident has come through in an acceptable time. The council still takes issue with the use of micrometeorites as a form of pebble dashing but we are willing to hear out the grievances of you and your neighbours in the upper middle lower orbit area community forum where we can engage with ideas small and large, solutions serious and silly to problems real and possibly in your own head to save and improve our orbital community. As always, Is mise le mass equals density times volume, Gobnait O’Lughnasa Saturday 2nd October 22:00 – watch on Twitch Channel One
Reboot Challenge
In a world of our childhoods being sold back to us, is there no limit to what will be pulled out of the trash heap of history? Join us for pitches large and small that will seek to reawaken your fandom heart without stirring you up to a violent backlash, as judged by Michael Carroll. Sunday 3rd October 10:00 – watch on Twitch Channel Two
Octocon is delighted to be able to bring you an interview with renowned comics editor Shelly Bond, conducted by writer and Octocon stalwart Michael Carroll.
Saturday 2nd October at 7pm Irish time (UTC+1) – watch on our Twitch channel!
If you have questions for Shelly, you can ask them during the interview via Twitch, or tweet them in advance @Octocon.
Shelly Bond and the Secrets of Comics Editing
Shelly Bond’s editing career includes a 22-year run at DC Comics’ Vertigo line and the creation of Black Crown, IDW’s ‘indie record label’ imprint that merged music and comics. As well as her work on Sandman, Lucifer, Clean Room, Fables and Kid Lobotomy, she’s also known for the Hey, Amateur and Insider Art anthologies, and her recent successful Kickstarter: Filth and Grammar: The Comic Editor’s Secret Handbook. Join us as she shares industry stories and insights.
About Shelly Bond
Shelly Bond is the editor of the Eisner award-winning series Bitter Root, Fables, and The Sandman: Overture. She’s the Editor-in-Chief of OFFREGISTER.PRESS and BLACK CROWN with her husband, artist Philip Bond. A former DC/Vertigo Executive and Editor for over two decades, Bond has been driven to edit & curate comic books, crush deadlines and design/innovate. She’s best known for her self-published anthologies funded through Kickstarter including Insider Art, Femme Magnifique: 50 Magnificent Women Who Changed The World, and Heavy Rotation. Shelly is currently writing and art directing her magnum opus, Filth & Grammar: The Comic Book Editor’s Secret Handbook, thanks to 2,375 Kickstarter backers. She wields red pens and tap shoes with equal aplomb and lives in Los Angeles.
Octo has been hard at work on social media, announcing some of the wonderful writers, artists and creatives who will be appearing at Octocon this year!
We’re particularly delighted to welcome back some of our previous Guests of Honour.
Kim Newman (GoH 1995)
Kim Newman is a movie critic, author and broadcaster. He is a contributing editor to Sight & Sound and Empire magazines. His books about film include Nightmare Movies, Millennium Movies, Kim Newman’s Video Dungeon and BFI Classics studies of Cat People, Doctor Who and Quatermass and the Pit. His fiction includes the Anno Dracula series, Life’s Lottery, Professor Moriarty:The Hound of the D’Urbervilles, An English Ghost Story, The Secrets of Drearcliff Grange School and Angels of Music. His comics include Witchfinder: The Mysteries of Unland and Anno Dracula Seven Days in Mayhem. As ‘Jack Yeovil’, he wrote the Vampire Genevieve and Dark Future novels for Games Workshop. His next novel is Something More Than Night (Titan Books). He has written for television (Mark Kermode’s Secrets of Cinema), radio (Afternoon Theatre: Cry-Babies) and the theatre (The Hallowe’en Sessions), and directed a tiny film (Missing Girl).
Maura McHugh lives in Galway and has written three collections: Twisted Fairy Tales and Twisted Myths – published in the USA – and The Boughs Withered (When I Told Them My Dreams) from NewCon Press in England (which was nominated for a British Fantasy Award for Best Collection). Her science fiction rom-com radio play, The Love of Small Appliances, broadcast in June 2019, is available online. She’s written comic books for Dark Horse, IDW, and 2000 AD, and her monograph about David Lynch’s iconic film, Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me, was nominated for a British Fantasy Award for Best Non Fiction. She walks and dreams in the woods often.
Dan Abnett is a multiple New York Times bestselling author and an award-winning comic book writer. He has written over fifty novels, including the acclaimed Gaunt’s Ghosts series, the Inquisitor Eisenhorn Cycle, and volumes of the million-selling Horus Heresy series. His many other novels include The Silent Stars Go By (Doctor Who), Rocket Raccoon and Groot: Steal the Galaxy, Triumff, and Embedded. In comics, his 2008 run on The Guardians of the Galaxy for Marvel formed the inspiration for the blockbuster movies. He is also noted for significant work on DC’s Legion of Superheroes and Aquaman and, for the Vertigo imprint, The New Deadwardians. A regular contributor to the UK’s long-running 2000AD, he is the creator of series including Brink, Grey Area, Feral and Foe, Lawless, Kingdom and the classic Sinister Dexter. He has also written extensively for the games industry, including Shadow of Mordor and Alien:Isolation. Dan lives and works in Maidstone, Kent, in the UK.
Nik Vincent-Abnett (GoH 2017)
Nik Vincent-Abnett began working as a freelance editor, but has published work in a number of mediums, including advertising, training manuals, comics and short stories. She has worked as a ghost writer, and has collaborated with her partner, Dan Abnett, writing novels, and in the games industry. Nik’s latest solo, independent novel, The Wipe, was published by NewCon Press in the spring. She lives and works in Maidstone, Kent, where she cooks and decorates, and throws pots.
Michael Carroll (GoH 2020 & 2022)
Michael Carroll is the author of over forty books, including the award-winning New Heroes series of Young Adult superhero novels and the #1 Amazon best-selling cult graphic novel Judge Dredd: Every Empire Falls. He currently writes Judge Dredd, Proteus Vex, Mayflies and Dreadnoughts for 2000AD and Judge Dredd Megazine. Other works include Jennifer Blood for Dynamite Entertainment, Razorjack for Titan Books (co-written with artist John Higgins), and the Rico Dredd trilogy for Abaddon Books, for whom he has also created the acclaimed Judges series.
