Obsession and Exposure - From ComiCon to Christian Book Fairs.

Today I was introduced to a whole new subculture as I took my family to our first ever ComiCon. The event – a comic book convention for the uninitiated - was taking place in our local town of Bedford, and I finally gave in after months of pestering from my youngest.

Emily is a budding manga and anime artist, the only one of our offspring to show signs of following in her forbear’s footsteps. (My grandfather was a minor Post-Impressionist, while my aunt still ekes out an artistic existence on the beautiful Greek island of Corfu. I started off my own eclectic career as a sculptor, while my husband John works in multi-media, photography and ceramics). Now at the tender age of twelve, Emily draws constantly and has started work on her first manga novel.

Manga is a style of Japanese comic book and graphic novel that is designed to appeal to adults as well as children, while anime is the film equivalent. At first I baulked at her obsession (she claims that she is a ‘otuku’ – obsessed purely with anime and manga – as opposed to a ‘weebo’ – someone who is obsessed with all aspects of Japanese culture). Many mangas and animes have quite dark themes and I have struggled with how reconcile this obsession with her faith. But it turns out that within this subculture, that is an even more refined strand dedicated to Christian manga and anime (there’s even a Christian Anime Alliance). In fact Emily came back from the recent Christian youth festival Soul Survivor saying that she wanted to create a new manga Bible (I suggested that perhaps she might want to just start with Genesis!) So when she heard that there was a comic book convention coming to town, she was determined that we would attend.

Finding the convention was not hard. We simply followed the line of earnest, bespectacled young men wearing black T-shirts featuring images of Judge Dredd and Spiderman, and the cosplay enthusiasts with their red cloaks and underpants worn jauntily over spandex unitards. At the door, we were greeted by a fully masked character from the film Predator and ushered into a hall, populated by wall-to-wall artists.

I have to confess, I was truly impressed, not only by how kind the artists and writers were to my daughter - giving her advice on everything from how to storyboard sequential stories to which software to use - but by also the obsessive fervour of their fans. During a panel interview with one of the creators, when he struggled to remember the details of work from a decade previously, he was supplied the exact issue number and date by a member of the audience. That kind of obsession requires real dedication.

As I looked around I couldn’t help but draw comparisons with the character Sheldon Cooper from the US American hit series The Big Bang Theory, a delightfully whimsical show about a genius physicist so incapable of engaging in normal social interaction that he retreats into a world of fantasy peopled by comic book heroes. But I also realized that I had a lot to learn from both the artists and the fans.

As I watched the panel interviews, I reflected on my own debut as a writer coming up in a couple of weeks’ time. On 15 September, I will be attending the Christian Resource Together event for booksellers, where I will be interviewed by magazine editor Clem Jackson about my forthcoming book Sea Changed.

I am no stranger to public speaking but for the first time in my life I will be talking not about current affairs, the business of public relations or issues of justice relating to child poverty – I will have to talk about myself. As a writer being interviewed in front of an audience of book sellers, you are generally asked to talk about your inspiration and the characters you have created. However when that work is an autobiography, you are inevitably going to have to expose expose something about yourself. As I watched the humour and humility which the ComicCon artists talked about their work, I felt both inspired and awe inspired by the responsibility that entails.

As the author Michele Guinness has so kindly commented, 'Sea Changed is much more than an autobiography . . it is a journal of pain, loss and joy, a spiritual adventure.' It is a soul-exposing account of my faith journey; a story not so much about myself but my creator and saviour. When I take to the stage to talk about Sea Changed, it will not be because I am on some kind of ego trip, or because my publisher asked me to, it will be because I believe that this is what my Lord requires me to do.

I will not talk about markets, demographics or even sales, but about the fact that God somehow used the terrible circumstances of my recent battle with cancer, in order to demonstrate his grace and mercy. I will speak about how God not only healed all my diseases, and rescued my life from destruction, but also somehow gave me the energy and clarity required to tell this story in the midst of my illness; I will testify to God’s promise that ‘I will not die but will live and declare the works of the Lord’.

I can only hope that the audience will be as boundlessly enthusiastic, passionate and committed as the delegates at today’s ComiCon.