Cooler than your average comic book convention, this years British International Comic Show 2010 is being held at Thinktank Millennium Point on 16 & 17 October.

So far they have a whole bunch of comic legends announced as guests for the weekend, and are open to submissions for this years Portfolio Review.

This is your chance to show your stuff to top commissioning editors in the field, in previous years aspiring artists have been snapped up by the likes of DC, Panini and Warner Bros at BICS, going on to launch careers as professional comics artists.

There are still more events to be announced, so check their website for updates.

Tickets are now on sale, with concessions for the kids, available as either full weekend or single day passes.

Spiderman, drawn by John McCrea

The latest scheme is a continuation of their work with comics, or should I say Comix.To take part in this new scheme you need to be over the age of 16 (which isn’t hard, lets face it) with a passion for comic art and live in the West Midlands. The lucky chosen few will also get to work with people on similar schemes across Europe and get a supported trip to a comic art festival in Spain, as well as a trip to the Birmingham’s International Comics Show.

20 talented individuals will get the opportunity to develop their skills with John McCrea (X-Men, Spiderman and The Hulk), Hunt Emerson (The Beano, Wall Street Journal and Fortean Times), Laura Howell (The Beano, The Guardian), and Andi Watson (Geisha, Buffy) amongst others.

Interested? Pop onto the Hi8us website.

The Thinktank at Millenium Point is hosting the Birmingham International Comics Show on 4-5 October and, with expansion this year, it’s aparently now the UK’s largest comics convention.

Unfortunately, unlike the previous incumbent of the CiB hotseat I haven’t much of a clue about the world of comics so the list of overseas and UK guests is a bit lost on me.

The website is still being put together but there’s enough info on there to give you a sense of what’s going on.  In the meantime it might be worth watching this thread on the Inside Pulse forum where one of the organisers is posting updates.

Found via D’Log.

After many years of a lovely but slightly out of date website, Hunt Emerson has relaunched Large Cow where he’s selling artwork and archiving cool stuff from the past. Of particular note are pieces from the Birmingham Arts Lab which he was heavily involved with in the 1970′s such as this print:

There’s shockingly little online about the Birmingham Arts Lab other than a few mentions here and there. It’s be good if someone could write a decent history of it, or if one’s already written, stick it online and send me a pointer.

Triffic two part interview with cartoonist James Nash

(Personally It’s a joy to see someone from the Gary Panter / Matt Brinkman school working in the region.)

It’s on the 3rd floor in the Arts and Lit dept and runs until the end of the month.

His artwork is for sale and he welcomes inquiries for bespoke design for album sleeve, book cover design and posters.

There’s a small portfolio on Dazed Digital and here’s his MySpace

I also understand he’s involved with the Colour night at the Quadrant Lounge in Wolverhampton, which has me somewhat intrigued. “The primary space for music and thought in Wolves” they call it. Really must pop along sometime.

She talked about the creation a bit on her blog which is worth following if you’re of the budding cartoonist persuasion and her site has loads of examples of her work.