Tripwire: A Look Back And A Look Forward

Goodbye 2019, Hello 2020

Tripwire’s editor-in-chief Joel Meadows takes stock and looks forward as well…

As we always do at this time of year, although a few days later than usual, we thought we should take the time to look back to the previous year and outline a few plans for the forthcoming one.

2019 was a big year for us. It saw the second Portsmouth Comic Con, which was a huge success with guests like Liam Sharp, Roy Thomas and Steve Englehart. We had a much better idea of what putting on a comic show entailed and hopefully we avoided the pitfalls of the first one. Of course, it couldn’t have been assembled without the significant work of the amazing team at the Portsmouth Guildhall. We also put on the first ever Tripwire awards, which went extremely well.

Also in 2019, I got out a follow-up of sorts to the 2008 book, Studio Space. Masters of Comics is a book that I am very proud of and again my editor on this, Mark Irwin, was a fantastic collaborator.

So we end 2019 and begin 2020 with a huge head of steam and a lot of momentum. First out of the gate is a revamped Tripwire podcast. Working with Simon Kennedy, this will expand on our vision of what we have out out before and will include contributions from Leonard Sultana, Olly Macnamee, Matt Zitron as well as a number of others. The plan is to debut this by the end of this month.

Then there’s the return of Tripwire as a print magazine. The kickstarter campaign will launch in February for publication around the third Portsmouth Comic Con in May. In a similar glossy format to our Annuals, it will be a 100+ page squarebound affair and if it works, then expect to see a print quarterly launching in the autumn. We are very excited to be returning to print as it’s been far too long. The plan is for writers like Stephen Dalton and Dominic Wells to be contributing to the print edition so it’s something we are looking forward to getting stuck into. Tripwire’s senior editor Andrew Colman will also be contributing as will the website’s contributing writer Scott Braden.

Then in May, it’s the third Portsmouth Comic Con. We already have a pretty amazing line-up of guests confirmed including Adam Hughes, P Craig Russell, David Michelinie, Stuart Moore, Rick Leonardi and many others plus we shall be doing a second Tripwire Awards.

There is also a possibility of a Tripwire book project that has been gestating for a little while now but we are waiting to see what happens.

So there are lots of plans for 2020 and we are also in the early stages of creating something else new for 2021 but it’s far too soon to talk about that.

Thanks to everyone who has supported us over the past twelve months and happy new year. The website has existed for five years now but we are just getting started.

Joel Meadows

editor-in-chief Tripwire