The Mad Scientists have retired back to their mountain core fortresses following another successful CAPTION this past weekend. They're looking for new committee members if any readers fancy getting involved.

I had a fun time, meeting up with the usual crew, plus a few I hadn't yet met, and attempted to create my own Frankenstein's monster with a mixture of Beer, Burgers and Comics, using my by then ink-stained fingers.

On arriving Saturday morning, after a quick browse, and depositing my new 'Trevor the Ant' minicomic on the freebie table, I drew a page of stickers with the Dino-Saw-Us crew (Tim Winchester, Philippa Rice, Lizz 'Lizz' Lunney et al), then took part in Jeremy Day's (formerly Jeremy Dennis) apocalyptic jam comic workshop.

Then PJ Holden gave an informative interview with Matt Badham, followed by Melinda Gebbie's revealing conversation with Jenni Scott.

Paul Gravett hosted the Webcomics panel next, with PJ, David O'Connell, Philippa, Lizz, and Sydney Padua, making her comics convention debut (Creator of the excellent Lovelace and Babbage webcomic, which I'll be catching up on as soon as I've written this).

John Miers gave a talk next, which I missed, but heard was excellent, and would have been right up my street. You can buy his book online, its beautiful stuff.

The art auction followed, then Atomik Burgers for dinner, closing with Tony Hitchman's Mad Science quiz, then back to the B&B for cocktails and dancing girls.

Sunday followed (as is traditional), starting with the DFC Library panel - Sarah McIntyre (I had the pleasure of looking over her shoulder while she sketched Melinda Gebbie - See her page for the results, and a great CAPTION write-up) and Neill Cameron showed off the first six DFC books (can't decide which is my favourite), and shared reminiscences of the much-missed DFC comic.

Paul Cornell chatted about his work (Knight & Squire from DC sounds great - Am I allowed to mention that here?), then Sydney Padua clued us in some more on her webcomic, and her work on animation for films including Clash of the Titans and Iron Giant ("Suuupperrrrrrrmaaaaannnnnnn!!!!").

Darryl Cunningham discussed his experiences which inspired his Psychiatric Tales book and other work, then the 'Comics as Mind Control' panel followed, and we all shuffled off to find our ways home. I haven't seen those dancing girls since.