Coming back from LBM, first con of the year!

The con vibes make me wanna dive deep into cosplay hell again T_T maybe I sneak into the cosplay tag on here again too haha

Impressions from 2024s Leipzig Book Fair

pick a cover, any cover! (These covers.)

Would you like to pick my German cover? I’m so thrilled LONG LIVE EVIL will be published in Germany after a pre-empt by DTV, who called my fantasy about for-real loving favourite characters and becoming villains ‘unique and exceptional.’ My wonderful editor Julia Kniep made me cry saying I’m one of her favourite writers. It’s a dream as DTV publishes such superstar fantasy writers as Tracy Wolff, Tolkien(!! No big deal though), Sarah J. Maas & maybe the MOST beautiful special editions of the fabulous Rebecca Yarros ever. So should the German cover of LONG LIVE EVIL be in classic purple like the US & UK (vote with a 💜) glamorous gold like the Irish special edition (vote with a 💛) or a whole new exciting graffiti style font like the wicked rock stars we are (vote with a 🖤). Please vote your favourite over at DTV’s Instagram as part of the #leipzigbookfair anytime between now and the 24th.

Saw Ben Aaronovitch at the Leipzig book fair today and he said that one of his next "Peter Grant (and adjacent characters)" novella is gonna center around Nightingale in New York (?) in the 1920 and it's gonna be in a kind of P. G. Wodehouse style 😍😍😍😍😍😍😍😍

Ylva is going to be at the Leipzig Book Fair!

It’s been three long years without events, so we are thrilled to announce that in April 2023, Ylva Publishing is going to attend Leipzig Book Fair and share a stall with our friends from Cursed Verlag.

We are looking forward to finally meeting readers again and geek out about books for multiple days.

You can find us by looking for the giant rainbow flag! 😉

Who is going to meet us there?

'GEIL' / 1997

LED animation for public LED billboards in Leipzig

On the occasion of the Leipzig Book Fair in 1997 (March 19. - March 23.), I made an update of my LED animation 'I'm so GEIL says inge meise' based on the quote by Elfriede Jelinek. The LED billboard in Leipzig had now become larger and shows several colors. The selection of animations shown was curated by Prof. Dieter Daniels. The work is to be understood as an intervention in public space. Back then, the advertising sections of newspapers were full of telephone sex advertisements with small imaginary portraits of women and the Internet became popular with adult content. I used these images as a template for my animation. As a so-called 'Easter egg', in addition to the quote, an IP address was displayed that referred to a fake 'porn website' called 'Inge Meise Chatline'. This website did not show any explicit content but repeated introductory texts over and over again. The subversive thing was - the IP address belonged to the website of the Academy of Fine Arts Leipzig (hgb-leipzig.de). So if you accessed the art school's website using your IP address, you would get to the fake porn site. This situation lasted until the summer of 1997, when a new HGB IT employee unknowingly took the website offline. However, the website can be accessed here for documentation purposes:

Website: Inge Meise Chatline

Back home from the book fair, wanted to film a lot more for tiktok and stuff. What I got was this. 😂

But I'll get to work on the new Bob x reader proposal oneshot this week. Maybe I can get that up by the end of next week.

(I did buy some very pretty art tho. And two books - one of which I got to take home from the fair, the other will be delivered cause they sold out at the fair 😂 and a cute tote bag and some birb protectors for my switch joy sticks.)

I'm attending Leipzig Book Fair today. The first one in 3 years. From what I can gather there aren't even nazi publishers exhibiting today.

Yes, we got nazi publishers in Germany in 2023. Because of course we do.

I live for the bitch fight the LBM and the FBM had going on like 300 years ago.

At the book fair in Leipzig I stumbled accross the booth of an artist called Lothlenan, and I was amazed. Her art is incredible. Holy shit.

I hat to buy a print on the spot.

I highly recommend checking out her art, and her website (when it is finished and works).

You know what’s the worst thing about cosplaying Crowley alone and going to a convention is?

You will be called single and alone in 100 ways. Every time I saw another Crowley, there was an Aziraphale by their side. THERE WERE TWO FUCKING CROWLEYS AND EVEN THEY GOT A FUCKING AZIRAPHALE.

Like bro I felt like season 2 Crowley when he saw Aziraphale going into the elevator. I felt like Crowley in a hurt/no comfort fanfiction. IS IT SO HARD TO FIND MY AZIRAPHALE???!!! 😭😭😭😭😭😭😭

They looked so cute and complete while I looked at them with tears in my eyes (it was in fact just sweat because it was hotter than hell in there but eh)

But shout out to all Aziracrow cosplayers who were at the Leipzig Book Fair. You guys were cute and your cosplays were AMAZING

So rumour has it that Olena will attend the Leipzig Book Fair this week in person.

I am going to be at the book fair.

Everyone.

I MIGHE BE IN THE SAME PLACE WITH THE QUEEN

Off to the book fair

Wollefest Leipzig

What a wonderful day yesterday!!

tl;dr: I need more glass jars X'D

And I'm glad there aren's too many festivals a year XD The way to Leipzig was easy, I left waaay too early so I had time to look around! There was an apple (?) orchard on my way and it looked like a sea of white in the morning sun! It was soo beautiful! (No pictures since I went by car)

Then I met my dear friend at the train station and we walked over to the glass hall of the Neue Messe. The nostalgia. And since the book faire was a few weeks ago the glass panels were already cleaned xD

It was nice and spacious. so it was possible to look at everything. And to leave money *coughs* much money! and to talk to the two people from my spinning group who were there at the booth of the German hand spinning guild.

Soo many colours! Soo much beautiful stuff! *.* I could have spent at least another 100€

And the loot:

front: 70% polwarth/15% Tencel/15% silk from friendly sheep

Spindle: suppoted, maple/coloured wood from the same shop

Nalbinding needle made of horn and scissors from die Garnspinnerin

red Wensleydale locks from... idk anymore

below the locks: 40% wool (Falkland, Merino)/20% llama/20%Eri silk/20% baby camel from frau wöllfchen

violet: 25% Suri Alpaca/25% royal baby alpaca/25% Ramie/25% tussah silk, the colourful bag is 100% tussah silk, and a pair of hand carders *.* (not in picture) from stefis wolle

blue batt: 40% angora/40% silk/20% merino, grey batt: 35% angora/35% silk/25% Merino/5% alpaca from Seidenhase

the bag in the back: 100% baby alpaca raw fleece. So now I know my first scouring project xD also can't reconstruct the booth I got this

the cardboard box: DIY kit for a sewing machine pincushion in grey from Hühnerstall kreativ! was alrady considering to get one last year but I ran out of money.

Not in picture: two stitch markers, a brooch in the form of a black sewing machine and a knitting pattern for wrist warmers.

I only wanted to get 500g of fibres bc of space reasons... well... I failed.

When we were done at the festival, we went to the city to get some ramen for lunch/early dinner which was also very delicious. and after that I returned home (Or almost home. There were traffic problems on my way for which I was waaay too tired so I decided to stop at my dad's and tackle the rest of the way this morning.

Now I'm home and can rest a bit before work.

Max

If only he'd bothered sooner, Maximilian thought as he stood in front of the graffiti-covered, slightly run-down apartment building facade in Leipzig's student district. It was bad enough that he had to go to this stupid fair. But a hotel would have been better than this shared room rented through airbnb. It had taken him a while to finally come around to the idea that it would make sense for his career not to always sit in the lab or at the computer. Getting in touch with clients occasionally was certainly supportive. But now the city was booked. At least by his budgetary standards, the hotel rooms that were still available were absurdly expensive. So three years after he had been awarded his doctorate summa cum laude, student communes once again. He could think of little worse.

Maximilian rang the doorbell. Indistinct rustling came from the intercom, but the door was pushed open, lights came on in the stairwell, and a "fourth floor, elevator is unfortunately broken" sounded from above. Things were getting better. He was panting by the time he had heaved his untrained body, the suitcase with a week's worth of clothes for the fair, and his laptop bag upstairs. Standing in the doorway was a young man he estimated to be maybe in his mid-20s. Leather pants, sandals, bare chest tattooed all over, full beard, and man-bun, or whatever they called that hairstyle. A hipster to the core. "Max?" he asked. "I'm Leo, welcome! Your room is right across the hall, here's the bathroom and there's the kitchen. Would you like to join us?". Maximilian declined with thanks. To sit down in the smoked kitchen, where cigarettes, shisha and obviously a few joints were consumed, was really the last thing he could imagine. The smell that hung in the apartment quickly got into his head. And it was Sunday night at 22:00, he just wanted to go to bed, tomorrow at 06:00 he had to be in the cab to help his colleagues open the booth.

Fuck, why did fairs always have to start so early. 05:00 was no time for him. His studies simply weren't behind him long enough for him to get used to the rhythm of professional life. Quietly, wearing only the boxers he had slept in, he went to the bathroom. Normally, he was only in Leipzig on weekends, and his five flatmates, with whom he had been sharing this flat for eight months now, were only used to movement in the hallway and bathroom at this time of day when someone came home on the weekend. He was just the buffer here, but they all liked each other. And with his salary, they could at least afford a cleaning lady and a fully automatic coffee machine.

Showered and shaved, he stood in front of his closet in his shared room. He hadn't even considered that he didn't have anything sensible for the trade fair. On weekends, he needed something for stoned evenings in the shared kitchen and for raved evenings. The only suit that hung here had been hanging here for eight months. And that was ten kilos ago, which he had lost thanks to regular jogging and yoga. Well, that had to be okay for today; the important customers never came on the first day of the trade show anyway. Nevertheless, he was looking forward to the day. Unlike his colleagues, who tended to hole themselves up in the labs, he had taken pleasure in sales. Accordingly, the nerds were happy to rarely come out of their corner for technical questions today; most of the work was done by Max and his somewhat younger colleague Kevin from Marketing. When the trade fair gates closed, the two of them moved from booth party to booth party, while the other colleagues probably sat happily in front of their computers in their hotel rooms. When he unlocked the door to the shared apartment at 10:00 p.m., the air was already as smoky as it was every evening. Max just quickly took off his suit, hung it neatly on the window for airing and sat down with his friends in adilettes, sweatpants and a T-shirt. It was nice to be home during the week. In Munich, where he had to live because of his job, he hadn't felt comfortable for a long time.

Fortunately, he didn't have to be at the fair so early today. But he didn't want to be too late either. After all, he had only been with the company for a good year and wanted to do a good job. But first a smoke and a coffee. And then off to the bathroom. Kevin and Max had a successful and entertaining day. The two of them rocked the booth simply because they both stood out fashionably. Between all the overweight older gentlemen in ill-fitting suits, they were both by far the best dressed. Max had been unsure at first whether the slim-fitting suit in the eye-catching Tratan fabric with the high-gloss Doc Martins didn't look a bit too Britpop, but Kevin assured him that his ass would come out great in it. And Max didn't get the impression that his competence was in doubt because of the outfit, either.

After his colleagues had left the booth on time again and no booth parties were scheduled for tonight, Max and Kevin registered for dinner at the WG. Loaded with two cases of red wine, the two arrived and were received accordingly euphoric. But it could also be due to the fact that at 6:00 p.m. the first joint was already circling. In any case, it was an exuberant evening and that Kevin would not spend the night in the hotel today was quickly clear after the blowjob in the bathroom.

When Max woke up in the morning around 06:00, he realized how lucky he was that Kevin was with him at the fair. Max was fresh out of university, the signatures on his doctorate certificate barely dry, and Kevin had been in the business a few years longer. That was a great comfort for the work at the booth. And for the past night it was not helpful, but just horny. Since he moved into the flat-sharing community two and a half years ago at the beginning of his doctoral studies, Max had kept himself fit mainly by playing soccer with the boys in the park, running track and doing yoga, and maybe the occasional jog and swim. Kevin had discovered his enjoyment of pumping iron a year and a half ago, and by now it was impossible to miss. Max didn't like mountains of muscle on himself, and he wouldn't have wanted Kevin's magnificent full beard and blatant undercut. But on the guy next to him in bed, it looked divine.

Max and Kevin showered together. Also because it was horny, primarily because the bathroom schedule was tight in the shared apartment. And because their schedule was tight too, Kevin couldn't go back to the hotel and get a fresh shirt. So, because of the uniform appearance, only a t-shirt under the suit had to do for Kevin and Max today. Whereby Max's t-shirt stretched over Kevin's chest alarmingly. As expected, today, Wednesday, was the day with the most trade visitors. And even though Max still lacked a lot of practical experience, he scored with brilliant theoretical knowledge. There was corresponding praise from Kevin as the two of them drank an after-work beer at the neighboring stand. Unfortunately, Kevin couldn't come with them to the WG today, as he still had an official customer appointment, at which, much to their annoyance, the older colleagues had to come along. Max enjoyed it all the more to sit at the kitchen table at 20:00 in sweat pants and T-shirt. Sure, the discussions sooner or later got to the point that Max had made himself a slave to the old economy and a climate destroyer to boot. But he could live with that. With a joint in any case.

Thursday morning. The fair was as good as over. After all, there was really good money in it. Max was grateful that he could combine his work as a student trainee so well with the hot phase of his doctorate. He had already used part of his salary in advance for the suit that he wore to the fair and that he also wanted to wear to the viva. Max thought he looked awesome in it. The slim-fitting navy blue suit was perhaps a bit conservative for him. But it accentuated his lean and wiry body just great! The day at the fair was exhausting. The visitors really only ever wanted to see his more experienced colleagues, so Max spent most of the time just standing around decoratively. He could hardly wait for the end of the trade show day. Kevin was invited to a trade show party and wanted to take him with him. And thank god the party turned out to be quite boring and so the two of them ended up in one of Max's favorite corner bars first. And then around 10:00 p.m. in Max's bed.

Kevin was certainly five years older than Max. A seasoned marketing manager and beast of a man. Max, who was just about to take his exams, didn't have to hide visually, but the hairy and full-bearded colossus didn't really fit in at all with the rather slender and still very youthful-looking student. Nevertheless, they had fucked like rabbits. Kevin had ordered a cab early and had gone to the hotel to freshen up and change for the fair. Max had left his waiter outfit in the catering area of the fair and just had to quickly jump in the shower and then into the S-Bahn before his shift started. Eyeing his reflection in the windowpane, he wondered if he should follow Kevin's example and get a beard and some tattoos, too. Friday was the last day of the fair, and things were getting high. Tomorrow, Saturday, maybe a few more foreign guests would come. But in itself the specialized public departed today starting from 15:00 o'clock so slowly. Max already had a few years of trade fair experience and had meanwhile risen to the position of shift leader. He knew some of the waiters and waitresses, some of them in passing, and some of them better from university. The jobs here were well paid and in demand. But he also had to walk some miles, easy money it was not. Still, Max enjoyed the day. He assumed this would be the last time he did this. Next year, he was either going to write his doctoral thesis. Or already work in the chemical industry. He had enough offers. Too bad, actually, he looked' really good with the white shirt, the narrow black tie that disappeared between the third and fourth button in the shirt and the long white apron over the tight black pants. He was a handsome man, and he knew it. And that occasionally brought him even with a stud like Kevin.

In the evening, he made three crosses when he could take off his shoes. His feet were just used to sneakers and Docs. Good thing tomorrow would be the last day he got to serve trade show guests dressed as a penguin. The others had the foresight to order pizza, beer and something to smoke, and by 9:00 p.m. Max was exhausted and in bed.

The last day of the fair. Finally. If only because he no longer had to argue with his stupid supervisor. Max had only one or two trade fairs less experience, but at just under 26 years of age, he was clearly the younger one. And his boss let him feel that. That's why he wasn't allowed to work in service today, but had to work as a barista in the coffee bar. One advantage was that he could keep his clothes on without any problems. Sneakers, jeans, T-shirt and beanie. Only the black apron he had to wear. And another advantage was that rat-hot Kevin would drop by from time to time. Today rather more often. On the last day, there was simply little going on. At 4:00 p.m., the first booth builders arrived and began to dismantle the booths. And Kevin asked Max if he would like to go out for a bite to eat with him before Kevin headed back to Munich. Kevin had chosen a steak restaurant that Max would never go to. Much too expensive. And he lived mostly vegan. But being invited by the hottest guy at the whole fair was more than okay. The only pity was that Kevin didn't have time to come up for a fuck today. But at least Max could still suck his boner as a farewell. A worthy end to a strenuous week at the fair.

Sunday, 10:00 o'clock! Finally slept in again. Actually, Max should have been working on his bachelor thesis. But among the other sociologists he was considered a mega nerd anyway. A bachelor with not even 25 was rather unusual at his faculty… And today the weather was great. Having breakfast somewhere in the sun now just sounded more appealing. And finally he could just slip into his pants and tank top without showering and hide his unwashed hair under his hat. A quick glance in the mirror. Perfect. And tomorrow he would make an appointment with the tattoo artist he trusted. He would definitely invest some of his hard-earned money from the past week in ink. Let's see what kind of inspiration he could get on the street.

More old Sandman fanart I drew back in 2009 when I was finally reading all the books. I was 24 and the collected editions were being released in Germany through these years. In 2007 Neil Gaiman was in Leipzig at the book fair and I missed him. You don’t believe how much I still regret that. I was there every year and in that year I didn’t go or wasn’t aware of him being there and I was so mad at myself afterwards. Dx I tried to draw these three in more modern clothes. Still like it very much although the anatomy and shoes are all wrong.

(If you should find these with a different name (HakkyouHime), that was my old nickname on social media, now I’ve come to use my real name; it is my art)