Comic-Con?

Hello people,

Literally just back from ComiCon at Excel which I'd been looking forward to for weeks as my first time out at such an event. The plans was to have a geeky day out with some mates, pick up some new comic / graphic novels of interest and maybe expand the geek wardrobe.

On that basis the day was a success as my swag included all of the above and I got to meet one of Judge Dredd's colleagues! Comic wise I went for a couple of new independent series of zombie bears and a con-man making the best of his recent death. I'll let you know how they read.

Otherwise it wasn't quite what I thought it would be, though that's not necessarily a bad thing. Lots of cosply and cosplayers, many teenage (I felt my age somewhat), manga, anime and gundam on show. The stalls were crammed with related t-shirts, bags, jewellery, props, costumes, plush furnishings, crockery and a few toys.

The one thing that seemed to be somewhat lacking was, well COMICS! I enjoyed the Comic Village which was a number of aspiring artists of varying genres, inspirations and talents but made up maybe 10% of the floor space. Marvel had a reasonable stand and I spotted 3 other comic traders but other than that a trip to Forbidden Planet would have netted you a great deal more potential purchases. As for action figures and the like, barely a thing.

Having rocked up at 9am with our early entry tickets the place was already buzzing and by 1pm was utterly rammed, mainly with teenage cosplayers, at which point us old geezers had seen all that we needed to and the tactical withdrawal began.

As I stated at the top I got what I was looking for from the day but I didn't expect it to be quite so much hard work to do so. The scale of the the event quite simply puts Salute to shame but the title seems somewhat inaccurate. I've got no problem with a cosplay event aimed at teenagers that has a smattering of comic content (unintentional pun) but please just market it as that!

Here endeth the whinge :)

See my SWAG

Light-Shades. Beeter than IKEA ones apparantly!

Lots of this stuff about the place.