MCM Birmingham

I don’t go to MCM comicons very often these days, despite living only ten minutes down the road from the Telford event it’s a rare occasion for me to have a weekend off, and they never seem to line up. This month circumstances so happened that I was able to arrange the day off* and so I went with a few friends to Birmingham NEC to get nerdy for a few hours. This does of course mean I’m only just getting through the Punisher, but it’s been worth the wait.

First of all let me say a quick thanks to the admins who corrected my minor screw-up, after accidentally buying a ticket for Sunday I emailed them to ask for a swap, and they had it done by morning. Despite the website saying no refunds or transfers, it was apparently nothing to set me up properly. Cheers guys.

The NEC was host to three events this weekend, and not only did that make for the most crowded train ride I’ve even been on, it also meant MCM was relocated to the far end of the building which is something of a new experience for me, despite having been at the NEC or the nearby Hilton at least a dozen times, I think this weekend was my first experience of the halls at the far end. Perhaps the halls are bigger? Certainly more labyrinthine, usually I can sweep through a comicon twice in in an hour, this year I’m still not sure I saw it all.

Important points, if you’re enjoying the newly rebooted Robot Wars then you might be interested in seeing the season 1 champion Apollo on tour with the robot fighting arena that pops up at every MCM (at least the ones I’ve attended). There are always a host of celebrities to meet, not least of which Warwick Davis and some of the Red Dwarf cast, Ian McElhinney, and Virginia Hey, and those are only the faces I saw. With time and money on the line however, I had to prioritise my Christmas shopping, no time for queues and autographs.

The advantage of having predominantly nerdy friends is that finding something for everyone is easy; the hard part of shopping at an MCM is deciding how much to spend, by and large the answer is too much. I notice this year there has been a distinct upswing in the number of custom Lego minifigures and randomised loot boxes, but sincerely I can’t say that I noticed anything lacking. Anime, comics, memorabilia, video games, film, cosplay… possibly every order of geeky interest is always solidly and massively represented.

I had the opportunity to say hi to a couple of friendly faces, at least one member of the Kitacon committee (Hi Claire!) and an artist friend from work, Faiza, who dropped me off at her stall in the artist’s alley to chat to her sister about D&D. Unexpected for sure, but good conversation is good conversation.

Ok, so the level of engagement is not quite so deep as one of the big anime conventions, but the appeal is universal, and this close to Wales then Birmingham is the biggest and the best.

And I’ve managed to check two more names of the Christmas list. I don’t care that it’s November, more fool you for not starting months ago.

---

*The caveat being that I’ve lost quite a substantial chunk of my weekly games night just as the campaign is heating up.

Conventions!

What a day.

I must admit I’ve not really had much by way of inspiration to write today, I’ve been focussed on one thing and one thing only. At 19:00 registrations opened for Amecon 2016. And at 19:33 all one thousand places had gone!

Kita 2015 was consumed in seventy three minutes, Ame has more than halved that record, and for good reason. The Warwick Arts Centre is quite possibly the most perfect location for a convention, the auditorium, lecture halls, screening rooms, on site facilities, and beautiful spots for photo-taking. Ame is going to have it all, and so will one thousand (and two) of us for the first time since the tragic passing of the late great Ayacon in 2013, where Tim and I first began our journey, both through the con-scene that has supported and driven us, but together in this venture.

So many people even now despair at the arrival of christmas on the high-street, slowly but inexorably worming tinsel-tendrils into our collective awareness, ushering winter behind it. “No!” they cry, “Too soon to be thinking of Christmas!” while we fall over ourselves, practically tearing each other limb-from-limb to get into an event that’s at the end of July next year, without even knowing what guests we can expect.

Too soon would be ALcon. That’s at the end of this week, and I have to say it rather snuck up on me. I’ve been booked into it for months now, and while I’m looking forward to it, I still wasn’t expecting it so soon. I guess I’ll see many of you soon, bring a Magic deck and dice, and be ready for practically anything if you see me, I’m in an unpredictable mood.

In 2013 I attended my first convention. Last year I attended both Kita and AL, this weekend AL will be my third convention of the year. In keeping with my current pattern, I’m planning on a fourth convention for 2016, I just need to work out how to squeeze one into an already packed schedule, and I have ambitions of getting into an MCM or maybe Cardiff Comicon (even bigger ones of getting in as a press-member).

As a final comment, we want to thank you for your continued support. We fell three views shy of 4000 for the first time ever this August. You never cease to amaze us, and we’re continuing to work hard towards bringing you amazing new content with our traditional “flare” (read “bumbling enthusiasm”) and as we build towards a conventionless winter, we look forward to seeing as many of you as possible at our Bristol MeetUps and at Shrewsbury games events.

MCM Expo Telford

On the 14th, many of us not constraint by partners with bland and ordinary ideas on how to spend Valentines day together were in the Telford International Centre getting nerdy in our hundreds.

MCM is a huge market filled with games, memorabilia, art, replica swords, minis and action figures, and real Pocky (not this Mikado farce). There are stands to try demos of upcoming game releases, watch exclusive new film trailers, celebrity guests, and an arena for robots to bash the ever loving exhaust out of each other. This is the first MCM I’ve been to in a while, and it’s the first one I’ve seen where they’d opened two rooms for us. This was an absolute pleasure, the place was less cramped, flow was a little easier around stands, and I didn’t over heat within the first few minutes.

We arrived at around 11:30, by which point the queue was out of the building, over the road, and up to the far gate approaching the town centre. Oddly, in spite of the fact that it then took over an hour to get our tickets and get in, this wasn’t all that dull. I spent the time with Mike from Quotes from the Tabletop, and our friend and fellow ginger, James. We occupied ourselves collecting Mini-Avengers, and in spite of clocking better part of a Mini-Justice-League, I was disappointed to have not spotted a tiny Hulk.

Not pictured but also attending were Chris Barrie and Robert Llewellyn of Red Dwarf, and also Rob Maythorne, whose collected works can be found here, and whose own (far prettier) gallery of this years event can be found here.

Were you there? What did you see? Us? Surely not, else you would have said something. Come find us at conventions and expos. We want to meet you.

Cosplayer Highlight – Komplex

Welcome to Cosplayer Highlight, where we are joined by an incredible Cosplayer from the cosplay community.

Today we’re joined by a familiar face from a previous Cosplayer Highlight in Komplex from the Cosplay Duo, the British Bumpkins. We thought we’d interview these two lovely ladies separately this time around and see what’s new for each of them.

So read on for another awesome interview with an incredible member of the cosplay community.