May | 2014 | Journo Weekly

When I was invited to visit the London Comic Convention at the Excel centre over the May bank holiday weekend, I thought “why not? It could be a fun day out”.

Not being a fan of reading comic books, my memoirs extend only to the Dandy & Beano comics from the 80’s and 90’s, which are no doubt still around today.

Obviously I have heard of the X-Men and Iron Man movies and have been vaguely aware of other comic book movies over the past couple of years, but I only really became aware of the ‘Marvel’ movie franchise, over the past 6 months.

So I think it’s safe to say I am not one of your avid comic book fans, but I do enjoy festivals and days out. So when I was asked if I would like to go I said ‘HELL BOY Yeah!’

Until May 2014 my limited knowledge about ‘Comic Conventions’ came only from watching episodes of the ‘Big bang theory’, which I am a huge fan of.

Personally I had no intention of dressing up for the occasion – but as we got closer to our tube stop for the event, it became clear that we were the odd ones out. The droves of people in costume was phenomenal.

One guy was standing at the station in full ‘black ops’ kit with face mask and gun, standing as if he was on patrol. For a brief moment it was a little shocking to see, before realising it was a guy in costume.

Other costumes included fair maidens with boozies bound up tighter than a Mummy from ‘Tales of the crypt‘, and guys wearing full on battle gear from top ‘first person shooters’ such as ‘Halo’ and ‘Battlefield’.

The event opened at 9am and we made our way through the turnstiles shortly after. We got the chance to see a Star Wars ‘land speeder‘. Unfortunately It was a replica built in the late 80’s, around a 1988 Ford Escort. I grew up watching the original ‘Stars Wars’ movies and had it been a real prop from the movie, I would have got a real kick out of it!

Apart from some storm troopers and a shoddy looking ‘pod race r‘ there wasn’t much else in the way of movie replicas, which was a little disappointing. The General Lee from the dukes of hazzard, was available for photos with ‘The Stig‘ (not the real Stig) and the car ‘Bumblebee‘ from the movie ‘Transformers’ was also there.

As we moved around the rest of the convention it became clear there was a huge array of stalls selling all kinds of memorabilia, from fantasy swords to novelty soaps.

There was well over a hundred stalls selling T-shirts, costumes, wooden mead cups, Gothic jewelry, Japanese soft toys as well electronics including video games and other software.

There were entire areas dedicated to consoles, offering gamers a chance to test their skills against one another in fantasy fighting games etc.

I found most of the items for sale to be wildly over priced but then I’m not an enthusiast, nor am I a collector, so in my eyes a lot of things were a rip off, such as £5 for some funky smelling soap!

The best part of the whole Comic Convention was the costumes that everyone was wearing, which is kind of the point I suppose. To some people it may seem strange that people would want to dress up and visit these events, but at the end of the day, it’s just a bit of fun. Sure I guess some people may take it a bit seriously, but I saw no evidence of that.

Perhaps some of the ladies miss wearing their princess dresses, they had once wore without shame, when they were little girls, or the guys living out their fantasies as battlefield commanders – but for the most part, it was just a massive fancy dress party.

I did feel slightly hard done by to begin with, as the cost of the ticket was £17.50, just to walk around looking at over priced goods, but if it meant keeping the idiot ‘chavs‘ out, that would have not appreciated it for what it was – which was a fun day out – then so be it.

Before we knew it, we had been wondering around for 4 hours, looking at all of the fantastic costumes that people were wearing.

My favourite costume of all was worn by a guy dressed as Tom Hanks’s character, from the movie ‘Castaway‘. He was wondering up and down the food hall with a volley ball shouting “Wilson”….Brilliant!

I wanted to get myself a souvenir, but there wasn’t anything that really appealed to me until I saw a T-shirt for £15 from a TV show that I do love, and as luck would have it, red is my colour too! Unfortunately in searching Google for a decent picture for this blog post, I found that I could have bought the same T-shirt on eBay for £4.99!

It was a huge event, and as we left 5 hours after we started our journey through the labyrinth of fantasy genres and familiar figures, we made our way outside to a ‘Where’s Wally‘ of Avengers and other fantasy and science fiction characters.

It wasn’t as exciting as spending the weekend at a rock festival perhaps, but more like a fancy dress day out at a shopping centre! I doubt I’ll go to another Comic Con but if I do, I would seriously consider dressing up – nothing too fancy mind – perhaps Indiana Jones!

Now who’s trying to live out their boy-hood fantasies!