Ah, the London Expo! Place of thrills and spills and wondefullness! Where people dream and reality is just a footstep away!

Or, where dodgy looking people dress up as odd looking manga characters purely to get free admission.

Yes, children, this weekend was the London Comic Expo, held in the actually rather nice London ExCel centre (see right) in the heart of London's docklands. Which was really odd, because when I came out of the centre and looked across the river, I could see kesblondie's old flat, as we were right by a stupidly high bridge thing, that, a year and a half ago I remember looking at from the other side of the river!



So. Saturday. I left Birmingham with the utterly wonderful lady_of_sha1ot at about 8am and drove down to The Ibis Hotel, just off the ExCel centre, diverting through London as I had my trusty TomTom software. did it work? Did it bollocks. It broke in the city, EC2 where it started to tell me I'd driven through buildings when we were in traffic. Still, we managed to make it to the Ibis by 11.30 and checked in amongst various strange costumed guests.

Once ready and checked in, we walked the 400 yards to the con itself, where the wonderful and ever helpful Chip (who the next time I find him will be bought drinks) managed to sort us both out our passes - a Guest VIP one for me, and a Press one for lady_of_sha1ot, as she was hoping to be able to interview, or at least hug Simon Pegg and Nick Frost, who were there doing a signing. But as she wasn't feeling too hot, she nipped back to the hotel to have a rest while I went on to sign!

So I arrive at the Markosia stand to see publisher Harry Markos, EIC Rich Emms, writer extraordinaire Annika Eade and artis Kit Wallis, both there to advertise their own books - the finally finished Dark Mists and the upcoming Breathe.

Across the way was Andie Tong - old readers of my reverend2001 journal will remember his 'Mr T and Jack Sparrow' picture he did for my 35th pirate party - he was there to advertise his work on Spectacular Spiderman and also the Starship Troopers #0 that we had done together - which looks incredible.

And of course, there with his friend (and soon to be my new friend) Skinner - was my old friend Dan the man Boultwood.

See the pass around my neck? This was a topic of much amusement on my part - I had one, wheres nobody else did - all they had was little red wristbands. I had the 'VIP Pass' of the big names. Mu ha ha and all that.

But we were there for a reason of course - the signing of the newly released The Tizzle Sisters & Erik, launched at this very event - I was also signing copies of Shadowmancer, Starship Troopers and Midnight Kiss issues 1-4 which were there. And boy, did we sign...

Of course, there was time for horseplay for the cameras - we were, after all the wunderkinds of the comic world, and we abused as many cosplayers as we could - I was very amused when I saw my first ninja, and we then had a 'Spot the crap Cosplayer costume' competition...

And of course, we had time for loving male bonding.

(That's Kit Wallis behind us. He didn't want to join in the love.)

We spent the afternoon signing a variety of copies of books - and in fact over a hundred and twenty copies of Tizzle Sisters alone were signed by us in that period. And then -

That's right! Look! A fan turned up with issues of The Gloom! This poor sod had got them off me at an earlier event and had waited patiently for a signing event where Dan was there so he could attend and have it signed! We were most impressed!

Now while all this was going on, lady_of_sha1ot had returned and been to speak to the PR people for Hot Fuzz, to find that unfortunately they couldn't allow her to interview Simon and Nick, as nobody was being allowed to. She did however manage to get hugs with both  Simon and Nick, and thanks to the crappy technology of sony phones, here are blurred pictures from a distance (I wasn't able to get closer due to the crowds) of the hugs. But due to the delays that phone cameras have from click to pic, they were both saved as the hugs ended...

She was one of the only people allowed to touch them, let alone hug them. Thanks to Colin for his assistance there.

I meanwhile got to give a copy of Starship Troopers #0 to Joe Flannigan.

So the day went on, and I managed to catch brief time with the Tozzer guys, the Brodies Law guys and Joe Pruett, who'd come over with Desperado Publishing to see how the English did it. I grabbed a sneaky drink in a Tapas bar with Dan, Skinner and lady_of_sha1ot and near the end of the day we were joined by skunkboy. We sorted out tickets for the 'after' party for the non-Markosias, lady_of_sha1ot wandered off into town to see a friend and Dan, Skinner, skunkboy and myself went to the Crowne Plaza where we secured seats and drank.

Dan of course was on top for, having brought an authentic egyptian fez for the occasion.

The party was a relaxed one, with the main dance floor full of people in Final Fantasy costumes looking a bit lost at jailbait Japanese schoolgirls. We mocked them mercilessly. We also had a hirudo appear.

I found myself at the bar with Rudolf Martin, one of those actors you see everywhere - most recently in Stargate SG-1 but also 24, Navy NCIS, the movie Swordfish and of course, he played Dracula himself in Buffy The Vampier Slayer. We chatted for a bit which was nice, and then lady_of_sha1ot was introduced and, with her Buffyesque looks, I had to split them before they kicked off and took the room apart. I could already see the look in her eye where she searched the room for breakable wood. I also managed to meet another of my personal heroes - Matt Frewer.

Anyone around my age (mid thirties) will remember Matt as being the Vid Journo Max Headroom, first the CGI head, and then the human Max in the ongoing season. Now in the U.S TV show Eureka, it was a real pleasure to meet one of the guys that made me want to work in this industry. And he was a damned nice bloke as well.

But of course, all good things come to an end, and as it was approaching midnight and I needed food, lady_of_sha1ot and myself bid farewell to the convention, thanked Chip and, from the street bid a fond farewell to the wonderful Dan Boultwood...

We had Pizza.



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