The Most Lycra You've Ever Seen.

I never did get around to a comic con blog. I was so intent on getting the YALC blogs out there, that I just kept putting it off. But now it's time to delve into LFCC and my first glimpse into the world of the comic con.

Now this is something I had always thought would be fun to do, and have contemplated going to America for it, but I'm pretty glad I didn't. You're talking a massive room, which unfortunately on the Saturday was not air conditioned, seventy thousand people, possibly not all at the same time, but there's a freakin' Earl's Court load of 'em, and then Lycra. Friend to gym goers everywhere, marathon runners and members of the world of cosplay. Man there was a lot of lycra. (I imagine that sentence said by Cilla Black - apologies if you didn't grow up in 80s/90s UK and have the joy of Blind Date - A lorra lycra.)

So basically you set yourself up for queuing for anything and everything. Ah, the British way. You queue to get in. Once in, you queue to inevitably not get tickets to anything to do with Stan Lee. Then you queue for other people to get an autograph. There are queues for photos with the top celebs and of course queues for something to eat, mega queues for the Ladies toilets and so on and so forth. You need to bring your patience with you, possibly sunglasses and paracetamol, as a day under those lights can fuck you up. You are also likely to be parting with a vast amount of money, so I suggest saving up for a long time prior to the event, especially if you're not content with photos from afar, like I was.

 Walking Dead and more importantly, guy from Sons of Anarchy. Whoop!

 We remember him fondly as Aaron from 24, but he's in pretty much everything that requires some sort of military guy. We love him! (The royal we, me and A of course.)

Now, I don't mean to be sad, but this is freakin' SUPERGIRL! AHHHHH! Love this film. Me and my Bro watched it innumerable times as kids. And her name is Helen. 

So I was quite content with a passing shot because at the end of the day, I'm scared of adults I don't know, so I definitely don't think I should try and strike up conversation with any of them. Besides half the people I can only refer to as their character names, regardless of the massive signs with their real names on. What would I say to freakin' Giles from Buffy, other than I love Buffy, I love Giles and you were in Merlin which is shit but I also love it. Isn't that just what every one else says to them, for the whole day?

Incidentally here is Mr Head, forever known as Giles the librarian from Sunnydale. 

So I went for the cheap option, of catching sight of these people, maybe snapping a little photo and just wearing small chufty badges because I had seen Captain Adama and Apollo from Battlestar, both sat next to each other. Okay, I'll admit, that was a rather large chufty badge. But £20 each for them to sign a pic. No. Sorry. I'm a self-employed, unpublished writer. A free snap and a goggle is enough for me. You can't charge me for using my eyes, thankfully, otherwise I'd have been well skint.

Father and Son back together again. The lovely Jamie Bamber and Edward James Olmos, which weirdly I do know the real names of. My brain does what it feels like. Sometimes it only retains characters, some times it retains real life too. Bizarre. 

Obviously, I have big respect for the people that go all out and do pay for these signings and meetings. I mean that is die hard fandom that I really don't think I can have. I love shows and I love characters but I also have feck all money and lots of other interests too. I also think it is great that these actors and actresses give up their time to go to the comic cons, but then let's face it they are well compensated for the inconvenience. 

One great thing about the comic con, is the costumes, or the cosplay as we must call it. There were some genius ones and some that just looked plain uncomfortable for a whole day on your feet. Some of my favourites are below in the photographs:

 Mario Kart

 Spirited Away 

Hitchcock's The Birds. This was genius!

There were countless Spiderman and Superman cosplays. The men really do dig their all in one lycra suits. There were a few Hit Girl, Batman and Predator too. The Princess Leia wannabees, scared the bejeezus out of me. I just don't need to see that much of another woman's body, irrelevant of size or shape. I can almost see your noo nah. It's too much. 

The stalls were teeming with goodies and most of them quite reasonably priced. We almost went for the Merlin coasters, especially the one with Merlin and Arthur on it. Beautiful. What more could you want? But then decided against it. A wise choice I feel. You could buy any number of comics, t-shirts, bobble heads, custom made shoes - which I have to say were amazing - cakes in a jar (yes that is a real thing), jewellery, posters, pictures, books, and strange flying objects. We resisted, but I can understand those who didn't. 

Now that I've experienced a comic con, I am glad but not exactly raging to go back. Yes it was nice to catch a glimpse of the evil Cersei Lannister, snap a pic of Hodor and wander past the original Blue Power Ranger, but this is something people with money and that die hardness about them do so well, and something that doesn't really give me the hard on it probably should. Granted I was mainly there for the YALC and saw lots of panels and amazing authors, but having the YALC within LFCC was definitely interesting. Lots to see and lots to make you smile - except of course the Frozen cosplay which made me want to scream. 

I can't leave without posting the other pics I got, including the massive, Hodor, the exactly how you expected her to look, Drusila from Buffy, and Teabag from Prison Break, who I have to say looked like he was having a great time. 

 Drusila

 Teabag. Ooo, he's such a baddy. 

Hodor

It was a nice bonus to be able to see some of these people from TV and Film during the weekend which was mainly a bookish one for me, and big respect to the organisers, who to be fair did a fairly terrible job on the Saturday but learnt from their mistakes pretty quickly on the Sunday. The pull of these events will never wane, as people need to see their favourite characters in real life and they need to have the autograph of their favourite author. But for me it was like oh there's Hodor, for about a second and then it was gone. He's an actor who does a job and yes we love him, but he's not actually Hodor. He's just a guy with a vaguely interesting job. And I think because I have that rationality of thought, I'll never be the die hard fan typical of the comic cons. Though come back to me on that after I see Kate Bush four times in August/September, because I will need sedatives. 

I leave you with a final image from LFCC: the vehicles from Transformers. When I was a kid watching Transformers and attempting to transform my brother's figures - which were nigh on impossible - I never imagined they would look anything like this. 

I'm Optimus Prime

Thanks for reading.

Rants