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| Photo taken by Leanna Bruce |
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| Photo taken by Leanna Bruce |
From May 27th-29th, the Excel Arena London was once
again host to the largest comic convention in the UK, MCM Comic Con London. This
time it was bigger than ever with a record number of 133,156 people attending
over the 3 day event. This spring there was a vast variety of things happening
from comic book guests, TV show stars, even movie stars in attendance.
For my first ever comic con I have to say I really did
enjoy MCM London. I feel like I need a holiday to get over going! What an
experience! I couldn’t believe the size of the convention! There is so much to
do and see. One thing I decided because of this is how I am definitely going to
do at least 2 days at the next one in October purely to get around more of it! There
are so many stalls to shop at and games to play. I
was really impressed to see such a large amount of independent comic stalls and
illustrators. The event was split into 2 halls with various theatres, live
music, signings and a whole host of other things going on.
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| Me as pinup inspired Rogue |
The part of the convention I was super
excited to see as you can imagine was the cosplayers and MCM did not disappoint.
I myself had been working on my Ms Marvel costume however due to some difficulties
I could not get this finished in time. I therefore decided to go as one of my
favourite characters in a more pinup character inspired look rather than full
cosplay. I chose Rogue from X-Men. I based my look on her yellow and green
costume (see pic) and did my own adaptation of homage to this. I wore a yellow
long sleeved thin jumper with retro looking scarf around the neck which had
green and brown in (colours in the comic costume). I wore green stud earrings
and a yellow bangle to accessorize. I wore black leggings and gold sparkly
sandals with red nails, toenails and lippy for the pinup effect. I curled all my hair with a middle parting and
pinup the blonde around the front to show this off. I wore a brown leather look
jacket and when this got too hot I swapped it for a brown short crochet cardigan
with short sleeves. I took a brown fringed handbag that I wore across my body
and a Marvel Comics tote bag. I stupidly didn’t get any pics of the full outfit
but you can get a feel of the look from these pics.  |
| Photo taken by Leanna Bruce |
My first stop in the convention after
picking up my press pass was the toilets to freshen up after the long journey.
I was asked by a cosplayer whilst there how I got my wig to stay on properly as
they thought mine looked really good! Well it stays on because it’s growing out
of my head! The hair is all mine hence its perfect for Rogue which I was
pleased to hear someone compliment! I personally wasn’t stopped for any
pictures and couldn’t really tell if anyone could see the inspired look I was
trying to do however the woman in the loos had clearly thought I was dressed up
and a steward I asked for directions said how ‘Rogue like’ I looked which was
cool. There were so many amazing costumes and for me I’d go to MCM just to see everyone’s
amazing efforts let alone all the other cool stuff that’s going on. As well
as group meets and individual photoshoots, MCM has a masquerade for cosplayers
to enter. This time cosplay was even bigger, with the convention holding
the qualifiers for the world cosplay championship for the first time. This
was something I didn’t see myself but with the talent I saw there would no
doubt have been some top contenders.
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| Me and Warwick Davis |
The first half of the con for me was
spent getting behind the scenes and securing a few interviews (these will
follow). Sunday wasn’t the best day for interviews however I did manage to
interview Warwick Davis (Harry Potter) and Lotte Verbeek (Agent Carter). The
staff sent me on a mystery tour to get to the interview locations, a half hour mystery
touring meaning I was a little late which is something that I found very frustrating
but I got there in the end. I requested interviews with Agents of Shield cast
which unfortunately their schedules were too packed to accommodate however I did
share a lift with one cast member!
Once my interviews were complete I did a
lap of the MCM Comic Village checking out all the artists before moving on to
the stalls. By around 1pm I realised I couldn’t function any more, I was
starving hungry and needed a pit stop. I went to buy some food which as
mentioned in my previous post I queued for ages to receive, paid a fortune for
and it wasn’t great! Next time I will pack something I can have straight away
and actually look forward to! Once I had some food and a rest I started on the
stalls again working my way around the convention chatting to cosplayers on my
way around. I ended up doing around 4 laps of the MCM Comic Village in the end
as I wanted to have a rea thorough look around this area and not miss anything.
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| Me and Bob Layton |
From my understanding MCM often suffers
from a lack of big name comic book artists and writers, with more of a focus on
TV and film stars. This year, however, there was something for everyone. With
talks from Watchmen’s Dave Gibbons, and Iron Man artist Bob Layton (see pic of
me with Bob) signing all weekend, it seems that MCM is expanding on the comic’s
side of the convention.
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| Photo taken by Leanna Bruce |
I only made a few purchases myself which
I will post separately as I found personally such a large amount of the stalls
were anime based which isn’t a strong point for me. No doubt I will get into
this more so in the future but right now I’m all about the comics, Marvel and
DC, film TV and cosplay equipment/costume etc. I guess it all depends on your
own personal fandom but for me there wasn’t enough stalls going on for what I was
interested and the ones that there were all seemed to stock the same stuff.
There were still a few finds of the day and I may possibly have found more had I
had more time to look properly.
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| Me as pinup inspired Rogue |
Towards the end I was tired, my feet
were sore, it was very hot and busy. I sat down and chilled out for a bit
before leaving. Everyone was tired and people were collapsed in various areas
of free floor space all around the convention. Everywhere I looked cosplayers
were dropping like flies. Some were going strong and others were lying on the
floor. I saw people with face/body paint coming off them, people with
masks/helmets removed fanning themselves, Stormtroopers laid across the floor!
Not something you see every day. Next time I will do a few days if not the
whole thing as I need more time to do the ‘press’ side of things, more time to
get around everything as I feel I missed a lot going on, more time to
photograph and chat to cosplayers and time to actually cosplay myself!
Overall I would recommend MCM Comic Con
to anyone with interests in this area. It’s a fun day out with lots to keep you
entertained. If you’re a cosplayer it’s a must for sure and totally worthwhile
to see and link with other cosplayers. Top marks – I’ll certainly be back!!
xoxo
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| Lee cosplay The Thing It's clobbering time Photo taken by Leanna Bruce |
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| Photo taken by Leanna Bruce |
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| Photo taken by Leanna Bruce |
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| Photo taken by Leanna Bruce |
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