After David Molofsky, the founder of our lovely site, invited me to London Super Comic Con, I went forward in journalistic spirit and did some research. I read up about comic cons, and so on. I thought I was prepared. As anyone who has been to a con will tell you, this is preposterous, as there is simply nothing like a con, and therefore no way to prepare for it. I had also gone a good way toward destroying any prior preparation by getting somewhat Mjolnir’d the night before and waking up having achieved little (apart from making my ancestors proud, perhaps). Being hungover at a con is not the most useful of states, but it is inexplicably popular amongst con-goers, so hopefully fit in. Bleary-eyed, I floated onto the DLR, and sat- hood up, sunglasses on- in the corner. A few stops later, on stepped some young women, dressed as characters from Naruto and Doctor Who. Their costumes were great, much better than anything I could have made, and I smiled. So this was what the con would involve. Brilliant.
Arriving at the ExCel centre- not the dreamiest of buildings at the best of times, and in my state definitely a nightmare- I was greeted by a very casual Predator in a nice shellsuit blasting ‘Red Red Wine’ out of a boombox. It wasn’t even the strangest thing I saw that day. After meeting up with the other members of the AP2HYC team- Rob, Stacey and Amanda- we set off in search of great cosplay and comic creators. In the coming week, we’ll be releasing interviews we had with different creators, and tweeting our favourite cosplayers. Amongst those we saw were Rob Cureton of Scene City, Neil Gibson of Twisted Dark, Dan Thompson of Moon, Michael Georgiou of Elemental Micah, and representing the cosplay side of things, the inimitable Babsbat. All of this stuff will come up on the site, as well as on our Twitter page, all with our LSCC hashtag, #IWearACape. We’ve got enough cosplayers on film to fill a lifetime of tweets, so if you saw us wondering around with a camera, keep an eye out for your picture!
At the end of the day I was exhausted- I had tried to use coffee to stay awake earlier in the day but almost destroyed lots of valuable prints with it so decided it was a bad move. What really kept me going was the spirit of everyone there. The thing is, I’ve been reading comics since I was 6 years old. (It was a promotional copy of Superman, rendered in red-blue 3D, during the ‘Blue Superman’ era. I lost it, but I found another recently. It has pride of place in my collection, even though it’s terrible.) I’ve been fanatical about them ever since, not to mention a broad clutch of cartoons and pretty much every superhero movie (I hold The Rocketeer very dear). Despite all this, I’ve never been to a con. I don’t know exactly what held me back, but now I’ve attended one, I don’t know if I’ll ever go without them. The sheer diversity of fans, and the diversity of their fandoms, was united by a common goal to have fun while sharing in the stories which we love. Mostly, I don’t tell people I like comics- you can never predict someone’s reaction. But in that room, geeking out was not only accepted but a necessity. And now, wherever I go, I take a little bit of that acceptance with me, and proudly wear my fandom as a badge of honour. For that experience, I want to thank the organisers, the exhibitors, the creators and most of all the fans. Cheers. You made a fellow nerd superhappy.