Octobers London Expo was definitely the best one yet! It’s gotten so big lately, that back in May it really felt overcrowded. But the organisers had booked even more halls for October so there was room to move and stand. Made it so much easier to meet and greet people.

I don’t normally buy much at these events, as I generally shop for things I want on a regular basis, but this time, there was stuff that I wanted to nab! Got hold of a few Mangas I’ve been meaning to get and I spotted an awesome set of character models of the Serenity crew based on the movie rather than the TV show. Right under the box of characters, strategically placed no doubt, was a model of Firefly ship, Serenity herself. Sold and Sold!!

Let’s see, what else did I get up to?

Got to meet a few of the other artists from BNM (namely Paul and Nana) as well as Ilya. Hung out with a bunch of the Sweatdrop forum members, who made me hold a sign to notify any other members that the meeting was ‘here’, because I was the tallest in the group. Abused!! Haha - Was fun getting to hang out with those guys for a bit. They’re all so energetic! I got to meet people like Kriffix, Mute, Dwinky, Destraudo, Fae, etc. who are now no longer just names on a forum post. Pictures in this post are courtesy of Fae who had originally posted them on the Sweatdrop forums. The second picture has some of the Sweatdrop Studios members and a bunch of our forum members.

The most surreal experience I had I think, was when I wasn’t on shift at the Sweatdrop table, and so I was walking around talking to people or checking the near by tables and then I’d get a tap on the shoulder from one of the guys who were on shift asking me to come back to the table because someone wants a signature! Talk about inflating my ego!!

On that note, the coolest signing moment I had, was when this gentleman came by with his two daughters and said “You probably don’t remember me, I was the guy working at Pims who printed out the preview books for you?” - Holy Freakin’ Crap Batman! That was 2 years ago!! And I did remember him, David George. He was the guy who printed the Preview books I had made to send out to publishers. He mentioned that he’d made an extra copy of the book to give to his daughters as he’d thought they’d like it. Of course, back then, only about a third of the book was completed. Seems he’d heard that I’d be at Expo and that the final book is in print and he’d come down to meet me and pick up a copy for his daughter.

2 Years! I can’t believe they still remember me after 2 years. I was so flattered and a little taken aback by it, I think I went and talked too much! Still, I hope they enjoy the book and their wait wasn’t in vain.

We normally go for a meal after the first day of Expo is over, and the group of people is always so large that it makes it difficult to find a place to eat. We didn’t want to do the usual Chinese place again, so we journeyed around but all the places we tried or could think of had a hard time serving such a large group of people, so guess what we wound up doing? We ate Chinese haha and it was good!

After the meal that evening, Dock, Selina, Keds and I, hung out with John Aggs. Sadly Paul Duffield had to go home after the meal. Was really looking forward to having a proper face-to-face chat with him, as he lives outside of London, so we rarely meet.

We had a few drinks and somewhere along the lines, Dock misheard something Keds said and the phrase ‘a penis to cry on’ was created, which Dock promptly wrote into his sketch book. I think he’s planning a Yaoi project with that one haha - Shortly after, we were joined by Nana Li, Kat and Dave, who were thrown right into the deep end of our strange world and conversations. No easing into it! But it was fine, ‘cos those guys can swim as good as the rest of us. It was a pretty ace evening.

On Sunday, I had that talk on stage with some of the super-stars of the western comic industry and it was fun, though I felt a little useless (and I did say on the mic. that I was a baby compared to these guys) as there were two writers on that stage who have been in the business far longer and had basically answered all the questions before me and their replies were pretty much what I was going to say. So I just spent my time saying stuff like “Yeah, what he said! … ”

I’d decided the best thing to do was to take the opportunity to ask my own questions of Tony Lee and Lee Townsend (Mr. Townsend writes for Spawn right now, how cool is that?!?), which I did and we got a nice little rapport going. It was interesting to hear how the two writers had different approaches to writing for artists. One would write everything panel by panel, which was a standard technique a lot of writers at Marvel and DC use. The other left his writing quite open and only intervened when he thought the piece would benefit from some editorial control. I myself also work similarly to the latter method.

There were lots of cosplayers at the event, lots of Host Club cosplay oddly enough but the most original cosplay most of us thought were the two giant Death Note notebooks walking around. They’d designed them so that people could open the cover and actually sign their names inside! That was awesome haha

Funniest moment for me? When I teased Dwinky on the last day of Expo. Bare in mind, Dwinky is this tiny hyper girl.

Dwinky: I just don’t want it to be over!! *jump jump*
Laura: Aww haha
*Fehed walking past*
Dwinky: I don’t wanna go home T^T
Fehed: *turns to Dwinky* GO HOME DWINKY!!
Dwinky: Nyuuu T0T;
Laura: AWWWW!!
Fehed: XD *pats Dwinky*

It was a great weekend.