February 24th 2012. The date that I and a friend of mine embarked down to the big smoke to experience the geekiest of weekends. A pop-culture nerdvana if you will, for one of the biggest and greatest comic book conventions (not including San Diego, New York or any other U.S con for that matter) EVER. It was the turn of London to host this wonderfully geeky affair. And I freaking loved it.
Lets be clear, I am not a hardcore comic book fan (more on those later, two of which I became friends with). Don't get me wrong, I loves me some Spiderman as much as the next guy, but could I tell you which issue Doc Ock first fought our favourite wall-crawler? No I could not. But I enjoy comic books and the mythology and world that comes with it. I also greatly admire Stan Lee, as he created my hero Spiderman, as well as a host of other comic book heroes which have had films too that you will have seen throughout your lives. So when my friend said in work that he was London Calling to the Super Comic Convention, with guests including none other than the aforementioned Stan Lee headlining (is it headlining at these things? Forgive me, I'm new to these), I basically decided to join him down there. After weeks or dicking around with accommodation (mate's Aunt's house), and sorting lifts to (mate's wife) and from (National Express. Not mate's wife) our nation's fair capital, we finally began dreaming of meeting the legend that is Stan Lee.
February 24th - Bright lights, bigger city
We make our way down to London in my mate car with his wife and four children. We arrive at around half past two at his Aunt's house in the east end as that's where we'd be staying for the next 48 hours. We decide to head into the city centre to see the sights. Naturally, this was exciting because none of us had ever been to London before (going to Wembley doesn't count in my opinion, which I have done by the way). So we saw all of the usual sights. The tower of London. Big Ben. Some Asian tourists taking pictures of Big Ben. The usual kerfuffle. After all the site seeing, the kids are getting restless so we take them to Hamley's toy store on Bond Street (?) to keep them entertained. To this all I can say is Hamley's was basically one big over-priced crack-den for kids, as there was literally EVERY TOY IN EXISTENCE EVER THERE.
Later on that night I embarked into deep east London to meet an old uni friend to catch up and to give her my old acoustic guitar (she also blogs here by the way. She's bloody good at it too). I was also walking to meet her alone. Me, in a city I've never been to before. With an acoustic guitar in hand, looking like a hipster dickhead. Alone. Naturally I assumed the twenty minute walk to the pub we were meeting at would obviously result in my untimely death, as I was convinced that everybody in London wilfully murders out of towner's without thought, but alas I was wrong. I had a damn fun time and I definitely didn't die.
February 25th - The con is on
After a slightly slow and hungover start, me and my friend made our way to the Convention at London's Excel centre on one half-hour bus journey. Fun fact - we passed Sky Sports News presenter Alex Hammond. We think. She looked quite nice though. We arrive to meet two new additions to our party, friend's of my friend, and see the line for the convention is quite possibly a mile long. Thankfully though, we have VIP passes, and get escorted like the foursome from Entourage to the convention straight away. After gaining our lanyards we queued up to meet Stan Lee and get some of our gear signed. We saw some cosplayers in the line. There were some wins:
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| Definitely not looking creepy here. |
and some fails...
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| Taxi's on its way kids. |
After getting our stuff signed by Stan Lee, one of the lads came out looking a bit pissed off. When I asked what was wrong he replied, “Stan Lee's handler bent me comic at the bottom! Look at it! I nearly drop-kicked the cunt!”. I genuinely laughed out loud. A friendship was born, and the tone for the day was set. This was going to be funny. The rest of the day can be surmised better with pictures than words I feel. So people, here are some pictures of me with cosplayers. Ogle away you filthy animals.
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| Yep, time actually did slow down here. |
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| Black Cat was rather popular for some reason... |
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| This couple were amazing. Plus look at Catwoman, with her big...face. |
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| Get your mind out of the gutter. |
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| HOLY-JESUS-CHRIST-THIS-WAS-MY-HIGHLIGHT-OF-THE-WEEKEND. I even shook his hand! |
One picture I regret not getting was the site of a group of people mobbing Stan Lee as he walked out to the convention floor, which I can only assume was to sneak off for a piss, at around midday. This 89 year old man had been signing stuff all damn morning and these people wouldn't let this poor man go. I was quite shocked, if this was happening in Morrison's we'd be telling these people to get off that old man and give him his shoes back, but here it was perfectly normal.
Some time later outside the convention a very bizarre thing happened to me and one of our party. When the four of us nipped out for drinks, foods, fags etc. me and one of our party were simply minding our own business when two random girls decided to walk up to us (alarming, I know right?) and ask us, without a shred of irony if they, “could borrow your passes just for ten minutes, just so we can see what the convention is like. We're not thieves or anything, we'll bring them back we promise”. Now I don't know if she thought that because me and my friend had comics in our hands that we also had 'Knobheads' written on our foreheads as well, but that is possibly one of the cheekiest and genuinely most baffling things I have ever heard at a pass-based event. Of course we'll give away our expensive passes! We totally know you're coming back! We promptly said no and they went away. They weren't even fit.
Later on we saw Stan Lee at a panel. It was damn fun too. I learnt that Stan's old editor at his publishing house told him that his idea for a superhero called 'Spiderman' was the worst idea he'd ever heard of. I think it's fair to say that he's in a league with other men of wisdom who also made such great calls, such as that guy who turned down The Beatles when they were still unsigned, or Justin Bieber's dad not wearing a condom one night back in 1994. A great day all round I must say.
February 26th – For a few comics more (and a really scary guy in a betting shop)
Sunday was a little more subdued than the day before, there was still a lot of people at the convention, but it just wasn't as packed as the day before. There was the overwhelming feeling too that we'd pretty much done everything we wanted to on the Saturday. So to combat this we did what all good women do and went shopping for more stuff. I picked up all of this win:
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| No idea why you have to be over 14 to have these. |
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| Stan Lee's signature. Happy Mike indeed. |
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| Spiderman looks in a spot of bother here... |
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| This 'Avengers' issue is from 1963. This is older than you and me put together. Probably. |
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| My Batman #1 from the new 52 collection, and my signed copy of the Batman graphic novel 'The Killing Joke' by Brian Bolland. He had a beard. He was very nice. |
After the con ended it was time for us all to depart back home. After me and my friend from work got from Canning town to Stratford station, we had to find our stop where the National Express coach would pick us up. After what felt like an eternity we found the stop which would get us home. Now this wasn't just a day for comic appreciation, it was also the Carling Cup final between Liverpool and Cardiff City. My friend who supports Liverpool, naturally wanted to see the game, especially after we overheard some locals that it had gone to extra time. Across the road from our stop was a pub so we thought with Einstein-levels of genius that naturally the pub would be showing the game. However because we are both plagued with the luck of the number thirteen we went to the one pub in London that wasn't showing the game. So one pint later we went back to our stop to see that down the road was a William Hill. So I decided to pop my head in and ask for the score and who won the Carling Cup. What followed was one of the scariest moments of my life. One of the men basically just ignored me, some muttered “dunno”, but one gentlemen. One evil-as-hell looking gentlemen, decided to turn his head towards me, slowly but surely revealing a knife scar upon his right cheek, looking at me dead in the eyes. He then proceeded to not reveal said score of the Carling Cup final, but decided to just look me up and down, twice, in total silence. I took this act of warmth and hugs as a cue to sheepishly say “cheers anyway lads” then run like hell back to the stop. I did not move from the stop from this point forward. Liverpool won by the way in case you wanted to know.
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| An E-fit of the aforementioned man in William Hill |
And alas with that my first trip to London was over. Well thanks for reading if you've stuck with me, I hope I haven't bored you for too long. I'm Mike Glover.
In a bit.
(@Like_Mike10)
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