MCM Birmingham Comic Con March 2014

Me and Red Dwarf’s Danny John-Jules

So, once again, it’s time to delve into the world of comics, tv shows, and movies, as the first Birmingham Comic Con of 2014 rolled into town! A little smaller than the one last November, but still had some awesome guests and people. One of the most notable of those being Red Dwarf’s Danny John-Jules, who I had a nice little chat with, and he informed me they have the next series of Red Dwarf pencilled in to arrive in November on Dave.

Comic Book Artists & Writers

Moon

I also had a talk with a number of the comic book artists. These included the guys behind ‘Twisted Dark‘ – A collection of, well… not unsurprisingly, dark and twisted stories, now into it’s 3rd volume. Interesting sales pitch from the guy who said “the first story is only 4 pages, why not give it a read”. So i did… then bought Volume One. Looking forward to reading through the rest if that first story is anything to go by!

Next up was Joe Sparrow, an interesting comic book artist/writer, who switches up his art style on each book. And finally for today, Steve Penfold artist from Beyond The Bunker, who’s book Moon (written by Dan Thompson), involves the Moon becoming a cop… Yep, it’s as wonderfully weird as it sounds!

I’ll have full reviews on these and others up soon!

The Panels

There were a number of panels at the Con, most notably the ladies from the Universal show Sleepy Hollow. The day 1 panel you can find here, and the day 2 panel you can see below. Apologises for the terrible sound quality. Unfortunately it’s a massive echoey room, so it’s really hard to get a decent recording (as you can see in some places, even the guests were struggling to hear).

Courtenay Taylor

Next panel I caught was with Greyston Holt who plays Clayton Danvers on the hit show Bitten starring Laura Vandervoort (Smallville, V) as the last a female werewolf. It’s an interesting sounding show, and has a rabid UK following already, despite not having aired on UK TV yet, partly through downloading, and also the source novels. It airs on Space in it’s native Canada, and SyFy in the US, and hopefully will arrive in the UK soon, although we’re still awaiting confirmation. Greyston did a good job entertaining the crowd, and the girl sat next to me had even got her leg signed by him… next to her existing Bitten tattoo… as I said, the fans are dedicated!

The last panel I saw was with voice over artist Courtenay Taylor talking about her work with Bioware and voicing ‘Jack’ in the Mass Effect series. She was really fun and interesting, talking about how she got into voice acting – partly due to getting nodes on her vocal chords from shouting at Lucasfilm employees during Boxercise classes!

I did manage to record the Bitten and Mass Effect panels, but I need to see if I can clear the audio up to make them usable. Watch this space!..

Along with the panels I also got chance to sit in on a round table discussion with The Sleepy Hollow ladies, which is now up as a podcast here.

The Guests

Scott Adkins & Stormtroopers

As well as the panels, there were lots of guests at the Con, just there to sign autographs and chat to fans. People ranging from the well know, to the somewhat less well known. Paul McGann popped in on the Sat and was merrily signing autographs, as was previous Who companion Sophie Aldred (Ace). Annette Badland (Margaret the Slitheen) also popped in on Sunday. Other guests included Andrew Lee Potts (Primeval), Scott Adkins (Holby City, Undisputed 2 & 3), various cast from EastEnders, and a large portion of the cast from the 1971 Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory movie!

Guest Gallery

The Cosplay

Of course, it wouldn’t be Con without cosplay. Although I didn’t manage to stay till the actual competition, I did get some shots of the people wandering around in a variety of brilliant cosplay outfits! There’s a full gallery below, but my 3 most memorable had to be:

3. The kids from Galactic Academy dressed as Jawas surrounded by working R2 units!