Comic Con adventures

Off to Comic Con in London yesterday ! Gosh that was a long day. No hold ups on the road but 2 hours drive plus 1 hour underground adds up eventually. Enough about getting there, how was the show ?

I have to say it's lightyears ahead of how I found EGX Rezzed but then again, Rezzed was focused on showing off games that I wasn't really that interested in. Lots of stalls to spend your money at (I exchanged all mine for t-shirts), lots of things to look at. And ...

You know I like dwagons ?
You know I like hats ?

What could be more awesome than :

And I will definitely be wearing that t-shirt in work on Friday. There is a picture of me wearing the Dwagon Hat, it's on Facebook but I won't post it here cos : The camera hates me and I took it at maybe 11.30 last night when Sleepy Pete was being Very Tired Sleepy Pete.

I've been writing a decent amount about the Yogscast youtube video people lately and one of them in particular (more on Kim later!). It's amazing how they've exploded into being one of the biggest channels out there. There's a few reasons for that :

They're really good at what they do
They have huge variation so there's something for everyone*
They have a fantastic Public Face

*(I'm a big fan of Kim and Hannah plus Rythian, Duncan and Zoey but not so much for the rest, they don't tend to play the games I look at)

I think that Public Face is really important. It's the first impression that everyone sees first, before checking out the videos. There's a key theme that runs through the illustrations that make up that Public Face : Craziness, Fun, Icons that pick up the character of who they represent. They're immensely clean high quality, they achieve that big objective of selling the brand and they're simple and clean enough that you Remember them.

And I got to meet one of the lovely ladies who is responsible for a lot of that artwork. She was good enough to keep chatting away too, while her comics and posters were merrily disappearing off the stand into people's bags (compensation paid for of course).

She goes by the tally Nina Serena (@NinaSerena on Twitter and comic link, tumblr link) and here's an example :

I hope she doesn't mind me grabbing that from tumblr. It's from the Lelatte comic, which is about a Dark Elf that isn't your normal Dark Elf. This one is super happy, hyper cute and bouncing around like a Sleepy on Espresso. And all she wants to do is hug the unicorns.

Go on, have a read - I did and was chuckling from page to page. Great illustrations from Nina and funny writing from her Partner in Comics and life.

Oh and she thought I was younger than 30. That's guaranteed to make a Sleepy Pete go Bouncy Pete. There might be life in the old dog yet, although I'm feeling the after effects of Comic Con this morning. I need that conditioning back in my legs.

I have a shoutout to an absent friend too, Nina talks about being a twin to another Yogscast linked person. That'd be Kaeyi who's been going through some horrible sounding health issues recently. She's not been served at all well by our health service. Kaeyi wasn't well enough to go to Comic Con but I hope she'll be able to get to the one in Birmingham NEC. She's being nursed back to health by her Kitty Nurses and it's been encouraging to see the progress over the twitter feed. It does give hope to people with long term or chronic illnesses. Yeah, I feel a bit drained now and my outsides aren't happy but examples like Kaeyi's strength give more hope.

And I really hope she makes it to Comic Con escorted by her Dream Prince Martyn.

Last mention before I close - I'd promised Kim over twitter that I'd try and smuggle some noodles her way. Sadly I lacked the courage to do so on the day. One thing about their popularity is that they can get somewhat mobbed, so they have an escort guy to keep the crowds under control. Let's just say he's very fit and since I lost the weight, even bigger than me now. So I left them be.

I do think it would be nice for them to be able to experience the show anonymously rather than be a part of it.

And for random strange men to get the chance to send noodles their way. Well, I missed the chance yesterday but would be overjoyed if I got the chance to make good that promise and get noodles (or other dinner type munchies !) for our ever wonderful, ever adorable Kim. Especially as :

Yey ! I love you too Kim, you're awesome.