Comic Con 2013 Birmingham

Went down to Comic Con today and met so many fantastic and wonderful people from all walks of life, gathered under a single roof for the love of Science Fiction. Networked, chatted, soaked up the ambiance and loved the costumes as much as the sheer emotional fun of the day. I even held a 20 minute impromptu snake display with Diamond (the yellow and black python seen in the Brittany Spears video) round my neck answering snake questions and encouraging a lot of people with snake fears to come close enough to touch.

Beautiful thing was, EVERYONE has the same look on their face when they touch a snake for the first time and feel how smooth, how cool in temperature and how soft it really is. A sense of wonder comes over them with the feeling like a child discovering Christmas.

I’ve got to give many, many thanks to the team there running the snakes / lizards / tarantula (yes, I actually got within 2′ of it without running screaming into the distance: Spiders? Me? Nah…I’ll stick to snakes.

What about the rest? A brilliant day! Memorabilia on one hall, displays in the other. Got to meet Tony Curran (13th Warrior / Pillars of the Earth / Ultimate Force and star of the up coming Sci Fi show “Defiance”), Mark Lester (From the musical “Oliver!”), and Billy Murray (Detective Don Beech of The Bill and more recently the voice of Captain Price in the Call of Duty: Modern Warfare series).

So what else did I learn about Comic Con? I’ll sum it up in this list.

1- Women of a certain size shouldn’t go dressed as Lara Croft (but full marks for the outfit)
2- Tony Curran is ACE! A laid back, really nice bloke with a great down to Earth attitude.
3- My wife said Warwick Davies (Willow, Professor Flitwick of Harry Potter, and of course Wikit the Ewok) was as down to earth and friendly, and his wife was lovely!
4- Stormtroopers make great security guards (they had four kids kneeling with hands behind their heads, facing the wall when we walked in)
5- The guy dressed as Catwoman was interesting…
6- The amply built lady dressed as Catwoman was also interesting in a different way…
7- The attractive early 20’s girl dressed as Catwoman restored my faith in Catwomen everywhere!
8- Diamond the Python loves people and wanted to play with everyone,
9- Mark Lester looked slightly disappointed when I said “my mum loved you in Oliver!”
10- Jaime Murray (Hustle / Dexter series 2 / Spartacus Gods of the Arena / Defiance) never shuts up!
11- Billy Murray is a real gentleman!
12- Sam Fox is cheerful with EVERYONE!
13- Some Pokemon Girls with pink hair can be annoying!!!
14- Emperor Palpatine said “thank you” when I stood aside for him
15- Three members of the Assassins Creed brotherhood tried to mug a VERY convincing Batman who simply glared at them…and that was the end of that fight!
16- I found absolute respect for (firstly) a girl playing Jack Frost (Rise of the Guardians) and (secondly) a couple of young hobbit boys / girls who collectively walked round the convention barefoot for the entire day.
17- Tony Curran called me a “cool, sci-fi super-dad”
18- There was such a huge amount of talent from the artists stalls to the people with well thought out costumes they’d self made!
19- Name me one other place you can get upwards of what seemed 5000 people all into the same thing with a lovely sense of camaraderie and no trouble at all!
20- ‘Defiance’ looks interesting…very interesting…

So that’s it! My daughter’s first convention, and the little boy came out in me again….

…and there’s nothing wrong in doing something in life that makes you feel really young and excited all over again!

Jacob