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Since then, I’ve had the opportunity to attend a lot of events, but the Expo still stands out as something a bit special. The closest thing we have in the UK to the San Diego Comic Con, it’s one of the few weekends of the year where you can make a joke about Hal Jordan’s ring and get laughs rather than confused looks, and it provides an opportunity for comic geeks, Cosplayers, computer gamers, autograph hunters and other assorted fan-boys and girls to meet up and talk geek.
It’s also fast becoming THE place to promote sci-fi and fantasy-related films and TV shows.
This time round, the show didn’t have quite as much film related content, although there were some absolutely enormous Scott Pilgrim character posters dangling from the rafters. What it did have in abundance, however, were people.
Twelve months ago I described the MCM Expo as small and intimate. By the second Expo of 2009, in October it had doubled in size, and taken over a far bigger hall. This time round it had doubled again, and what was truly remarkable were the costumes.
Of course with cos-players, comes the opportunity to play Cliché Cosplay Bingo, and within minutes of entering the hall I’d spotted several Jokers, a Crow, a Hit Girl, Captain Jack Sparrow and about four hundred Narutos. Alongside the standard Cosplay fayre were some spectacular and stunning efforts, including one chap in a full Iron Man suit. If he didn’t win the best costume competition I’m calling ‘shenanigans’.
While the movie-centric content was a little limited, there was a lot relating to TV, and panels were held for Merlin, Fringe, Stargate Universe, Caprica, as well as Paul Cornell’s new series, Pulse.
There was also an exclusive screening of footage from Codex Pictures forthcoming Ultramarines film. Unfortunately (and utterly gallingly) I missed it. It’s a real shame, because I’ve been following the project since it was announced, and I would have loved to have seen the first footage from the flick. Hopefully it’ll make it online in the next few days.
Whether it does or not, you can look forward to another interesting article cropping up in the next few days as I put my interview with Ronald D Moore (and Esai Morales) online. I won’t give too much away, except to say that it’s now officially my favourite interview, and Moore talks about everything from Star Trek to The Thing, via BSG and Caprica.
Photos courtesy of MissGeeky’s Melinda Seckington and her partner in crime Cristiano Betta