Seddonism blog: Kapow!

Last weekend I headed to Kapow, marketed as the UK's answer to San Diego Comic Con by Kick Ass writer Mark Millar. After my brother cancelled at the last minute, Mr Wateracre stepped up to the plate and joined me on our geekathon.

The day started with the Johnathan Ross hosted Fans VS Pros - three big-name writers and artists (Mark Millar, Marvel Superstar John Romita JR and Watchmen's Dave Gibbons) face off against three super-fans in a comic-book trivia competition, including Team Captain 90s comedian Stewart Lee (a bit of a hero of mine).

The panel was very entertaining but also frustrating as i very nearly made the cut to be on the fans panel; an elimination process was entered into where Ross ruled out potential contestants until left with the final two. Questions such as ‘hands up if you went to see Sucker Punch‘ ruled out the first batch. I was in the final few but foolishly didn't raise my hand when they asked 'hands up if you secretly want to slip on a costume and fight crime'

Above - Batmite puts in a little appearance at the panel

The people from the Guinness Book Of World Records monitored two world record attempts, for the fastest production of a comic book and the most people involved creating a comic book.

Check out this video 20 seconds in - holy crap it's me and Tom! Damnit I always look so rubbish on video (probably in real life too)!

I met lots of creators & got some of my books signed; JR JR, Frank Quitely, Lenil Yu, Pat Mills, Doug Braithwaite, Sean Philips, Bryan Hitch and Chris Weston.

I also got some great sketches, as below;

from ABC Warriors' Clint Langley

Simon Bisley was hilariously rude to everyone but then proceeding to do free sketches all day anyway

Lost Girls artist Melinda Gebbie was lovely and charming and doing beautiful sketches.

V For Vendetta artist David Lloyd (who was promoting his Comics Classroom)

There were lots of other panels - including a mystery mover (which turned out to be Super, but everyone thought would be Thor) - I queued for ages before getting turned away. There was also a massive queue for Thor preview with intro from Chris Hemsworth. So didn't try to make that - but he did make a very delayed appearance at the IGN stage before. And then the people on the ground floor basically can only see other people's cameras waving in the air.