And what's your name?
Wow, well today was a very cool day indeed! Why? Because I was at my very first con, and being a vip!
I've been kinda nervous about it all week. But also excited of course! Went to bed reeally late last night, which wasn't such a good idea, but oh well. Didn't make much of a difference because I kinda realized at the last minute this morning, that I'd got all my directions wrong! So i had to waste like 20 mins trying to get maps n'stuff to figure out exactly where the Expo was. (And then phone Miles and Steve to let them know I'd given them directions to the completely wrong place! aahh..). But the problems of travel didn't stop there! Once I got onto the jubilee line, I ended up going in the OPPOSITE direction for about 3 stops before I realized.. and then I got on the dockland line rail.. whatever it's called, DLR, which took me to some random place, and I had to go back again... aaaaggghhh. If I was on a ship, I would NOT be the navigator! I'd lead us halfway round the world in the wrong direction... and into some rocks probably -_-;
So yeah, I was late, with the panel supposed to be starting in like 5 minutes. but they had some replacement bus service because the DLR wasn't working properly (it wouldn't, would it!). It had a huuuge line of people to get on it, so I was all kinda like "Hey! VIP coming through!" *barge* Well.. I didn't say that, but you know.. I jumped the line, mwe heh heh..
Aaanyway, my traveling woes were lightened when Lara called/texted me to wish me luck ^_^ That was nice! And yes, so it got better of course. When I arrived I got to wear a spiffy special-badge-thing, and was all like "Yes I'm with Tokyopop" when asked which organisation I was with. Coool.. wandered around for like 10 minutes trying to find where the hell everyone/thing was. I walked straight past Paul and Kate, we kinda glanced at each other as I passed (like you would a random stranger), and then about 3 seconds later I was like.. "hang on a second.." I turned round and yeeahh.. hahaha, It was kinda funny actually, we both laughed. Ya had to be there, course.
So - finally met Paul (and Kate)! And then Emma and Sonia who I must say are both very happy people! The panel ended up being late anyway, so we all hung around the Tokyopop area and checked out some cosplay people who were pretty good actually! This girl pulled off Kasumi from DOA really well. And chatted, signed a couple of the guys' books and generally sat around.
Miles and Sam got to the Expo a few mins before the panel started, so they were nicely seated right before we were called up. It was pretty funny.. I mean, we all got to hold microphones and basically look like museum exhibits whilst Dennis talked about "stuff" (I dunno, I wasn't listening - shock!). And then answer questions that I wasn't paying attention to either, so when I came to speak I was just like "UUHH.. (holding mic to far away from face) YEAH, ETC". Basically, I said things which weren't true. They wanted to know what we've been up to since Rising Stars, probably expecting "Well, I've been colaborating with the anime master MIYAZAKI to make an animation of an extended version of my entry and basically being famous..??". Unfortunately the real answer was something more like "Well fuck all really. I played Kingdom Hearts yesterday though, and read Harry Potter for like, 5 hours". Of course, that was jazzed up a bit, hence the not true stuff.
So after parading our collective faces on stage, we went off to the Tokyopop booth/table/thing to sell & sign books! Yaayyy, fun. Well I thought it was anyway, haha. It was cool, I enjoyed sitting there instead of standing on the other side of the table asking to have something signed. Miles was not up for spending money, so got us to sign this FREEBIE preview book thing (which Emma found hilarious apparently!).. and then suddenly a billion other people thought that was a good idea and started coming up with this free book that had nothing to do with RSoM. Hahahaha.. Oh yeah, and because we were sitting in front of a giant Rave Master poster, we got asked "Are you the people who made Rave master?" HAHA.. I should have just said yes. That would be amusing.
I also got my own copy of the book signed by the guys, and I bought one of Paul's showreel dvds, which is pretty damn cool! (I got a 50p discount, yay!)
Ahh I got some real nice comments too about the art, or mostly how my story was funny. Oh, there was an american guy too! I.. don't know who he was though. A winner of the US RSoM..4? 5? I think?.. Ahh, well he was real nice, came up to me and said he just wanted to say he thinks I'm a very funny guy and best of luck with my stuff etc etc *shake of hand*. Awwwwww..
After that, we were allowed to just wander around and do what we wanted, wearing our cool important badges. I wish I'd entered that Sweatdrop art competition.. might have stood a chance! Oh, Dennis (Tokyopop UK boss person) also spoke to me about arranging a physical meeting with Rob Valois (Tokyopop USA editor person.. who i was dealing with) which I agreed to. So.. fingers crossed there, in the near future. Maybe I'll rethink about distancing myself from doing a comic.. hmmm.
Ahh yeah, so later Miles, Sam, Steve and I went on our way to see X-Men 3, which was an enjoyable addition to the evening. The movie itself though was kinda.. silly really. The only good thing about it was Beast, who was a BEAST! He was awesome. But the rest of it was just "whaaaat..". The people who die.. it just doesn't make sense. And well, ALL the characters really. Still, enjoyable nonsense for an hour and a half or whatever it was.
Then we watched The Descent on dvd at home, which was pretty scary, and NOW I'M SCARED TO GO DOWNSTAIRS BECAUSE ITS DARK AND THERE ARE BAD THINGS AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHH.
oh, note to self - visit sweatdrop forums..
I've been kinda nervous about it all week. But also excited of course! Went to bed reeally late last night, which wasn't such a good idea, but oh well. Didn't make much of a difference because I kinda realized at the last minute this morning, that I'd got all my directions wrong! So i had to waste like 20 mins trying to get maps n'stuff to figure out exactly where the Expo was. (And then phone Miles and Steve to let them know I'd given them directions to the completely wrong place! aahh..). But the problems of travel didn't stop there! Once I got onto the jubilee line, I ended up going in the OPPOSITE direction for about 3 stops before I realized.. and then I got on the dockland line rail.. whatever it's called, DLR, which took me to some random place, and I had to go back again... aaaaggghhh. If I was on a ship, I would NOT be the navigator! I'd lead us halfway round the world in the wrong direction... and into some rocks probably -_-;
So yeah, I was late, with the panel supposed to be starting in like 5 minutes. but they had some replacement bus service because the DLR wasn't working properly (it wouldn't, would it!). It had a huuuge line of people to get on it, so I was all kinda like "Hey! VIP coming through!" *barge* Well.. I didn't say that, but you know.. I jumped the line, mwe heh heh..
Aaanyway, my traveling woes were lightened when Lara called/texted me to wish me luck ^_^ That was nice! And yes, so it got better of course. When I arrived I got to wear a spiffy special-badge-thing, and was all like "Yes I'm with Tokyopop" when asked which organisation I was with. Coool.. wandered around for like 10 minutes trying to find where the hell everyone/thing was. I walked straight past Paul and Kate, we kinda glanced at each other as I passed (like you would a random stranger), and then about 3 seconds later I was like.. "hang on a second.." I turned round and yeeahh.. hahaha, It was kinda funny actually, we both laughed. Ya had to be there, course.
So - finally met Paul (and Kate)! And then Emma and Sonia who I must say are both very happy people! The panel ended up being late anyway, so we all hung around the Tokyopop area and checked out some cosplay people who were pretty good actually! This girl pulled off Kasumi from DOA really well. And chatted, signed a couple of the guys' books and generally sat around.
Miles and Sam got to the Expo a few mins before the panel started, so they were nicely seated right before we were called up. It was pretty funny.. I mean, we all got to hold microphones and basically look like museum exhibits whilst Dennis talked about "stuff" (I dunno, I wasn't listening - shock!). And then answer questions that I wasn't paying attention to either, so when I came to speak I was just like "UUHH.. (holding mic to far away from face) YEAH, ETC". Basically, I said things which weren't true. They wanted to know what we've been up to since Rising Stars, probably expecting "Well, I've been colaborating with the anime master MIYAZAKI to make an animation of an extended version of my entry and basically being famous..??". Unfortunately the real answer was something more like "Well fuck all really. I played Kingdom Hearts yesterday though, and read Harry Potter for like, 5 hours". Of course, that was jazzed up a bit, hence the not true stuff.
So after parading our collective faces on stage, we went off to the Tokyopop booth/table/thing to sell & sign books! Yaayyy, fun. Well I thought it was anyway, haha. It was cool, I enjoyed sitting there instead of standing on the other side of the table asking to have something signed. Miles was not up for spending money, so got us to sign this FREEBIE preview book thing (which Emma found hilarious apparently!).. and then suddenly a billion other people thought that was a good idea and started coming up with this free book that had nothing to do with RSoM. Hahahaha.. Oh yeah, and because we were sitting in front of a giant Rave Master poster, we got asked "Are you the people who made Rave master?" HAHA.. I should have just said yes. That would be amusing.
I also got my own copy of the book signed by the guys, and I bought one of Paul's showreel dvds, which is pretty damn cool! (I got a 50p discount, yay!)
Ahh I got some real nice comments too about the art, or mostly how my story was funny. Oh, there was an american guy too! I.. don't know who he was though. A winner of the US RSoM..4? 5? I think?.. Ahh, well he was real nice, came up to me and said he just wanted to say he thinks I'm a very funny guy and best of luck with my stuff etc etc *shake of hand*. Awwwwww..
After that, we were allowed to just wander around and do what we wanted, wearing our cool important badges. I wish I'd entered that Sweatdrop art competition.. might have stood a chance! Oh, Dennis (Tokyopop UK boss person) also spoke to me about arranging a physical meeting with Rob Valois (Tokyopop USA editor person.. who i was dealing with) which I agreed to. So.. fingers crossed there, in the near future. Maybe I'll rethink about distancing myself from doing a comic.. hmmm.
Ahh yeah, so later Miles, Sam, Steve and I went on our way to see X-Men 3, which was an enjoyable addition to the evening. The movie itself though was kinda.. silly really. The only good thing about it was Beast, who was a BEAST! He was awesome. But the rest of it was just "whaaaat..". The people who die.. it just doesn't make sense. And well, ALL the characters really. Still, enjoyable nonsense for an hour and a half or whatever it was.
Then we watched The Descent on dvd at home, which was pretty scary, and NOW I'M SCARED TO GO DOWNSTAIRS BECAUSE ITS DARK AND THERE ARE BAD THINGS AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHH.
oh, note to self - visit sweatdrop forums..