*RayeRaye's Corner* 

May MCM Comic Con is always a treat, with so many people attending each year there is tonnes to see and plenty of dealers to visit! This year was a very casual attendance, driving down on the Sunday with Matt and Mark was a fun road trip and by arriving early we easily parked at the Excel Docklands car park and made our way straight into the event!

The queuing system has much improved, it works a lot better for the mass of people that Comic Con brings – my top tip here is to make sure which queue you should be in! Never assume and always ask one of the crew. When you get to the wrist band section be sure to be ready with your ticket and have your wrist ready for the band, it’s so easy to hold up the queue if you are not ready for them!

Once inside, the first place we visited was the Star Signing area, we were looking for John Noble as we are all big fringe fans (Fringe!), but this part of the day was the frustrating part. Instead of a queuing system for each star, you must all enter the same queue. Once at the end of this queue you buy a ticket to see your ‘star’ and then you have to get into their individual queue. Now, this was not too bad for first thing in the morning at the event, but you could easily see how this would be a big problem later on. On top of this, the independent queues for the stars are timed, this means you need to work out if there is enough time for you to get to the front of the queue before the slot is over! Otherwise you’ll have to come back later…

Anyhoo, it was okay for us all because the queue for John was relatively limited, and he was a lovely guy so it was all worthwhile! I asked him how he coped with the transition between Walter and Walternate in Fringe and was really intrigued by his reply, he really is a fascinating actor. Secondly, I asked him if he ever have problems with the cow, to which he replied “I love that cow!” Classic! (I love that cow too!).

The remainder of the event was a relaxed wondering; I twirled a bit around in my Tardis Girl cosplay, got to play on Tales of Zesteria (which was so beautiful!), watch people play Splatoon and got the usual staple – Pocky! I also got the usual fluttering when seeing the BTTF car in all its glory and later the new age bat car (which was very crowded!). I also got to put random husky dog ears on Matt’s head! Hehehehe!

Dealers wise I visited my favourite stall, Genki Gear, and couldn’t resist a new badge and tank top – they are celebrating 10 years! Can you believe it!! We also made sure to go round every single table, including the comic village, where I finally managed to get the Vampire Free Style collection! (wanted that for years and years!).

After the event we headed to our usual Fox Bar, had a cheeky cider or two (I tried the new black fruits strongbow – very nice!), and some club sandwiches!

So, if you are thinking of booking a trip to MCM Comic Con in London here are my tips: Book early, consider a one-day visit, save up lots of money!