Well, I’ve just come back from the first Devon ComicCon at Exeter University sports campus. I must admit the sports facilities at Exeter University were extremely impressive, all sorts of sci-fiesque heavy black machines lined the windows. You could not tell if the athletes were separate entities or just part of the machine, a cyber-athlete fusion, in perhaps an echo of future sport?
The ComicCon was run by Lisa from Moose Events which are always a pleasure to go to- you know it’s going to be well organised, with plenty of space between exhibits so we won’t all die if there is a sudden audience stampede. I had two helpers on my Torcian table – my daughters Sapphire and Jasmine, their support was wonderful. Sapphire actually drew the map of Torcia for me, which as usual had many admirers and several photographs!
There was a table top gaming zone and computer gaming zone which looked fascinating but as I was there to share the world of Torcia, I could not go off and play, which was rather sad. However, I did get squirted by a velociraptor which was quite a unique experience… There was one lone Storm trooper on patrol throughout the entire event but luckily for him/her no resistance fighters or they would have been in trouble. Interestingly enough there was no dinosaur-Empire fighting either.
The costumes from the cosplayers were magical. There were no Boxtrolls but a group of people who had invented their own world of furry creatures in a rainbow of colours. I always support creativity and individuality, so I was delighted to see such furry self-expression. Captain Jack Sparrow was also tottering around sans bottle, apparently all the rum had gone, which was a great shame.
Some of the costumes were very impressive. There were two estate black shirted security guards complete with body vest and personal incident recorder cameras on their vests, who patrolled the building and car park. They had most realistic costumes of the day, but I couldn’t place their series at all, which was weird as I know my sci-fi. I thought it might be an indie horror. Obviously, I had to find out this unknown series. So, I caught them up and had a chat to them and found out they were actually university security guards sporting some pretty cool uniforms. They were lovely people and I left them taking pictures of the prop police cars. Exit stage left.
I had some almost old friends visit my fantasy table which was great. Old faces from some of the ComicCons I have attended throughout the year. It’s always lovely to catch with people like the impressive nuclear psychist Viking, the pizza delivering blue squirrel, the Welsh photography family, and many wonderful fantasy fiction fans.
I also had the great honour of Daniel Eghan, the Star Wars actor, giving me a limited edition signed poster which now has proud of place on my writing inspiration wall, as I do admit to having a slight lifetime Star Wars obsession…
To find out more about Torcia visit – http://fantasyworlds.jigsy.com
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