While our Richard reports from San Diego's Comic Con, your SFX buddies also had a stand at this year's London Film and Comic Con - you couldn't miss us, we were the ones right in the middle of the hall with the TARDIS parked out in front. As well as meeting and greeting our regular readers and subscribers at the event in Earl's Court, we had loads going on; if you were there, you'll remember some of this, and if not, then here's what you missed!
For starters, we had our usual offer of free goodies for new subscribers - everyone who put their name down walked away with a free SFX courier bag, a t-shirt, a choice of a free DVD and anything else we could lay hands on behind the stall! Big thanks to everyone who signed up!
Did you get one of these made up on the day?
On the Sunday SFX had a really special event. We had a professional photographer and graphic artist on the stall, and with support from Canon who provided equipment, they were taking photos of our visitors standing outside the TARDIS and turning them into unique, mock SFX covers that they could take away free! Sadly we underestimated just how popular this event would be, meaning that not everyone received their photos by the end of the weekend. But don't worry if you're still waiting - we'll be putting a bunch of photos up on a dedicated online location very soon, so you can download your pic at your leisure. Keep watching the SFX blog for an announcement when the photos are live. Thanks again to everybody who participated, especially those guys who helped out, and of course to Canon for their support.
We'd also gone a bit Predator - on both days of the con we had a special guest of Mr Ian Whyte, the 7'2" actor who's played the Predator in both of the Alien vs Predator movies, who was signing autographs for fans and posing for photos on request. We also had a fantastic free prize draw on both days, where we gave away some fantastic replica props from AvP, each of which we had signed and personalised by Ian. And that's not the only competition we were running over the weekend - on both days we held a cosplay competition, in which those folk whose costumes we liked best were awarded with the unique prize of a Star Trek toaster each!
There were two sorts of exclusive SFX t-shirt to buy as well, and we have some of those left over which we'll be selling through our website in due course - if you've always wanted a t-shirt to express your love for all things SFXy, keep your eyes open for these to go live on the site.
Did you attend? Come and tell us what you go up to over on the forum , where you'll also see some pictures taken there. User Robin The Ripper has been telling us, "Well that was my first con and I have to say it was ace. Far too many lovely things on sale, lots of cool cosplayers... Went and got Sylvester McCoy's autograph, but I kinda had a geekisode and could only squeak at him. [I] got my pic taken with the TARDIS, once on my camera and again by the SFX bloke and got me and my mate Andrew on the cover!"
It's forum user chrismk!
Reader moderator narin from the SFX forum adds, "I too took advantage of the 'have you and the TARDIS put on the SFX cover' offer, got a couple of [autographs] and photos, got to catch up with some old friends and flogged geeky merchandise to the masses. We were selling gaming stuff and lots of Heroes stuff. Actually best thing of the day on the SFX stall was the SFX ADDICT t-shirts, which at first glance look like they said something else..."
A big thanks to the Showmasters organisers who made the weekend such a success. The next such show for us will be Collectormania 14 in Milton Keynes, between 25 and 28 September. Hopefully we'll see you there!
