The last day of Comic Expo started easily enough: out of bed, down to breakfast, back to the room, pick up everything I need to, realise I can’t possibly carry all of it while also wheeling my luggage out… okay, maybe not so easy.

With Mat’s help I got everything downstairs, checked out, jumped in the van, and nipped over to the Commonwealth Hall to park for the day. We were inside in good time, and cleaned up the stand of the usual detritus, ready to face Sunday shoppers.

As well as the dynamite team of Neil, Mike, Jason and Kat we also had Andrew Wildman joining us, so we knew it was going to be a productive day. All we needed now was people.

Hello, people

Sure enough, like clockwork, familiar faces began to crowd around the stand by 10:30 or so – later than I expected, but then I have this sneaking feeling that the organisers open the Expo late on Sundays to accommodate hangovers.

One person who certainly didn’t look hungover was Andrew, who turned up early to sketch, despite having been to a wedding the night before. While I briefed him a bit on how we were doing, Mat struck – asking him to sketch an Optimus Prime and a She-Hulk for some friends of his.

By the way, if you’ve ever wondered whether we (as staffers) ‘jump the queue’ to get sketches done, the answer is generally no. At every show we’ve done – right back to Brighton 2005 – we let ‘genuine’ customers come first, and wait until things slow down before asking for sketches ourselves. Often, that never happens, so Mat was smart to pounce on Andrew when he saw he wasn’t going to be too busy right off the bat.

He made the right choice too, as Andrew was on fire this weekend (so we put him out… badum-tsch). The very first thing he drew was the Optimus Prime. Mat asked for ‘classic Wildman’ and that’s what he got; a fantastic rendition of the leader of the Transformers, complete with inks and shade. Mat was so happy with it he decided to get it coloured, too. Then Andrew was straight on to his first human sketch of the day, as he drew Marvel’s green goddess, She-Hulk.

Soon Mike, Neil, Kat and Jason turned up; pencils were sharpened, computers were powered on, and we were off and running. In an unusual (for us) but extremely welcome turn of events, we had no sketches waiting to get drawn on Sunday morning – but were a bit behind on colours. That was no bad thing as we’d misjudged slightly how long colours were going to take, but no-one was complaining about the results.

On the sketching side though, things were perfect. We decided before the show that we were going to be strict on our numbers this time – 10 sketches in a queue per artist, maximum, and anything beyond that would go on to a reserve list for everyone. We hoped that would mean that we’d be able to be realistic with people about whether or not they’d get a sketch, and also that the artists wouldn’t get too stressed out/bogged down with the work. Sunday morning, it seemed to have worked.

Unfortunately, we still can’t do much about getting your sketch done if you turn up later in the day. This is a perennial problem (and I guess, a nice one to have) but it’s still something we want to work on. Turns out, I got lucky on Sunday with this, too.

Lazy Sunday

While the artists got busy and sketches got drawn, the funny thing was… at the other end of the stand, we didn’t. Get too busy, that is; unlike the previous day, which at times was manically busy for us as we sold games and merch, Sunday was very slow. Initially I felt just fine about that; it was nice not to be running around sweating in the heat. After a while though, it got to be kind of dull.

I escaped from the stand a couple of times, wandering around the hall trying to meet people I’d said I’d catch up with. During Saturday I ran into the guys from Geek Syndicate, a UK comics podcast which I’ve started to listen to recently; they were really nice guys, and Barry, one half of the duo, came past the stand on Sunday to say hi. I got him to pick up a sketchbook, and threw in an extra one to give away on their show.

I also met with Craig Johnson of Comics Village, who may potentially start a column on his Tabula Rasa experiences, and the editor of Tripwire, Joel Meadows, dropped by to try and sell us advertising. He was in such a rush I didn’t get a chance to talk to him about our games. One company I did do the ‘hard sell’ to was CBBC (or Children’s BBC) who are making a superhero-themed kid’s show. I gave them a card, told them all about CoH and asked them to get in touch – we’ll see what happens.

Worth a thousand words

On we went, careening past lunch-time and into the afternoon. To be honest I don’t have a whole lot to say about this period, so hey, I’ll just let a few of my pictures do some talking for me:

As mentioned many of the same players turned up for Day Two, bless ‘em, and few escaped my roving camera…

As you can tell, I obviously had a bit of time on my hands considering I took quite a few pictures. A lot of the afternoon was spent just hanging around and talking to people, eating the occasional cookie, and watching sketches being drawn. I even managed to get myself on the colouring list, as Kat and Jason had caught up.

After a lot of deliberation I decided to get a sketch I’d had done by Neil Edwards at last year’s Birmingham International Comics Show coloured, and despite Kat trying her best to prevent me watching, I did catch a few glimpses as she transformed the pencils into a glowing colour portrait. While I’d seen plenty of colours being created over the weekend, it’s obviously a bit different when it’s your own picture being done, and just like everyone else I was knocked out with the result. Behold!!

That would be Sky Pirate, who’s arguably my main, although I’ve been playing another character a lot recently. He’s on Union, in case you’re wondering, and while Neil perfectly captured the speed, power and grace I wanted in his drawing (and no, I didn’t ask for that… he’s just talented) Kat really brought him to life. Lovely.

There were plenty of other sketching highlights over the weekend – Neil really did a huge amount, and Mike did some lovely work too. One I will select for no particular reason other than it made me laugh was this particular pic that Andrew did on Sunday, of Josh Stormfall, a character of Swashbuckle’s:

Ah, that cheesy grin. As I recall this look and pose was a request from the player – well not exactly, but I think he gave Andrew the general idea, and this is what he came back with. Great isn’t it? Stormfall is apparently a male model, according to his background story… hence he’s often found doing ad shoots. What a perfect picture. Well done Andrew!

And that’s that, I guess

With the show ending an hour earlier than the previous day, we rapidly approached the end of the day – even though we still experienced that ‘magic time’ when both Mat and I find ourselves looking at our watches every ten minutes or so, each of us absolutely convinced that an hour’s passed.

Cookies were eaten, a bit more cake was consumed, and I probably sold a few more games and sketchbooks. One amazing thing that did happen though – at some time late in the afternoon I wandered over to Chris, who as usual was running the DTWT side of things with aplomb, to check on the sketch queue situation. We really wanted to avoid having any extra sketches left over, which usually means the artists have to do them at home (a situation we try to avoid; they’re mostly freelancers after all, and time is money).

“Mike’s got one more after his current sketch, and Andrew’s got one more… and Neil has too,” Chris told me. This was with over an hour of the show left – unheard of! Of course, it didn’t last for long, and players in earshot quickly gave Andrew and Neil another sketch apiece to finish off. Which just left Mike… who was working on a ‘special project’. A special project that had been conceived by two of our kind players (step forward, Crimson Archer and Ebon Hawk) and was now being executed under the subtle pen of Mr Collins.

What you say? Why, this little beauty:

Ahem. Luckily for all of us, Chris took it in the spirit which it was intended – and pointed out that when his girlfriend saw it, she’d be demanding that sort of body in no time. Still, I’ve got to say; you can see the likeness, can’t you?

Yes. Fear him. Not me! Him. (Oh and by the way, if you’re good, Slavedriver himself might appear in game somewhere. Yes, we have the name on at least one server….)

Oh and Mike? We all want caricatures now. Let’s face it, next show? It’ll be the three of us in one pic, I just know it. (Wallets out….)

Last slice o’ cake

With all of the artists’ final sketches complete, they could pretty much put down their pencils and relax; not so for our intrepid colourists though, both of whom continued to apply their digital hues to sketches long afterwards… indeed, after the show was closed.

We said goodbye and farewell to the die-hard players who’d stayed until the end, and wondered whether or not we should get rid of the last of Crimson Archer’s cake. Mat decided he’d have a little piece – one for the road, you might say – and proceeded to cram it into his gullet. As for myself, I just decided to look contemplative while I took photos of myself.

People drifted out of the hall, while every exhibitor around us seemed to pack up and leave faster than we could. While Jason and Kat continued to colour, Mat and I started to get our sweat on once more as we loaded up the van again.

Eventually, all we had left was an empty stand. No artists, no players, no customers, just us.

Without getting too philosophical… it’s always a bit of a Zen moment, then. A bit of a “Were we ever here?” moment. A bit of a “If we didn’t come to these things, would anyone even know?” moment.

Then I tend to think “Of course they bloody would” and remember I’ve got hours to drive home.

Out on the road again

Back to Brighton. Easy enough drive, fuelled as usual by a combination of caffeine, stupidly loud ’80s hair metal, and deliciously greasy and wrong fried chicken. Ohhh, the chicken.

We made decent time, and pulled into the office forecourt at about 10:30pm or so, unloading the van in the cold, windy dark. We didn’t care much about the wind. It was good to have air-conditioning.

The last Mat and Chris saw of me, I was walking down the road towards my flat, wrestling with my unintentional sail of a JLA poster.

Still – was certainly worth it. We’ll be back next year.