Attending MCM Birmingham Comic Con 2024

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Attending MCM Birmingham Comic **** 2024

I only arrived at the Birmingham MCM venue on the event’s last day. My travel from London had been delayed by 30 minutes, and I had kept myself occupied with books and video games on the coach (the humble 3DS is still the most durable and convenient handheld, in my opinion, and Tetris remains a classic traveling time killer). Upon arrival, I realized I had been dropped in the center of the city. It was a cold afternoon in early December, and I realized that it would be dark soon. I was still miles from the actual venue. My research on the event had not been good enough. I have been to Birmingham before and thought I knew enough about the city. I didn’t, judging by my lateness and lack of knowledge of the venue’s location. After some wrong turns, and with the cold and darkness setting in, I found a bus that would take me near to the venue. There were a couple of hours left before the whole event finished.

On the timetable of talks, there was a “This is Furrringham” talk on furry cosplay and a talk on Japanese calligraphy. The furry talk didn’t interest me, and I hardly knew what the meaning of calligraphy was. However, once I picked up my press pass and began exploring the event, I realized that the art stalls were colorful and vibrant, and the exhibitors were in such good spirits that I decided to spend my time looking at the wares and talking to the often exuberant exhibitors. This article looks at my experience of the trip and the event and highlights some of the great-looking cosplayers and friendly exhibitors that I met on the day.

From cards to virtual reality

The spaces that *** MCM Comic Conventions are held in are huge aircraft hanger-like spaces. The area at this event was filled with spaces for panels, talks, and a lot more. Towards the ends of the space are pop-up stalls that sell burgers, ice cream, and even alcohol. Then there are pop-up art stalls ranging from artists that create prints of art based on anime and gaming series, to stalls selling Pokemon cards, to booths from serious game developers exhibiting new games using hardware, such as VR. There certainly is a great diversity of booths and stalls. This event in Birmingham was no different and had an especially diverse and impressive range of artists displaying their material.

The presence of cosplayers were also prominent. I noticed a lot of individuals cosplaying Star Wars characters. I saw and spoke to more than one Tuskan Raider, a huge Chewbacca, and a Bobba or Jango Fett. I remember exclaiming to the Tuskan Raider that The Book of Boba Fett is hugely underrated. A Stranger in a Strange Land is possibly the best Star Wars-related piece of media I’ve seen since Rogue One. There was also quite a lot of Star Wars merchandise available. Another highly visible series was the Pokemon series.

atendee

Gotta’ buy them all

Pokemon cards have been around for over two decades, and they’re arguably still as popular as ever. Birmingham MCM ComicCon 2024 had many stalls displaying and selling Pokemon cards. I took a picture that showed a first-generation deck Charmeleon on ***** for £1.50. I don’t know if that’s a good deal or not, but the imagery brought back memories of the initial Pokemon craze back in the late 90s and early 2000s. That card was from that era, and while I know that its evolutionary form, Charizard, can be worth in the hundreds, Charmeleon itself doesn’t seem to be rare at all. The event was also home to stalls exhibiting anime art. Anime as a medium is wide-ranging and tackles a broad array of topics. As Halloween has just passed, I noticed a lot of spooky horror anime-related material. The image below is of a display of hand-made masks based on various mythical and popular horror creatures and characters. These masks looked and felt premium.

This trip to Birmingham, with the cold and darkness approaching, put me in a particular mindset that drew me to horror merchandise, stories, and vibes. Whether that was due to Halloween being not too long ago or just random changes in thinking, the whole trip didn’t feel warm and fuzzy. I think that mental health issues can occur when an individual has poor mental health due to many things, such as genetics, but also circumstances and experiences.

I think one of the wonderful things about video games is that through the art, it is often expressed how the characters would relate and understand someone with mental health problems (and that the creators of those characters could relate), and also that the experience in itself is escapism from those issues. The subcultures that are represented at Comic Cons, such as this one, usually like particular kinds of video games. The ‘furry’ community is a community that gets a lot of flack from people. I can identify Sonic as a great and iconic series, and Star Fox has cool creature designs (two series that I know are popular among the furry community). I didn’t attend the “Furringham” talk. Maybe next time I will. I want to learn more about the furry subculture because I want to understand their perspectives, and I think it would be fun to see the main anime and games that inspire them.

A stranger in a strange land

Despite it being late on a Sunday, most of the cosplayers, attendees, and exhibitors were in positive frames of mind, and everyone was quite chatty and happy. It was dark outside at this point, and the people in the stalls were starting to pack up. I remember speaking to a cosplayer who was dressed as a character from the Persona series. They seemed impressed that I knew that the Persona series was a

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from the Shin Megami Tensei series. The Persona series is mainly set in Japanese cities. Demons appear from the depths and attack the young protagonists. Partly because I missed my bus back to London later in the night, I began to feel like a character from Persona on this trip. Demons didn’t physically appear, but with the chaos and randomness of life in modern times, it probably wouldn’t have surprised me too much if they started spawning from a dark alleyway.

I ended up spending the evening in central Birmingham in a market-like area where Christmas tunes were playing, and people were drinking mulled wine. This was a big difference in the vibe of horror and Halloween. This was positive, but I wasn’t happy that I missed my bus. To cut a long story short, I was home in London by the next morning. The birds were singing, and the sun was shining. Everything had returned to normality; the Birmingham MCM ComicCon was over. It had been an event that I only partially attended. However, there had been a strong sense of awe for classic retro franchises such as Pokemon and Star Wars. The exhibitors were bubbly and showed great art that portrayed vision and passion for anime and gaming franchises. Overall, it was an event that I would recommend whether you have mental health issues or not. Even if you only attend for a short amount of time, it can be worth it to mingle with those who are passionate about the same things you are.

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#Attending #MCM #Birmingham #Comic #****

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