Sheffield Space Centre at MCM London Comic Con 2014

I visited the Sheffield Space Centre book stall at the London Comic Con. Last year I started my Bleach collection and this year I bought several more manga books to add to my collection. Last year, we visited Forbidden Planet and I picked up a copy of the first volume of Attack on Titan. It had just come out and had got good reviews. This year I picked up the second volume whilst at Comic Con. I also picked up two new series: the first is a Manga that has been around a long time, Full Metal Alchemist. I got the first volume. The second one I picked up was one I had never heard of before but the person standing next to me said it was very good, so I thought why not. It was a series called Black Butler, I got volume 1 of that. I've also read the first volume of another Manga I got last year, from a shop in Manchester, called Uzumaki. I'll post more about that another time. Photo of the Sheffield Space Centre stall from Comic Con below. I'd love to visit the real shop sometime when I'm in Sheffield next.

MCM London Comic Con Saturday 24th May 2014

Well, this weekend the highlight was Saturday. I had to get up early to catch the train at 6:33am. I took my son and his friend and his friend's dad came along too. We get along well and it was an enjoyable day out all in all. I took a camera with me and took a few photos of people in costume, something I wanted to do in previous years but didn't get around to it. Well, I kind of did the first year I went on my own but I didn't take very many. I guess I didn't take that many this year either but I thought I'd try to get a few of the characters I like. See what you think below.

Arch Enemy's new vocalist

I have two Arch Enemy albums. They are really heavy with female growl vocals by the superb Angela Gossow. Angela has decided to move into the band's management instead of being on the frontline. The new vocalist will be Alissa White-Gluz, who is herself awesome, from the band The Agonist. The Agonist have replaced Alissa with Vicky Psarakis. I haven't got any albums by The Agonist but I have seen videos from both and they are awesome songs. The Arch Enemy and The Agonist new albums are going to be awesome.

London Comic Con

On Saturday it's time for Comic Con! I'm excited by the prospect already. It's a very early start as we're catching the 6:33am train into London but it will be worth it to get there early. I'm looking forward to walking around the show and seeing all the cos players wearing their costumes. Last year was good but this year will be even better. I'm taking lots of cash with me to buy stuff. Last year we went to Forbidden Planet and the Namco Fun Station but this year I'm not sure whether we'll do the same. I think it would be good, at least to go to Namco. I hope to take a camera with me and take some photos, in previous years I've not done much of that.

Skyline of the Future

I was in Manchester overnight this week and from my hotel room I had quite an interesting view of the skyline. It looked to me like something out of Bladerunner or something. There is a very tall tower that I think is a Hilton hotel and this dominates because it is so tall. There are some smaller domelike structures that I don't know much about. I took a photo of the tower on another occasion and you can see the two photos here.

Quiet day

I've had a quiet and restful Saturday afternoon and evening. My wife and daughter have been out all day and I dropped my son off at a friend's for a sleepover after lunch.
I mowed the grass and intended to have a videocall with my brother. we started but then his power went off so that killed it after a few minutes. Shame I was looking forward to a chat. never mind, we'll do it another time. I watched a Blu Ray disk I bought on Tuesday, it was Retrospect by the band Epica and it's very good.
I picked up the 6th instalment of Batman Eternal and the second volume of the Batman Court of Owls story. I've also picked up my copy of volumes 1-3 of the manga Bleach by Tite Kubo. I do like the style of it, I'd forgotten how enjoyable to read it was. It reminds me I have some other Manga volumes to read that I bought last year but haven't picked up. I feel a bit guilty about that! Especially since we have Comic Con coming up next Saturday!
This morning I enjoyed a Costa coffee blended with ice and it was very delicious. I enjoyed it while reading the paper and sitting in the window of the shop watching people go past. It was very relaxing.

Comics

I frequent my local comic shop regularly enough to have some standing orders. The first ones I started with was a series called All New X-Men. I have also been getting The Uncanny X-Men. I have progressed to getting The Punisher and I also get The Green Lantern for my son. A while back I bought the collection of Batman stories called Court of Owls volume 1. Today I spent some time reading it and I think it's fantastic. I've also recently starting getting the weekly Batman Eternal comics, I've read the first two and have three more to read but I'm hooked already.

Eurovision 2014 result

The Eurovision is now over for another year. Austria won it on the night, I thought the song and singer gave the best performance so it was a deserved win. I liked Armenia's entry (but the singer was a little creepy) and I thought Italy's entry had some merits being a slightly edgier tune. So for the first time in years I actually scored the same highest points to the act that was also the winner.

Lost Girl

his is another American TV series that I have discovered through Netflix. I have only watched the pilot episode so far but I enjoyed what I saw. The central character learns in the pilot episode that she is not human. She has a power to extract the life force out of people and enchant them through contact with her. She discovers that there are other non-humans living among us, a species called Fae. There are two factions: light Fae and dark Fae. She was asked to choose which faction to join or face death but she chose to live as human. She's got a young female thief as a partner who she rescued her from a rapist after he tried to drug her. She learns that she is a Succubus, a kind of female seductress in fantasy and folklore, which makes the series somewhat similar to Grimm but the show is made in Canada. I quite like the fact that it is more quirky than average and I didn't think such a show would be popular but it seems to have a good following and is into it's 4th season.

Eurovision Song Contest - 5 days to go

It is coming soon. It is the Eurovision Song Contest 2014 and it will take place in Copenhagen on Saturday 10th May. I love getting in some alcoholic drinks, some snacks and sitting down to watch the Eurovision Song Contest. I print off the scorecard every year and score each act. That's taking it a bit far I know but it makes it slightly more entertaining than just watching the songs and the boring scoring. The scoring in the last 10 years or so has been so boring because UK never gets any points, well not enough to be a serious contender anyway. Even so, I watch in the hope that one year the UK may achieve the impossible and win it.
I've only heard the UK entry once so far. It's not a song I would go and buy but I can tell it's a catchy tune and to me it sounded more like the kind of song that I would expect to hear in the contest. It's performed by a young lady called Molly, I hope she does well. She's the most attractive person we've had performing in a while. But because most of the UK entries just disappear, the acts who perform the songs seem to fade away as well. We've had Andy Abrams, Blue, Bonnie Tyler and Engelbert Humperdink each do a turn but to no avail. Come on the UK!

Grimm

A TV series that is available on Netflix that I have been watching recently is Grimm. I think it's quite good so far, I've watched 2 or 3 episodes something like that. The show is similar to what I regard as the trailblazer show of the type, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, because it is set in modern America but has fantasy elements - similar to the Grimm Fairy Tales. So, it's the classic good v evil set up. The good guy is a police detective who has a partner but the partner is unaware that his colleague is also a kind of guardian who has knowledge of evil creatures passed down through the generations of his family. If you like fantasy and mild horror then I think you'd enjoy Grimm.