Birmingham Comic Con!

Hey everyone! Welcome back!

So, this past weekend, I, as part of TanraStudios, was over in Birmingham for the Birmingham Comic Con. On Twitter, I had been doing posts hourly or so on the Tanra Twitter, which I retweeted onto my own twitter too, documenting some of the events. Buuuuut, if you guys don't follow me on twitter, I'll be giving a bit of a summery/review of some of the events and how things went for us at the con.

Nadia and I actually went to Birmingham the day before the con, so we could leisurely set up and get used to the area so we wouldn't be late. We were staying at the Paragon Hotel, which was about half an hour or so walking distance from Edgbaston Cricket Grounds, where the Con would take place. The hotel itself is fairly big. We did have a leak in the original room we were given, but we were quickly given a new room. The leak itself looked like a new thing, since we only noticed about five minute after we got there when we heard the dripping. The room we ended up getting for the rest of our stay was fairly good. The beds were pretty comfortable, there was a kettle with tea and coffee we could have and the necessities were stocked too.

We only really stayed at the hotel to sleep, though, and once we had dropped off our things and we had finished setting up for the con, we had gone about exploring a little. We weren't too far away from the Bull Ring shopping centre either. About a 25-30 minute walk from the hotel, really. So, we ended up heading that way for food. I'm not a big foodie, myself, but Nadia is, so we'll probably cover our food adventures on the Tanra blog. I'll be sure to link it in on my next blog update. Still, I had fun trying something new. I had never been to Yo Sushi before.

Still, Con wise, since we had set up the day before, we got to the con on Saturday pretty relaxed, not needing to really do much other than relax until the con began. The first lot of people came in with early access tickets about 9am, and the rest of the public joined in at 11am. The con went pretty well, despite the fact that it probably wasn't the best suited con for us. The majority of people were there for western comics like Marvel or DC, but it wasn't to say that there wasn't any traffic for us. We sold several comics, the Luck Dip was as popular as usual and we even got a couple of commissions as well.

Speaking of the commissions, Nadia did one, while I did the other. I was asked to draw a full body sketch of my interpretation of a character known as 'Power Girl'.

....I'll admit I....actually hadn't heard of the character before. But admittedly my experience with western comics is pretty much limited to Spider-Man, Batman, and the cartoon versions of X-Men, Justice League, Young Justice, Teen Titans, Batman Beyond and the Marvel films that have come out in recent years. If Power Girl appeared in any of those it might have been something I missed or forgot about. Still, there are plenty of pics online that I could look at to get a vague idea about her. Either way, this was my interpretation:

As usual, sorry for my horribly photography skills. I took the picture from my mobile phone and I'll admit I'm pretty bad at photos. lol

Either way, we did fairly well at the con. We certainly covered the table cost and got a bit of profit too. We also made friends with some of our neighbours too, so that was fun, especially having some cool conversations, and we even got a free magazine at the end of the con, too!

Oh, we also visited a couple of the stalls. There were about three that we especially enjoyed. There was a stall that was selling these cupcakes that had bits of fudge inside which were really nice - I had this chocolate Orange one which was pretty awesome. They did really well too! No surprising, they stuff not only tasted nice but they looked wonderful too. One of the other stalls was selling some snack type items, such as ramune, and even things like 'Zombie Jerky' and Harry Potter style 'Butterbeer'. I didn't get to try the butterbeer, though our neighbour did (Apparently it was like a cream soda?) but I did try the jerky. It was a teriyaki jerky that had some type of food colouring to make it look like zombie skin. It tasted nicer than it might sound, though it wasn't something I could eat a lot of at once. Lastly, we visited a stall that sold bubble tea with little juice balls that burst in your mouth when you ate them. That stall was called Manhua Cha and those were really nice. I can certainly see us keeping an eye out for them again!

Yeah, I guess Nadia and I just really like our Bubble tea! lol As we always say, we'll always have bubble tea :3

The con finished at 6pm, and, honestly, we had a pretty good time! Or at least I did anyway. It would be pretty cool if we could go again. We'll have to see about it again a little closer to the time. I'll let you guys know if we head there again!

Still, while not a big con like the MCM conventions, it was still a pretty good one and I'd certainly recommend going. Apparently the tickets were pretty cheap, too. It was certainly affordable for us to table at, at any rate.

We stayed in Birmingham for another day, leaving late on Sunday. Oddly enough, at this point we didn't even need to use google maps at this point to get us to the Bull Ring. Its always nice to get your bearings. It was cool to get to look around. Being from a smaller town, it was nice to get to see some stores that just aren't available around my idea. I even managed to pick up a birthday present for my dad while I was there. We also got to eat at some interesting places, too, Edd's Diner and Café Soya, the later of which sold really nice bubble tea, too. We ended up with some to take away after we ate while we picked up our luggage and headed off to our respective transport home. I was pretty lucky, actually, I reached the train station and my platform just as a train I could take pulled in. I rarely have such timing!

All in all, I'll admit I had a pretty good weekend, from Con to just hanging out in Birmingham and both of us would love to go to the city again. Maybe even for a week trip instead of a few days. There was loads we didn't get to explore, after all.

I'll be sure to link in my next post the Tanra Blog(s) that will cover the eateries in more detail, if anyone is interested in our reviews of them. Who knows, you might want to visit them yourself!

Until next time!

Tara