I spent most of my time inside Expo at the Comic Village, and bought FreakAngels vol 3, Crossed 007, Frankenstein's Womb by Warren Ellis, Black Summer by Warren Ellis, Chronicles of Wormwood, Preacher : Ancient histories, Cages, Cancertown, and Layer Zero from Insomnia Publishing, and looked at and longed for much, much more. Oh and a large FreakAngels bag as well. Yeah, I'm a Warren Ellis fangirl, I guess it shows!
I enjoyed the Comic Village more this time round than ever before - there was lots of variety, plenty of space, everyone seemed very keen for you to browse and to tell you about their stuff if you wanted to be told. One of the things I love about it is how it's changed so much over the years and although most of the Expo is still anime, games, sci-fi (and there's nothing wrong with any of that! Except they're all a bit crowded and noisy..) is that this time for the first time ever I was going FOR the Comic Village most of all. I love the way you get independents / self-published stuff next to Avatar Press, for example - I bought books I could have bought from my local comic store (if only I had one) but I also bought books I would never have discovered anywhere else. I know there's a few comic events going on here and there but they usually seem *entirely* small press, and much smaller, and I love the Expo for its all-round experience (and yes, I do cosplay. And may do a freak angel next! Though I promised Jacen Burrows I'd be a 'Crossed' if Avatar are back next October...).
I *would* like to see more stalls selling assorted comics / graphic novels - I only found one and could barely look at their selection as it was always too crowded, and much as I love my Avatar Press I was hoping to pick up a couple of Vertigo titles I've read about online but would like to look at before I buy - no comic store near me and although you can easily buy bigger name books on Amazon or whatever, I like to have a look first!
Apart from that - Avatar should come back again
and so should Mr Ellis, come to that. He did sort of secretly enjoy it even if he didn't really want to , it seems. Paul Duffield is one of the loveliest (and talented!) men in existence I believe (and wasn't too phased when I said I'm his stalker, which is nice!) and I very much enjoyed the chats I had with Jacen Burrows and Keiren Gillen - and other people too, but they were probably the people I talked to most. The Comic Village basically made my Expo and I'm already looking forward to the next one
