I went to the Thought Bubble con in Leeds yesterday cosplaying as Fraction’s Natasha (black dress, gold belt with circles, trench coat, red wig, ace of spades) with franztastisch cosplaying as a genderswitched Hawkeye (H hat, target patches on green coat, fantastic arrow sewing on the back of a black jacket, target t-shirt, purple converse, bandages and plasters) and Laura cosplaying as Lady Loki (amazing fur (fake) cloak, tunic dress, horns, evil boots). There were far less cosplayers than at the Manchester MCM, but notables were a couple cosplaying as The Will and Lying Cat (very wow), a Captain Jack (who swayed around in character), a Red Skull (incredible make up), a Bilbo (hobbit feet!), and a Peggy Carter (eating noodles, heh).

We mostly spent the day queuing up to meet and chat with amazing people. Fiona Staples seems surprised-bemused at the attention, aww. David Aja’s queue didn’t. move. for. ages. Then we realised this was because he was cheerful drawing lots of things for lots of people, and even doodling on things he was just supposed to be signing. Also, he asked for a large, black coffee as if wondering why ‘what type of coffee’ was even a question from one of the organisers lol. It was the first time he’d met Matt Fraction and the pair of them kept laughing at each other’s doodles. Matt Fraction is crazy and lovely, climbing across a table to have a photo with me and franztastisch! He saw us and complimented us on our cosplay when we were coming in and was signing at us across the hall when we were queuing! Kelly Sue DeConnick was chatting away to everyone without a break and is the sweetest person, seriously. I will now never stop admiring and fangirling this woman. My kind of crazy. Unfortunately we didn’t get to speak to Emma Rios, but the prints of the upcoming Pretty Deadly comics look incredible. Amusingly Kieron Gillen’s face is only serious when having his photo taken. He loved Laura’s costume, and she went to a Young Avengers panel with him and all the YA artists in the afternoon. We also spoke to Annie Wu who was sketching away and the lovely creative team of Porcelain.

Lots of shiny things, but I didn’t really buy much. Fiona Staples art, which was a must, some Avengers postcards, and a graphic novel. Me and Laura enabled franztastisch in buying comics though. We are shamelessly evil that way, heehee.

We talked over a picnic lunch in a relaxing room that was set up, and after the event finished at 5pm staked out a coffee shop at the train station for another two hours of chatting. There was the kinda nervous meeting online people offline thing – first time I’ve ever done that – but no one was an axe murderer *grins* and if meeting online people offline is always that fun, wow, let’s do it again!

I’m paying for it today, post-op achey and the cold I caught on top plus chatting yesterday means I’ve pretty much lost my voice, but worth it. So very much worth it.

Pictures up soon!