Resonate returned to London this year for the extremely successful summer edition of MCM Comic Con, which boasted a huge venue at the London ExCel filled with vendors and artists catering to all tastes in pop culture.
Obviously many come to see the incredible cosplayers, who have put in months of effort to bring their favourite character to life, but the vast array of guests to meet and greet and panels to attend made the event more exciting. There was almost too much to do in the three days it is open.
by Resonate/Jun Kit Man
Huge Array of Guests
The guests this year were a true highlight of the event, with a large portion of the cast of Marvel’s Deadpool 2, from Colossus (Stefan Kapičić) and Negasonic Teenage Warhead (Brianna Hildebrand) to newcomer Domino (Zazie Beetz) attending. Sadly the man himself Ryan Renolds, who is probably still riding the high of the recent success of Deadpool 2, was missing from the vent.
Voices of Overwatch
Resonate did get the chance to attend a number of press conferences with the guests in attendance this year, including the voice actors of the Blizzard title Overwatch, which recently celebrated its second year anniversary. Voices of Mercy (Lucie Pohl), Genji (Gaku Space) and Zarya (Dolya Gavanski) have an obvious love for their characters. When asked what more would they want to do in the Overwatch world, the unanimous answer was their love and desire to do a movie. On the topic of animation, Gaku still boasts to the other actors that his animated short Dragons still has the most views on YouTube.
There is a huge amount of secrecy at Blizzard – very little is given away regarding events or upcoming hero releases. Lucie Pohl had no idea about the voice lines she recorded for the Mercy charity skin last month (which raised over $10m for breast cancer research), but was incredibly moved when she heard them for the first time. They have become a lovely family who obviously love everything they do with the franchise.
John DiMaggio
Not the only famous voice to make an appearance this year, John DiMaggio coming off the final season of Adventure Time expressed his sadness to be leaving such a unique show that in his words had something for the whole family. He is extremely excited, however, about his upcoming series Disenchantment that sadly he couldn’t tell us anything about, but it’s something to look out for in the future.
Most will probably know him best for his role as fan favourite Bender in Futurama; a performance he said was an experience all its own. He based the voice on drunk voice from that soul figure you find at the end of a bar late at night.
David Hayter
A personal highlight was the chance to meet David Hayter, perhaps most famous for the being the voice of protagonist Snake in the Metal Gear Solid series. He loved the role and counts himself exceedingly privileged to have brought joy to so many people through the performance, with his personal favourite game out of the series being Snake Eater. Outside of the gaming world he is a screenwriter perhaps sparking off the flurry of good superhero movies with X-Men and X2, as well as adapting Watchmen for the big screen.
He explained his worry about adapting a much loved graphic novel that he rang Alan Moore who expressed that this would be David’s work and he had every confidence in him portraying his own vision, but would be happy to help along the way.
by Resonate/Cohan Chew
Panels and Workshops
Voice actors from GTA V
There were a whole host of panels from cosplay to Q&As, one of the more popular panels this year was for the voices and faces of the extremely successful GTA V. Shawn Fonteno (Franklin), Ned Luke (Michael) and Steven Ogg (Trevor) sat down for an hour to tell the tales of how they ended up in the roles of the infamous characters and the strain of performing in motion capture. Steven was surprised by the overwhelming success of GTA V, which is still going strong even after its release 5 years ago in 2013.
Ned and Shawn both have played the online game, with Ned racking up the most hours on the game and at on point setting his twitter followers on a now unnamed troll. We all know that it would be Trevor who would most like win a fight between the in game characters, but when asked who would win a real life fist fight all the fingers pointed to Shawn (as he sat flexing his biceps).
Overall an entertaining panel with people clambering for seats and large number sat on the floor.
Comic Book Writing
A focus of the workshops this year was to help aspiring comic book writers and artists. An interesting talk about how to make a comic if you can’t draw. Showcasing easily accessible apps allowing for the quick and easy creation of panels and bubbles. One piece of advice he gave was to focus on one idea at a time and work to create the full comic before moving on to another idea.
If you have more than one idea and can’t decide which to work on perhaps come up with a short story get that done fast with the aim to become more confident in your work and have the achievement of a complete work before continuing with your bigger ideas.
For the more skilful artists among us, there were workshops on using the wacom drawing tablet and associated software. Key tips and useful shortcuts to improve your own artwork were offered unreservedly.
Merchandise
If you are searching for merchandise then you would not have been disappointed. MCM did a fantastic job and collecting together a vast number of artists and vendors. There is no way that you can leave without buying something. The popular Pop Figures from Funko had a centre booth with a constantly flowing queue with people hoping to nab their favourite character from any franchise you can imagine. Some of the artwork in particular was spectacular.
by Resonate/Jun Kit Man
MCM Comic gets bigger and better with each passing year bringing together all people of all backgrounds united by their love for all things nerdy. We look forward to returning again in the future.
To see our full album of cosplay photos (Resonate/Jun Kit Man) from the event, be sure to check out our Facebook page.
