Well where do start with this one...

I guess at the very beginning.

The headliners:

Billed as the 1st time Marvel has been to the UK, really one person from Marvel, and you bill that as Marvel coming to the UK? I saw him after Sunday and had a chat.  I could tell he wanted to get home. Time was 3.45, 15 mins after show ended and he was waiting for a cab to go back to NYC, and who would blame him.

Warren Ellis in and out before you can say "KAPOW!".

Sara Pichelli - who I may add is an artist, just doing signings.  Am I missing something NO sketches, what else was she doing?

I have spoken to a few artists that I know and the general opinion was along the lines of this:

Email, phone call who knows.......to artists

Kapow "Hi would you like to have table at Kapow"

Artist "That would be great"

Blah Blah Blah etc etc etc

Kapow "That will be £150"

Great....you dont invite artists then expect them to pay for a table, if you use them to advertise your convention.

Entry and Press Pass

Looked into press pass for the event. To get a press pass you needed the credentials of a rogue tabloid newspaper with the circulation of 3 million and Frankie Boyle as a columnist.  Cost of this, £1000, did I bother? No. Cheaper to buy a weekend pass for £35.  I then proceeded to see people with press passes that aren't even out of school wandering around the place.  Quite grating.

You had to buy a ticket before, which incidentally didn't sell out like last year, with no tickets to buy on the door.  I had to laugh to myself, not an award winning idea.

I had my ticket on my phone as it says electronic ticket - definition as follows An electronic ticket(commonly abbreviated as e-ticket) is a digital ticket. It may be issued by an airline, in road, urbanor rail public transport, and in entertainment.  Then it stated also to print it.  PARDON....so its either a e-ticket or it's not!  I didnt bother to print it as in this day and age a barcode should be able to be scanned directly from a phone as has been proved elsewhere. Guess what?  It didn't work.

So I finally got in, and headed over to queue for some signatures, 1 hour before anyone was going to start. Signatures limited to 3, ok pretty tight with 3 but "3 is the magic number" you need to remember. Staff were all over the rule, which baffled the artists, writers and even Joe Q didnt realise this and looked shocked when I mentioned it.

So as staff were over it like a rash then they should close the queues so to accommodate the time to sign 3 things, did they, did they f*!k!  What they decided to do in their wisdom was, when they realised they were f&*%^$d they changed the limit to 2.  WHAT,after spending maybe 2 hours queuing and having chosen my 3 comics to be signed, I now must now lose one? This caused no bone of contention and at some times they even limited it to 1.  You know who you are "ROBOTS" with the defined answer of 3 comics max. No matter what question you asked them "3 comics max" was the response.

Over the course of the weekend I was told by a certain staff member and I quote:

"Hope you're not going to be a pain today".  Not in a funny way though, as you'd jape with a friend or someone you had previously had a joke with but in a rather serious way,

"Why can't you be like the others? Why can't you play by the rules?"

I need to speak to Scott, who I had previously done the day before. He asked me to chat with him at his signing the next day. So I waited for a gap. Dear Staff, Do you really expect me to line up to ask a question to him after I have arranged something with him yesterday?  I really can't go on more about this but my God she was the rudest member of staff that I had ever met at a convention, unhelpful, moody, I just dont know. She would come over and state in her annoying tone, "3 comics max and make sure you have them ready"  yeah whatever Im not a f&*^£"g child, I know how to sort out my comics for a signing. I really could go on for a very long time but I really don't want to waste any more print about her but for one last comment; I waited in line like a good boy...my 3 comics in hand...like a good boy...went to over SP.

"Hi how are you" the usual chat etc, whilst having a chat to SP (who incidentally happens to draw Ultimate Spiderman, one of fav comics), I was rudely interrupted by "she who wont be named", who promptly told and I mean told SP that she shouldn't spend so much time talking to me!!! Are you f*%$££g having a laugh, she hadn't finished signing my comics, I had waited patiently for my turn, so let me have my f*$%^&g 1 min having a chat, OK.

So after all this bollocks with the signings, I might as well get the wrestling out the way, ok thats been mentioned moving swiftly on.

Artist alley, hey lets put them upstairs away from everone, with sh$% lighting really tight areas, if you even knew anything about your guests you would know that Barry Kitson needs more space than anyone, but alas another f£$% up done.

I could go on and on but must make some positive comments of the convention

ok all done we got that.

My personal comments...great to see the likes of Adi Granov and Tamsin, if you ever get the chance to see that guy in action drawing or even take a look through his portifolio.  WOW. Great to see the familiar faces John, Imran and George, the guys from a place in space, Richard from Limited Edition comics, thanks for lending me a member of your staff.  Jeff at Close Encounters, good luck with your new convention. Mister Who, whos 2 edition was released at London. Scotts Collectables will be in contact soon.  Ian Churchill for coming up from the coast to do a signing (cough cough) waste of his time for someone so talented an artist to be signing only.

All the regulars I spoke to. James for letting me crash with him. Without some of you I would have lost more hair than I already have.

All the guys who I spoke to over the weekend.

Few Awards I wish I give over the weekend.

Scott Snyder what a great guy writing some incredible stuff at the moment, personally liking American Vampire.

Best over heard comment (told to me by person who over heard it): "This is so much better than LSCC, better artists and writers". You f*&^%$£g retard, I am not going to name the list that went to Kapow and then the list at LSCC, but I can tell you that LSCC knocked Kapow out the water.

Worst comment I kept hearing:

"Only 3 comics"

I could go on but this is making me depressed, but I will try and sum it up.

Never have I been to a convention where your headline guests cannot be spoken to when you have waited 1 hour to get a signature, or even been accessible. Never have your headline artists not been sketching.

Worst convention ever and please Kapow take the f*&^%$g words of comic conventions and put "3 comics only in your title", they really don't know what they are. Trying to state they are the UK equivalent of San Diego, ok but San Diego gets 120,000 people through its door unlike what maybe 2,000.

They say Bristol is finished after this I would say Kapow is finished, what a shower of s%$^. Will I go back next year, probably just to meet up with friends and colleagues, but to try and do anything you have to be kidding me.  Best thing about Kapow and the weekend is........walking the f&^%k out at 3.30 on Sunday and making my way home.

We may not be a big site but are readership per month is bigger than Kapow got over the weekend.

It's s%^& stay away, but if you like queues and rude staff members and not actually meeting any on the headliners then go next year.

Better to go to Thought Bubble in Leeds or LSCC in February.