EVENTS: Middlesbrough's Comic Con - Teesside Unleashed 5

Middlesbrough's Teesside Unleashed 5 Comic Con, organised by Hunter Toys was such a busy day - and it seems, very successful too. Guest of honour was Jeremy Bulloch, who is famous for playing Star Wars' bounty hunter Boba Fett in both Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi. It ran for one day only on Saturday, 7th February 2015 and was on from 11.00-16.30.  We were a bit late arriving and we had to wait in a queue to get in - but it went down quickly and everyone was in high spirits. Whilst in the queue we got to interact with some characters from various franchises - there were Storm Troopers, a Wookie, a few Dr Who's and a Judge Dredd who booked the guy in the queue in front of me. He got three months probation for "excessive happiness".  Closer to the front we saw an Ewok, Mara Jade brandishing a pink lightsaber and a few other Star Wars characters dotted around.

Teesside had come out in force today - the car parks were full and people were dressing up too. We saw a few mini Thors and Spidermen there - one thing is for certain, if the world was in danger we were very safe indeed.

Inside was busy - but had plenty of things to buy, collect, interact with and marvel at. These included novellists, artisan products and creative things like framed Lego characters and film cells.  There were a lot of vendors - but much of them had a very biased Star Wars slant, due to the guest of honour. I found a young lady called Gemma May selling some art prints she had drawn herself and they were stunning. She asked £5 for each one, and her Boba Fett ones sold out almost immediately. I am the world's biggest Iron Man fan, so had to buy the Iron Man print from her. She said that she also does commissions and that if there were any heroes (or villains) that you wanted drawing she could do them for a fee. I was really impressed by her art - check out her Facebook page and see if you agree - https://www.facebook.com/gemmamayart (there's a kinda Iron Man image like mine on that page too).



Who Ya Gonna Call?
Brickshire, obviously.

Some organisations attended too - these include the fabulous Brickshire - Yorkshire Lego Group with some amazing Lego designs. These ranged from scenes out of famous films to creative endeavours like spaceships and the like. One of my favourite was the 3D Ghostbusters logo (left) which I thought was really inspired.

Other film related Lego constructs included a few cool Lord Of The Rings scenes including one in the Shire and one battling the Balrog. There were a few Harry Potter ones too - and they were brilliant. They were definitely on a par with the Star Wars ones my brother and I saw at LEGOLAND last September.

Round the corner from here there was another stall selling framed Lego mini-figures that quotes related to the mini figures. So they may have been a Darth Vader one saying "I am your father!" or a Gandalf one saying "Bilbo, the ring is still in your pocket!" for example. I'm sure that's not exactly what it said, but that is my favourite quote from Lord of the Rings! There was an awesome 6 figure Avengers one too!

If Lego wasn't your bag you could check out the Tony Stark "Hall Of Armors" - featuring two static Iron Man armours and one that was being cosplayed by someone as both Iron Patriot and Iron Man himself. I reckon there was a vibranium shield in the style of Captain America kicking around there too - if that picture on the right has anything to do with it. I took the picture  while I was waiting in the queue to see Jeremy Bulloch so I didn't have much of a leeway on getting a good shot. Talking about the queue, Jeremy Bulloch was very popular indeed and was posing for photos and signing stuff for everyone. I got to meet him and he was a lovely man, and I even got a signed photo to take away with me.

Keeping in with the Star Wars theme there was also a scene where, for a price you could pose with Jabba the Hutt - but sadly there were no slave- Leia's to be seen. There was a lot of Star Wars cosplaying too - and I got to have a photo with some of them (see below). To round off the day there was a Cosplay Competition which featured a Mandalorian Soldier, two Jack Sparrows (and very good they were too), Shrek and Fiona and Lady Deadpool to name a few. Every single person was happy to pose and have photos taken with you if you asked.

Teesside Unleashed 5 was a fab day out - it literally cost £3 entry and was really good fun. It was a good start to my Comic Con Calendar - and they are coming back in October - if you fancy going here's the current link.




Meeting the real Boba Fett, Mr Jeremy Bulloch

Here's me with a Star Wars team