Amecon 2004 20 Aug - 22 Aug 2004, Leicester, UK

This was the first anime convention that we actively exhibited at and we really had no idea what to expect. We were ready to fight for our table when we got there but despite this being the first ever Amecon the whole thing went by with barely a glitch. The Con also lived up to it's name... ("Ame" means rain in Japanese). Needless to say, we got our table. The Friday was spent travelling, queuing for a very long time to register, playing games of blackjack in what was to be the Artist's Alley and stressing about the accommodation. The con was based on a university site, the con-goers were housed in the halls of residence. Hence there was a lot of tramping across the site throughout the con and much confusion over where we were supposed to be staying. I thoroughly annoyed the accommodation people for over an hour when it turned out that I had been put somewhere that was not only away from the people I had signed up with, but completely unlocatable. We found it after numerous misdirections and much wandering and eventually managed to get Dave moved to the same house. We put all our merchandise in the boot of a friendly car-owning con-goer and went to bed. Saturday started out much better. We hauled our stuff over to the artist's alley and commandeered a table behind the Coppic marker stall. We were set up by 10 and felt proud of our efforts standing behind our hastily made TSW tablecloth. The day only got better as more and more hats were sold, more amazing costumes spotted and hopefully, more TSW readers made. We met up with several fans of Two Sides Wide, it was amazing when people came up to us saying things like "Oh! I read your comic!". I also met some people from Gaia and managed to embarrass myself utterly by failing to register who they were. It was an amazing day in all and we managed to shift all the hats. Nearly 60 of them. That's an even greater achievement than making them. It was fantastic to see at least one hat in every room we went into. Even Monica Rial the voice actress (who was the guest star of the con) liked the hats, so we gave her one. She insisted on paying later, much to our amusement. She was great throughout the con, bouncing around being pink and fluffy and talking to everyone. We hung around with the guys from sweatdrop as they were opposite us all day. Keds even brought me a chair over when I was feeling a little dizzy from half a bottle of smirniff white ice and had been standing up too long. The sweatdrop table, as well as all the usual fantastic comics, sported a game boy advance with a little kitty face on the screen. When a button was pressed it went "mew!". This critter was easily the star of the artist's alley. The food situation throughout the week was...interesting. We had bought two pizzas from Asda without realising that we didn't have access to an oven. We microwaved the first lot, felt slightly ill and managed to cook the rest on a hot plate. This, supplemented with free pocky and various sweets/crisps saw us through 3 days of 2am nights. Sunday was altogether calmer. We handed in the Smirnoff fuelled competition comic of the night before (We didn't win) and hung around at our table once more giving out free keyrings and doing framed commissions for a fiver a time. I kinda regret not going to the masquerade or seeing any anime or attending any panels, but I got to go to the dealer's room and pick up some neat graphic novels. I fully recommend "Doll" if you like your manga a little freaky. The strangest thing in the dealers room was probably a lifesize Totorro, going for £400. Look at the pic for a size ref. I also managed to grope a panda before discovering that he had no underwear on. Slightly freaky but still entertaining. After the closing ceremony we headed over to the part of the site where the parties were to be held later. We sat outside talking with anime fans, drawing portraits and being entertained by goon show fans. A high point for me was watching two such people head off across the lawn singing "I'm walking backwards for Christmas". The spirit of The Goons has survived for such a long time... We spent Sunday night over in the bar/games room being paid in drinks for yet more sketches. We worked out that we'd done 11 sketches by the end of Sunday night, me drawing and inking and Dave exercising his new skills with professional colouring pens. We did two pics of Chii from Chobits, one Naruto, a dragon and numerous portraits. The atmosphere was great, there were glowsticks everywhere, inclucing the pack i'd bought for £3. Dance Dance revolution was in full swing, there were some real masters on that night. Incredible to watch. The bar also, very kindly, turned a blind eye to our under the table chicken sandwich making activities as we worked. Thanks guys!