Posted in: Comics, Recent Updates | Tagged: Comics, entertainment, joel ronson, john romita jr, jon ronson, kapow, london, stan lee

Twelve Years Experience by Joel Ronson – A Weekend Full Of Kapow

Joel Ronson is a new writer for Bleeding Cool. A hit at the Kapow comic convention in London this weekend, he is a twelve year old young man who loves comic books. And wants to let other people in on it.

He also happens to be the son of Jon Ronson. Welcome to Bleeding Cool, Joel.

I was incredibly excited about Kapow! Comic-Con and it was not a disappointment.

Most of the events were brilliant; the only one that wasn't, in my opinion, was The Stan Lee Awards. I'm pretty sure I wasn't the only person expecting a proper award ceremony similar to the Oscars but with comics but it turned out to be a very un-organised show were people were literally being taken out of the audience to present the awards. John Romita Jr was the only person that I remember actually accepting an award but it was great to see him accept it, as he is such a great artist. The rest of the awards went to either Mark Millar or the pretty, and I emphasize the word pretty, funny stand up comedian, Billy Kirkwood to give to the actual winners when they see them next.

Although Billy Kirkwood presented most of the awards, there were a few impressive guest award givers such as Dave Gibbons, Frank Quitely and maybe John Romita Jr but I may be wrong on that one.

Even though Stan Lee had already said on Twitter that he'd won Man Or Woman Of The Year, it was still an exciting moment when you heard Billy Kirkwood say, "It's time for the biggy, Man Or Woman Of The Year".

For a joke that had already been planned, Billy said that one of the biggest names in comics was going to present Man Or Woman Of The Year. He asked the audience who had seen the Captain America trailer and then said this man has many, many times. And the special guest presenter turned out to be me and I was honoured but I also thought that if I was in the audience and a twelve-year-old kid had just come up on stage, or should I say floor, to present man or woman of the year I would be bitterly disappointed.

All in all my favourite part of The Stan Lee Awards were Stan Lee's two videos, the video that opened the award ceremony and his acceptance speech after I announced that he won Man Of The Year. I loved those two videos; I love anything Stan Lee is involved with.

But other than the awards, the events were fantastic. I loved the Clint panel, Mark Miller is incredibly funny and interesting and so is Stewart Lee.

Millarworld was also excellent, it was a panel including Dave Gibbons, John Romita Jr, Leinil Yu, Jock and of course Mark Millar as well as others. It was mainly a Q&A but they also announced some very exciting comics such as a comic Mark Millear and Dave Gibbons are working on and a Hit-Girl comic Mark Millar will write, that will be awesome.

The Marvel panel was also very interesting and I was excited by their idea of bringing Captain Britain back.

In Jonathan Ross' Fans Vs. Pro game show I got picked from the audience to be on the fans team with Stewart Lee and some other girl against Mark Millar, John Romita Jr and Dave Gibbons, three of my idols. That was definitely one of my main highlights of the weekend.

The stalls selling things were awesome! The comic stalls were excellent; they had awesome stalls for new comics, stalls for collectible comics and stalls for brand new comics that people pitched to you. There was even a stall that gave me a bag of free comics and a nice DC poster. I think my favourite stall was Orbital who sold comics from 10p!

The non-comic stalls were great as well; you could get some fantastic toys, posters, clothes, collectible items, artwork, games and even sweets! And yes, there was a place to get food and drink.

The World of Warcraft stall had a trading card game that you could play with the people working there. Admittedly the trading card game wasn't as fun as the online game but it was still nice that they were playing it with people. I think World of Warcraft going into board games and trading card games is a terrible idea. Jesus, they're complicated.

There was also something to do with a TARDIS from Doctor Who but I have no idea what.

There was also many signing tables but I didn't visit any as the only comic I wanted signed, Ultimate Avengers issue 001, I got signed by the lovely Mark Millar when he wasn't doing a signing session.

I decided to leave Kapow! Comic-Con on Sunday before the mystery movie that turned out to be Super, which I've heard isn't great. I would have been much more excited if it was Insidious, Thor, The Green Lantern or Hobo With A Shotgun.

Leaving early also made me miss the X-Men panel and the Spider-Man panel but never mind.

Anyway, Kapow! Comic-Con was the best convention I have ever been to and a wonderful way to spend my weekend. I loved almost every minute of it! So well done Kapow! Comic-Con, I take my hat off to you.

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