Last spring 30,000 teenagers packed into the ExCel centre for MCM Expo and this time the venue was even more crowded. The costumes were amazing; some of the visitors must have put a hundred hours into making their favourite manga or anime outfits, and it was great to see so many kids interested in books, comics and storytelling. While the show used to feature mainly Japanese animation and its spin-offs, the amount of tables manned by British indie creators has steadily been growing, thanks largely to the organisational skills of Emma Vieceli, artist on Manga Shakespeare titles 'Hamlet' and 'Much Ado about Nothing'. Garen Ewing had a stall selling his latest title with Egmont, 'The Rainbow Orchid', a comic drawn in the clear-line style many people know from the Tintin books. Gary Northfield was selling Bloomsbury's 'Derek the Sheep' book, a collection of his Beano strips, and I sold copies of 'Morris the Mankiest Monster', despite it being a picture book rather than a comic (no one seemed to mind). As ever, loads of kids carried signs advertising 'free hugs', and it was great to see such a vast number of kids out with their friends, behaving remarkably well and having a great time together.

Report submitted by Sarah McIntyre