MCM BUZZ PODCAST

Listen to the MCM BUZZ Podcasts: hosted by Stuart Claw and Granny Gertrude.

In Episode 2 you can catch up with all of the GREAT new announcements made regarding the Manchester MCM Expo event, the MCM Fringe Festival, MCM Awards and a whole load more.
Episode 2 Click Here!
Episode 1 Click Here!

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FRINGE Comes to the London MCM Expo!

Fringe John Noble & Jasika Nicole @ The London MCM Expo - www.londonexpo.com - www.mcmexpo.netOne of the America's most popular TV series FRINGE which will be returning for a 3rd season with the 2nd currently being broadcast on SKY1 will be visiting the May 2010 London MCM Expo in the form of John Noble the inimitable and eccentric Dr Walter Walter Bishop & Jasika Nicole who plays his counterpart Astrid Farnsworth.

John Noble is known for many roles including that of Denethor in the Lord Of The Rings trilogy, currently he plays the Vincent Price inspired Dr Walter Bishop bringing his dark but insightful view in the way he helps to solve the various mysteries that are tackled!

Jasika Nicole who plays Astrid along side Walter Bishop in FRINGE will also be in attendance both days.

Stars Of Oliver visit the London MCM Expo

One of the most endearing and heartfelt musical films ever is OLIVER, catapaulting the then child actor Mark Lester into the lead role as Oliver.

Another major character in the movie and one that earned him an Oscar nomination was Ron Moody in the role Fagin offering some unforgettable songs and of course being the task master pushing his ramshackle band of street urchins and in turn Oliver into a life of crime!

We look forward to welcoming the both Ron Moody and Mark Lester to the May 2010 London MCM Expo on the Saturday to meet fans.

Ultramarines to take MCM Expo by storm!

‘Ultramarines’, the first ever full-length animated feature based on Games Workshop’s futuristic Warhammer 40,000 universe, comes under the spotlight at May’s London MCM Expo.

Screenwriter Dan Abnett, director Martyn Pick and producers David Kerney and Bob Thompson join a panel to discuss the making of the movie and share some behind-the-scenes info.

‘Ultramarines’ is a tense sci-fi action movie set in the grim darkness of the 41st millennium. The film employs state-of-the-art facial capture technology and CGI animation to bring to the screen the Space Marines of the Ultramarines chapter and their adversaries in deadly combat. With a voice cast including Terence Stamp, John Hurt and Sean Pertwee.

Ultramarines is a Codex Pictures production in association with Good Story Productions.

Activision announce playable games for London MCM Expo!

Games set to be shown include Blur and Transformers: War of the Cybertron from Activision.

The setting for Transformers: War of the Cybertron is the planet Cybertron before contact is made with the planet Earth. The native sentient beings are at war with one another. A group of like minded robots have split off of the main faction to become Decepticons under their leader, Megatron. The leader of the Autobots, Zeta Prime, is killed leaving behind an inexperienced leader: Optimus.

“It's going to be a great event and we are pleased to be part of MCM Expo,” Activision brand manager Natale Giles.

MCM Expo to play host to Yu-Gi-Oh! TCG and DS National Competitions

Let the Duelling Begin! Konami Digital Entertainment GmbH has announced it will be holding its UK Yu-Gi-Oh! TRADING CARD GAME National Championship and the Yu-Gi-Oh! DS National Championship at the London MCM Expo across the weekend of May 29th-30th.

Konami will use the two-day event as a celebration of all things Yu-Gi-Oh!, showcasing new cards and forthcoming sets, with the highlight being the two main competitions. The TRADING CARD GAME National Championship will span both days and is open to all qualified players. Konami has allocated a playing area that can host up to 364 fans, and a grand knock out tournament will whittle away entrants until one is crowned National Champion, and will go on to represent the UK at the European Championship with the chance to qualify for the World Championship later this year.

For Full story click HERE

Street Fighter to be a Knockout @ London MCM Expo

The incredible voice talent that is Mr Kyle Hebert will be attending both days of London MCM Expo 29-30 May.

Kyle has voiced so many characters it would be almost impossible to list, but most recently he lent his voice to Ryu - Street Fighter IV, Kamina -Gurren Lagann, Kiba - Naruto, Vato - FMA and Aizen - Bleach.

Klye will be taking part in panels and signing autographs both days at May's London MCM Expo.

Caprica Creator & Lead Actor attends London MCM Expo

Ron D Moore the creator of Caprica currently airing on SKY1 will be hosting a panel at the May 2010 London MCM Expo, he is Known to Sci Fi fans for his work on Star Trek TNG, DS9, Carnivale and more recently on the critically acclaimed Battlestar Galactica.

Also in attendance is Esai Morales (Joseph Adama) in the Sy Fy series Caprica who will be taking part in the panel both days at London MCM Expo.


Mr Morales has made many other appearances on our screens, including NYPD Blue, Jericho, Vanished & 24.

Panel & autograph times TBC. Please note as always guests appear subject to work commitments.

DS World Record @ London MCM Expo supported by NINTENDO

The Largest Handheld Game Console Party! Do you want to be part of a Guinness World Record? All you have to do is attend London MCM Expo the 29th of May 2010 and bring your DS and a Game. DS & DS Lite are valid. The current record is held by Australia and was set back in October 2007.DS Record @ London MCM Expo

Nintendo UK are giving you a chance to win one of 5 Nintendo DSi XL's during the record attempt.

The record attempt will be held at Noon in the MCM Expo Theatre. No forms to sign on the day, just be there and help make the attempt a success. The record will be completed by 12.30. Fantastic Random prizes will be given out during the attempt.

Comic Village @ EXPO goes HUGE!

We're overjoyed at the amount of fantastic creators who are signing up to the village , and we hope you will be too. There's something of an international flavour amongst the creators this time around, with comic circles and creators joining us from Spain, Germany, USA and Japan - we hope they'll feel at home in the Village!
Paul Cornell London MCM Expo
Our very own home-grown independent creators are out in force again, presenting us with wonders like Marc Ellerby, OrangUtan, Adam Cadwell, Sweatdrop Studios and more, and within the ranks of the professional creators are returning stars including Ben Templesmith, Svetlana Chmakova, Jamie McKelvie and Kieron Gillen, and some new faces in the form of fabtastic writers like Paul Cornell, Robin Furth and lettering-legend Richard Starkings.

RPGing by Melissa Joy

Hi my name is Melissa Joy but you may know be better as Slim Definition a member of the ‘MCM COMMUNITY’.
I’ve been interested in video-games, particularly RPGs since I was roughly twelve, and started to get into anime around the age of sixteen.
So I’ve gained a fair bit of knowledge about both, my first RPG was actually Phantasy Star IV on the SEGA Mega Drive, I’d bought it from the brother of someone I’m no longer in contact with, and it was that person who sparked it all off.
He introduced me to Final Fantasy VII, The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, and later, The Legend of Dragoon.

My closest friend then showed me Grandia II, and Skies of Arcadia on the Dreamcast, but it wasn’t until a couple of years later that I obtained these games on the Playstation 2 and Nintendo Gamecube.

It was the same friend, who told me I should attend the London MCM Expo approximately two weeks before the event in October 2008, but I had no time to make a costume and I also really had no idea what I could do even if I’d had time.
So, I agreed to go on one day, I travelled to London to see my friend, and over that weekend I attended the Expo on the Saturday dressed in renaissance-style pirate attire, his didn’t come close to matching what so many other people were wearing.

Following this event, I became keen to get involved with the world of Cosplay, and thought that it might prove to be a lot of fun, and would also give me plenty of opportunities to meet many new people who shared the same interests and hobbies; this I found to be true.

Although I mainly play RPGs, my first Cosplay project was BloodRayne, which turned out better than I expected, and few people believed it to be my very first costume, but naturally I couldn’t stop there.
After I had made my debut as a cosplayer at London MCM Expo in May 2009, I decided that I wanted to continue the hobby to the best of my ability, since then I have added quite a number of costumes to my planned list, the first three completed have been made by me so far (albeit with a little help from my parents on a few aspects of them).
The second two are Rose, from The Legend of Dragoon, and Hrist Valkyrie from Valkyrie Profile 2: Silmeria, of which both of these games are RPGs that I would highly recommend to anyone who loves this genre of game.
Do note though, that The Legend of Dragoon is fairly rare and you’d need to be willing to pay a fairly high sum for it. It doesn’t usually go cheaply nowadays.
For those people who haven’t yet tried their hand at Cosplaying but want to and don’t know how, my suggestion would be to attend one of the MCM Expo events if you haven’t done so already to gain a bit of inspiration.
After that, think about whom your favourite characters are, and research what they wear.
As for making it look good, I advise you aim for 100% perfection.
You may not reach 100% exactly – I don’t think ‘I’ have personally – but if you aim for that 100% you’ll come pretty close I think, that’s how I work anyway.
On a final note, if you haven’t been to MCM Expo events yet, get yourself there, to say the very least, it’s big, and it’s inspirational.
Till next time, be creative.
Melissa

K-POP the Evoloution by Kimi Chan

Hello! Or it should really be Annyung Haseyo!

My name is Kimi-Chan, or most recognisable as Kyothekat on the Expo forums.
I have been asked to share some of my passion and love for K-Pop with you, to broaden your musical horizon and to give you all the latest news to come to the Korean music scene.

What is K-Pop? Well just like J-Pop, K-Pop is a shortened word for Korean Pop Music, Specifically from South Korea.
At the moment there seems to be a big increase of Korean music spreading around the world which is now know as the “Korean Wave”

My love for Korean music started back in the year 1998 with the band known as Shinhwa at that time I was heavily into the J-Rock scene and had only clicked a anime music video on YouTube to hear a most amazing song to accompany the video.
Obviously I had to go and search for this band and see if they had anything else I liked, after finding out about all of their music I then found out that they were Korean and not Japanese, this then led me to search for other similar Korean artists.

My fandom of Shinhwa wasn’t a big one, but it led the path for my fandom of bands I found after.

In 2003 DBSK (Dong Bang Shin Ki) translating to “The Rising Gods of the East” came to light with 5 members U-Know Yunho, Hero Jaejoong, Xiah Junsu, Max Changmin, Micky Yoochun, this band was signed under one of the biggest talent agents in South Korea, SM Entertainment.
To date “The Rising Gods of the East” are one of the highest ranking Korean bands as well as one of the biggest grossing bands to be known worldwide.

The problem with K-Pop is that you don’t just like one genre, or one group/solo artist but you find yourself loving one or two groups a little more than others.
The difference between Korean, Japanese and English music isn’t that big, but then they all have their sections in the music industry.
The Japanese have awesome Visual Kei/Heavy Metal/Punk music, English have some amazing Rapping/Ballad/Dance music, where Korea seems to have a awesome line up for Boy Bands/Girl Bands/Pop/RnB.

Korean bands all seem very similar, yet they all have their own quirks, for instance 2PM are known as the beastly and manly boy band, Showing off their muscular bodies, doing back flips, and break dancing; where as the boy band Big Bang are known as trend setting fashionistas, their fashion sense is always a hot topic, as well as not doing many dances but excelling in their rapping skills.

At the moment I do have a couple of bands that I am a little obsessive over.
One is actually in the Guinness Book Of World Records as having the “most amount of members for a boy band in the world”. This band is known as Super Junior and consists of 13 members, 15 members if you include the sub groups of Super Junior.
The band debuted in 2005, they have earned seven music awards from M.Net Asian Music Awards; eleven from the Golden disk Awards and are the second singing group to win Favourite Artist at the 2008 MTV Asia Awards.

The band is very well known in Japan, China, Philippines, Malaysia, Thailand, and even in America with their 3rd album “Sorry, Sorry” had over 150,000 copies pre-ordered, and was in the number 1 spot in Korea, Japan, and Malaysia for over 30 weeks.
On the first day of sales over 30,000 copies was sold making the album release one of the biggest albums in the bands career.

The “Sorry, Sorry” dance has become a big thing all over the world, and was a very big topic on most websites, the dance is very addictive as well as the song itself.

I did notice whilst walking around the London MCM Expo stalls that a few are now selling
K-Pop posters, stickers and even DVDs, photo books and other great merchandise, obviously I bought a heck of a lot of the stuff that was for sale, and am really looking forward to seeing more at the next expo.

Well I hope you have enjoyed reading a little bit about the reason I’m in to
K-Pop and I hope that you will follow my weekly blogs of up to date information of new and upcoming acts in the K-Pop world. I will be reporting on all the news and gossip, as well as reviewing many new songs with a few reviews of older songs and albums.
Bye, see you next time! Or Annyung, daume bayo!

X~ Kimi ~X