And there were of course. Over the two days I had my best sales yet at a comics show, selling out of The Rainbow Orchid volume 2 about three hours before the show ended on Sunday. I even had time to do a few more detailed drawings in a couple of the books, in preparation for the next customer who came along.

One of the big attractions of MCM is all the amazing costumes people put together to parade around in. A lot of the characters I didn't recognise at all, but two of my first visitors on Saturday were familiar faces, both as friendly Rainbow Orchid readers and for their outfits - Tintin (Leela) and Professor Mortimer (Simon) - brilliant!

A new wave of British mainstream graphic novels was well represented on the aisle I was in as I was situated opposite the new DFC Library books - the Etheringtons with Monkey Nuts, Neill Cameron with Mo-Bot High, and Sarah McIntyre with Vern and Lettuce, sharing a huge table with her studio mate and Derek the Sheep creator, Gary Northfield, who was selling his hilarious newspaper-style comic, Bad Dog.

I wasn't very good at getting up and circulating as I find it difficult to leave the table and miss any potential customers! On Saturday, however, I had to, as I was part of the Comic Book Alliance panel with Tim Pilcher, Ian Sharman, Tony Lee and Helen McCarthy. The CBA is a super idea and I really hope it spreads and has an effect (well, it already is). As I'm not involved in the organisation myself, I learned quite a bit from the other speakers!

Others have written far more interesting reports than this, so I'll point you in their direction - Sarah McIntyre (part 1, part 2, part 3), Neill Cameron, Robin Etherington and The Beat. I must also mention a huge congratulations to Dave West and Accent UK for a well derserved Eagle Award (these are now part of the MCM Expo) for his excellent comic (with Marleen Lowe) Whatever Happened to the World's Fastest Man?, winning Favourite British black and white comic.

A big thanks to everyone who came and said hello or bought The Rainbow Orchid, and another big thanks to Emma Vieceli and her crew for their organisation of the Comic Village. It's part of such a huge event, but several times over the weekend helpers came by to check that everything was all right, a detail that is very much appreciated.

And finally, and importantly, big thanks to Elyssa for giving up her Saturday and helping me out at the table that day. She lost her scarf on the train a couple of months ago, so was able to get a big chunk of knitting the new one done - and was kindly awarded a Stitch London badge by the lovely Lauren O'Farrell over on Gary's table.