The City of Heroes and Villains roadshow is returning to the the Bristol Comics Expo for Year Two, with the chance to meet the City of Heroes community crew and get your CoH/CoV characters drawn by top professional artists - while donating to charity! What more could you want from a weekend?

Our community team, including Bridger, Amboss and Midoh, will be on hand to hand to talk to players, hand out prizes and generally hang out - as well as play a few games of the City of Heroes trading card game. If you’ve got a question about CoH/CoV or just want to meet fellow players, this is the place to be.

When: Saturday 13 May – Sunday 14 May
Where: British Empire Hall & Commonwealth Exhibition Hall – Bristol (map)
How Much: Adults: £6 for day tickets, £12 for the weekend. Children 11-16: £1 per day. Children 10 and under: Free, if accompanied by an adult.

Read on for full details…

Get your hero recreated by a top comic artist

This year’s main event is the Draw the World Together charity sketching project, back after a runaway success at the Brighton Comic Expo in November. For a small donation to charity, you can get your hero or villain drawn by artists including:

• Andrew Wildman (Transformers, Spider-Man 2099)
• Ian Gibson (Halo Jones, Sam Slade: Robohunter)
• Duncan Fegredo (Enigma, Grendel, Jay & Silent Bob)
• Charles Adlard (Astronauts in Trouble, The Walking Dead)
• ... and many more!

For more details on the artists participating visit the charity page at Comic Expo’s official site.

Pssst… if you don’t have a hero or villain you want drawn, ask nicely and our artists will be glad to sketch something or someone else for charity.

Artists’ schedule

Please note this schedule may change before or during the Expo - for the latest details, drop by the NCsoft stand. In rough running order, then:

Saturday: Ian Richardson, Mike Collins, Boo Cook, Charles Adlard, Nat Sandells, Ian Gibson, Andrew Wildman

Sunday: Ian Richardson, Duncan Fegredo, Geoff Senior, Martin Griffiths, Staz Johnson, Nat Sandells, Charles Adlard, Andrew Wildman

How to get a sketch

Pretty simple, really: just come up and ask for one. Our community chaps will be on hand to keep the crowds in line and take your donations. Depending on demand, we may add a ‘virtual queuing’ system which will let you take a number and return later for your sketch.

How much will you be donating? Well for just £10 you can get a full body sketch, or a headshot will be just £5. All proceeds will go to EveryChild, a charity working to help disadvantaged children all over the world.

Important: bring or send us sketch references!

Unlike at last year’s Brighton Comic Expo there will be no access to City of Heroes or City of Villains on the stand, so if you want a sketch of a specific character you can either:

1. Bring printed references for your character, or
2. Send screenshots to us, and we’ll bring them along for the artists

If you pick Option 1, make sure you take several screenshots of your chosen character(s) from different angles, including any close-up details you want the sketch to capture. Then print them out in either colour or black and white (any sketch will be in pencil, so it’ll be black and white regardless) and bring them with you.

Alternatively, you can take screenshots and send them to us. We’ll bring them along for the artist to look at - you’ll just tell us which hero or villain is yours.

• To take a screenshot in-game, read these instructions
• Take several screens from different angles - use a neutral pose - and do some close-up
• You can take multiple shots of different characters, but please send all screenshots together in one email as a ZIP file
• Send your screenshots to with ‘Comic Expo Sketch’ in the subject line
• Your screenshots should all be in JPG format
• Your email shouldn’t be larger than 1Mb in total

Got any questions? Ask ‘em in the Forums (link).

Bag some swag!

The community crew will have a bag full of stickers, postcards, trading cards, Hero-clix and posters to give away to loyal followers of Statesman and Lord Recluse. Also we have plenty City of Heroes free trial discs to give your friends a taste of life in Paragon City.

Plus the Comic Expo, too!

When you’re not hanging around the NCsoft stand there’s a whole host of other stuff to do at Comic Expo.

Amongst the guests are artist/writer Dave Gibbons (Watchmen, Green Lantern Corps), legendary writer/editor Roy Thomas, artist/writer Howard Chaykin (American Flagg!), writer Geoff Johns (Infinite Crisis, 52, Flash), artist Mark Buckingham (Fables), and artist/writer Alan Davis (Captain Britain, The Nail) plus many more.

Looking for a hotel?

Unfortunately the official Expo hotel, the Ramda Plaza is now fully booked. But do not fear you can still find places to stay at www.laterooms.com and at Bristol Tourist information. Book quickly though as the bargains are going fast.