Comic Con

Everything that I had heard about Comic Con from Glo and Hannah was that it was super fun! They always talked about how cool the floor was, and how there were all of these cool cosplays, but I didn't  quite know what to expect. I started to get excited though once Glo and I sat down and started figuring out what our schedule for all of our panels would be. There was SO MUCH stuff! There was one hour where there were three different panels that I wanted to go to, and there just wasn't enough time to do it.

The three trolls from the Hobbit were outside the venue,
and were pretty fun to pose with :-)

I was determined to do as much as I possibly could, and thankfully I had Mark and Glo as partners in crime, who were more than happy to do everything they could with me. On Thursday I was able to get out of work by doing a community service project sponsored by GS, for which employees get a extra free day. I signed up to go teach a class of elementary school students, most of which were from underprivileged households. Thankfully, while I was getting trained for it, I found out that I could bring family or friends to help me teach. Since Mark didn't have anything going on Thursday morning, and Comic Con started in the afternoon, he came and taught with me! It sort of felt like what I think of if Mark and I had been missionaries together. We both knew that we needed to engage the kids, we knew to follow the plan, and we knew to ask questions. It was a lot of fun, but it was exhausting! Teachers are champions for working through that exhaustion every day. The kids were crazy cute though, and loved having us there.

I felt like there were three parts to Comic Con: the panels, the floor, and the cosplays. We went to eleven panels together over the three days, and I went to an extra one. There were all different kinds of panels! I think my favorites were the one discussing fairy tales or fantasy and what differentiates the two and the one with the puppeteer for BB-8. The fairy tales vs. fantasy felt like one of my lectures that I taught at Michigan, only with really smart writers. One of them is a recent favorite of mine, Victoria Schwab, who was definitely the star power on the panel! They all had some really good thoughts, like the effect of setting on fairy tale vs. fantasy and how to write the two.

 The puppeteer of BB-8, Brian Kerring, was just fun. He was an actor before he was a puppeteer, and that still shone through. He had funny expressions throughout the panel, made jokes about lugging around BB-8, and meeting Harrison Ford for the first time. Brian Kerring was in his green screen hoodie when Harrison Ford walked up the ramp of the Millennium Falcon. Han Solo looked him up and down, and said: "Now that's a look." He also got into the technical aspects of BB-8, like how it took two people to control head movements and making sure that it looked good for the camera. It was really cool to hear him talk about it, and made me appreciate how awesome those movies are.

This is the only picture I have of one of the panels. It was a panel about artists drawing monsters, and  somehow they were challenged to draw a zombie unicorn based off of Link from the video game Zelda. It was legit.

Second, the floor. I didn't realize how huge the main floor was going to be! It took probably fifteen minutes to walk from one side of the floor to the other, passing booths with anything and everything you could want in terms of fandom. There were T-shirts, artwork, toys, comics, books, and cosplay stuff. There were also all of these things for all different kinds of fandoms. Game of Thrones, Harry Potter, superheroes, Lord of the Rings, Pokemon, and ten other fandoms I didn't recognize. And these people were all incredibly talented. If I could have bought artwork from fifty different people, I would have. There were so many beautiful pieces, and it was fun to see all of them.

This was a cool part of the floor. Pictures with the Iron Throne! Unfortunately, the guy taking the pictures wasn't very good, but thankfully Mark's posing could overcome that.

  The floor also gave a chance to meet a lot of authors. My original reason why I wanted to go to Comic Con was because Pathrick Rothfuss, one of my favorite authors, was going to be there and hold an event one of the nights. Unfortunately, he had to cancel because of his father's health, but there were still a bunch of authors who I really like. Victoria Schwab was a big one, but there were several authors of Star Wars books that I've read for years and dozens of times. I was able to meet several of them and got to get their autographs. I have to say, Glo and Mark were pretty impressed by the fact that I knew all of these people and all of the books they wrote. It was super fun to meet them in person and tell them how much I have loved their books for so long.

Finally, there were the cosplayers. Mark and Glo's costumes were legit, but even their costumes were put to shame by some people. There were wings covered in feathers (like Hannah's from last year), huge suits of armor, and also some costumes that showed too much skin. ;-) The most amazing part was that a lot of people made their costumes themselves. My favorites were two women who dressed as Hela and Thor from the movie coming out in November. Their costumes even glowed! It was really impressive to see all of the work people put into their clothes, and it was super fun to take pictures with people.

These women made their own Hela and Thor costumes, and they were legit! They even lit up!

Okay, this guy looks EXACTLY like Mark Hamill. And his daughters were crazy cute in their Rey and Diana (young Wonder Woman) costumes

Master Chief with a Covenent Energy sword=Awesome

This was possibly my favorite cosplay. The Enterprise? Totally a clever and awesome idea!

Just some stormtroopers, nbd :-)

Dick Van Dyke came to Comic Con, so there were a lot of Mary Poppins and Bert cosplays. But these people were a cute couple.

Burt Maclin from Parks and Rec! =Andy Dwyer=Chris Pratt. This guy definitely looks like him!

Gotta love Boba Fett

Vulture from Spider-Man

Dr. Octopus

Despite all of the fun, none of it would have been nearly as great without Mark and Glo. They were game to go to all sorts of panels with me, even if they didn't seem to immediately fit what they would find interesting. They were such good friends throughout the entire weekend, and it was a blast going to Comic Con during the day, and then hanging out with them at night. I can't imagine going with anybody else (besides Hannah with Mark and Glo), and we are already planning on going together next year!

Baby had to get a picture with two of her favorite people!

Baby had to come with us for a couple hours the last day. This cosplay was so cool, and I wanted her to get a picture with this woman. Baby looks like she's mimicking Phoenix, but really she was scared pretty bad of the wings. Still a good picture!

At the end of the day Saturday, Annie just wanted to hang out with Glo. But Glo had Japanese homework. So Annie sat with Glo, ate a banana, watched some TV, and learned Japanese :-)