Previous experience reminded me to get to Orlando early, monstrously early, and this time I got there by 6:30 AM well before traffic got to be a nightmare. There are no two ways about it: either get there too early and sit and wait in the hall, or else get there too late and sit in traffic.
This time I went fully dressed as a Jedi. Whereas I wandered the Tampa Comic Con without the robe/cape and chest pad, this time I got safety pins to help keep the chest pad in place and I also dared the sweat factor the robe would inflict. I only hope my deodorant held out. If any other MegaCon attendees can note the bad body odor, I apologize if I doth offend...
I also spent the money to buy a working lightsaber. I saw these at the Tampa Con in August and envied how eye-catching they were. Also gave me a good excuse to get into saber battles with Sith Lords.
Other Jedi Knights were cool, though.
The crowds were massive as always.
They at least moved the convention back to the larger West Concourse. Last year's stay at the South Concourse was more compact, less navigable. Except that we STILL have the artist alleys walkways too narrow for people to pass. Dammit, convention managers, give us another four-five feet with designated traffic lanes!
I was perusing the artists this time to see about... well, got a project in the works to have a comic-con at the library I work. I'm stuck on a name, but I'm leaning towards Barto-Con (Bartow Con is... meh. Bart-Con is too Simpsons, not sure about Bart-i-Con). I don't think Barto-Con is taken. (Update: Barto-Con is dead. Long live Bartow SyFy.)
Here's some of the artists' and artwork links I looked at. Top of the list is Mike Maihack: I mentioned before I love his work with the Batgirl/Supergirl fanart.
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| Yes, bought the print, he finally had it for sale. |
There were a lot of artists I looked at, but oh no a lot of the ones I think would fit a library con scene are out-of-staters! :(
On the bright side the Mandalorian Mercs have local chapters (Buurenaar Yerda in FL)!
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| The Mercs had this set-up for fans to pose. |
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| Hanging out with the bounty huntress! |
Mike was my college roommate back in the honors dorm at U Florida. I hadn't seen him since... good lord, graduation year which is 1992. He's been all over since then, civil engineer for the Navy during a few tours in the global war, stationed in San Diego for awhile (He got to take his kids to the SAN DIEGO COMIC-CON, the lucky SOB), moved back to his hometown of Orlando for local work. We'd kept in touch via Facebook, realized MegaCon was a good chance to meet up and re-acquaint.
He's gotten grayer (kids will do that to you) and I've gotten fatter (chocolate will do that to you).
Hold on. Another Sith Lord walked by.
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| No fair. Sith Lords get to Force Choke for the win. |
Some of the other things to do at the con is sit in on discussions and Q & As, but the only one worth my interest was one on Writing: Character Development with Bill Hatfield, Glenda Finkelstein and T.S. Robinson. I didn't find out until later that more discussions worth my interests were scheduled for Sunday (argh) and I only had the One Day Pass for Saturday. As for the Writing presentation, like last year's it was STANDING ROOM ONLY, YE GODS. Writing's a popular topic, and MegaCon organizers need to figure on giving the presenters bigger rooms to use. (MegaCon also needs to see about wider lanes for artist alleys, better parking, get the city/county to install some elevated rail lines to ease congested traffic, and...)
That's because, as mentioned before, Saturday is Cosplay (costume) Day.
Pity, I didn't see any Mulders or Scullys in honor of The X-Files coming back. I'm getting aware of the fact some costuming efforts take months of planning...
So that was pretty much MegaCon this year. Next year is later (last weekend in May?!) and is seemingly booked to four days (Memorial Day weekend, eh?).
Thing is, I am retiring the Jedi outfit. That cloak/robe/cape was too much tripping over. I couldn't navigate stairs wearing that thing.
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| Jedi Be Tripping |
Next year I'm going as Batgirl. At least that outfit has a snap-on cape.
Oh, and one more thing.
I always roll with the best.
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| BREEP VEEoooOOP |
1 comment:
If Yoda can climb stairs, so can you. If you do go with the Batgirl outfit, will you also be wearing heels?
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