I Survived Tampa Bay Comic Con 2023

I've not gone to as many of these comic cons over the past few years - PANDEMIC, people! - and I skipped last year's Tampa Bay Comic Con because I didn't see many celebrities of personal interest. This year, I skipped Orlando MegaCon's for mostly that reason - also because they were in the North/South Pavilion again and I hated all the walking I had to do for that one to get to the discussion panels I wanted to visit - and so decided to go to this year's Tampa Bay con to keep my interests peaked.

This time around, my nephew Drew's birthday fell on the same day, and there was a breakfast event for the family, meaning I delayed my arrival to the comic con just as the nearest parking garage filled up (whoa). Previous experience is that the lines to get in are insane even BEFORE the opening - they start taking in the outside line around 9:00am to take tickets, and open the vendor's floor at 10:00am - so when I got there by 10:30am the line was still stretched across the Tampa Riverwalk and it took another 30 minutes just to get into the air conditioning.

Nephew Drew was planning to attend as well, but was going with friends from university and coming in later (I warned him), and so he was off on adventures of his own (although we agreed to meet up so I could buy him a birthday present of his choice). Here then was how the comic con looked.

As I am not an autograph hound, I wasn't there for the celebrities doing the signings and the meet-and-greets. Alas, I discovered that this year's con did not include many discussion panels, at least not with artists or authors of interest. The one writing panel was about working with magic rules in fantasy works, something I've already studied and not much into my leaning towards scifi. It had also started at 10:30am and was almost over by the time I got there by 11:25am (argh).

I did get to see a giant Pikachu, however.

WHERE IS YOUR GOD NOW???

Also, I saw a Grimace. He was there to tempt more victims to his #GrimaceShake experience.

Nephew Drew showed up by the time my stomach was growling, so I met him in line for some food in the first floor cafe area, along with his friend (Drew, you're gonna need to remind me his name and his cosplay, thank you).

No, Drew did NOT go as Oppenheimer in honor of the Barbieheimer Experience. He didn't have the fedora and stove pipe for props yet. He did come as a character from a 1979 Japanese live-action movie called The Man Who Stole the Sun - my nephew has gotten into anime/Japanese film in a big way - so be grateful Drew showed up in a suit and tie.

There was, rather shocking to me, a decided lack of Oppenheimer cosplay: Usually the cosplayers will dress up in the hottest hippest geek trend to show off their costuming skills. I barely saw any Barbies - I counted five - and the only thing I could think of was that the film's production efforts of taking every pink outfit on the planet was the reason why there wasn't enough pink clothing to go around.

Maybe next year.

Anywho. Back to the visuals!

There were a couple of things missing this year - I did not see an R2-D2 display area (there was only one R2 rolling the floor and I could not find the time to pose with him) and I did not find a Lego display area. I just realized I didn't see the 501st cosplaying that extensively this year. I wonder if they were all up on the 4th floor which I did not visit because it was all stairwells and I didn't care to look for elevators.

None of the celebrities doing the main auditorium discussions drew my interest, so this was kind of a quiet comic con for me. Drew did find his birthday present - a Lego kit - and I hope he has fun putting it together.

Here's hoping I find more interest to intrigue me for next year's comic con.