I Survived MegaCon 2026: I Want To Believe (In an X-Files LEGO Set)

I dunno if I've mentioned often enough on this blog that I'm an X-Phile ever since Season One (and a 'Shipper to boot). I know I've shared various trips to the Orlando MegaCon events, although I mentioned in 2024 that I might stop going - too fatiguing, too much walking, going solo too often, etc. - unless they had a celebrity I needed to see.

They had Agent Scully showing up this year. I HAD TO GO.

I even spent the extra money - something I've never done before - to get a Photo Op with Gillian Anderson during the event.

So I purchased the tickets, saved the moneys, planned out a cosplay (not a Jedi this year), left early to avoid the I-4 traffic woes and avoid the parking hassles, and made it to Saturday's con. Below are the videos and photos I've taken during the visit.

This is at the end of the line... for the ticket pickup!
Yes, that's how much queueing goes on at comicons!
And yes, I shaved the beard for this one.

If you can tell by this photo, this year I went as an FBI agent
with an X-Files theme. The X pin, the alien tie (got some
compliments for that), freshly polished dress shoes (Dockers),
 and a sweat-inducing trench coat. /sigh

This is the line after the line of getting your hall pass and before the line of getting into the vendor floor where there will be more lines at each table getting tangled up in the foot traffic lines that crisscross the floor. This is why comicons need traffic lights at major intersections!

OMG It's my boy R2-D2, rolling at the MegaCon like a Boss as always! Chirping away at the cute cosplayers, no doubt...

Right before Gillian's Q&A they had one set for ST:TNG's
Gates McFadden and Jonathan Frakes, and they brought a friend
as a surprise guest!

I admit when I'm taking photos I seem to be leaning
too far to the right. I blame trump.

Data!

Dr. Crusher!

This guy!

I left the TNG event to get in line for Gillian's Q&A - they will not
let you remain in the room between events, alas - and when I got there the
line was longer than the one for McFadden/Frakes/Spiner.

I couldn't wear that trench coat ALL the time...

SCULLY!!!

I sat over to the left of the room to see if my right-tilt
photography evened out. I think it did.

This one is where she's enjoying a reveal from one of the fans
doing the Q&A who turned out had worked on an official LEGO set
for the X-Files that's due for release this year. OMFG.
Now I know what I'm buying myself for my birthday...!

Just to give you an idea of the crowd by early afternoon. MegaCon gets big enough to be its own city on Saturdays, its busiest day.

If the lines for getting into the Q&As were bad, the lines
for the Photo Ops were longer (and slightly more stressful)

This was the second queue getting in for the photo!

Part of me wonders if it's okay to share the Photo Op I had with Ms. Anderson. I'll leave it to the nine or ten people who follow this blog, add a comment here or skeet me at Bluesky! 

There was one other moment of queueing up, this time in the Autograph line to see if I could drop off a gift (a printed copy of my X-Files fanfiction: I can't sell it but I ought to be able to gift it). But the line for that was still pretty long, and by that point in the day my legs were about to quit on me. I checked this step-tracking app on my phone and it told me by that time of the con I've already walked 4.2 miles (!). And I knew there were still more spots at the con I needed to visit. So I passed on the moment and stumbled off to a corner to sit and rest for an hour.

Once I got some strength back, I tried to circle about Artists Alley on the main floor, looking for some of the usual suspects that I follow for art, comics, science fiction writing, and so on, but I was so zoned out with my knees twitching a little too much to where I only recognized Amanda Conner's booth, where I bought a poster of her work on the DCU Starfire series a few years back.

After that, I staggered off to the commuter bus service back to the parking lots (this time I remembered the color), and then drove out around 5:00pm in search of a local Italian place my sister-in-law recommended (she grew up in Orlando, even worked at Sea World as a teen), which I got to by 6:00pm (yes, Florida traffic remains bad).

Oh, the step-tracker's final tally on the day: 5.6 miles of walking. Ow ow ow ow...

As far as con visits went this trip wasn't as overwhelming, although I wasn't forcing myself to try and see too much of it. Again, going solo isn't a lot of fun - it was nice to chat with other X-Philes and GA fans, although I regret not calling out to see if any OBSSE people were there - so if I go again I need to find a girlfriend dammit. Anyone out there in central Florida in her 40s-50s who's into DC Comics, most science fiction, some fantasy, and pro sports? Anyone...? 

/sigh

I Survived Orlando Megacon 2024

You regular readers know I indulge in attending the local (Central Florida) comic cons as I grew up on science fiction, comic books superheroes, anime, and general geekery.

This year for some reason, Orlando hosted their MegaCon in early February (they've usually been in May). While I missed attending last year's, I decided to attend this year as there were a couple of celebrities I hoped to see during the Q&A sessions and because I am trying to get into Magic The Gathering gaming and was hoping there would be an open table session for beginners to attend.

So I braved the I-4 Saturday traffic in relatively cool weather - yes, it drops below 60 F in Florida - and made reasonable time to get to the South Concourse parking lot to get on a shuttle bus to circle five blocks over to the West Concourse (the LOOOOOONG part of the Orange County Convention Center) and begin my day's journey.

This is actually the South Convention Center Concourse, where most of the
day parking is located. There are buses running shuttle service all
comiccon long. Seriously though, Orange County needs
to build an elevated rail between the Concourses to free up the
regular traffic on International Drive.

Getting into a comic con nowadays is a convoluted affair.
They give you a badge with a microchip in it, so you
HAVE to "activate" the card using the con's App. It takes forever
if you're not tech-savvy, and about 10 minutes if you ARE.

And this was the badge they gave me. Chewie Einstein.

This is the part of walking through a massive empty space
to get to the part of the West Concourse where the vendors set up.

Once you get inside, you then have to find your events between
three (or in some places four) levels. This was still early in the morning
before noontime as more people got inside Megacon.

At least I found the LEGO Club display room!!! Thank you
Greater Florida Lego Users Group!

Give me a minute or twelve to upload video of a working
LEGO City!

I showed up for Paul Bettany's Q&A session on the 
slight possibility his wife Jennifer Connelly would show up
and keep him in line. Alas.

This is in the Chapin Theater, an auditorium where the comic con
holds a number of A-lister interviews. I was last in here for
Hayley Atwell's appearance, if I recall it properly.

You'd be amazed how many of the fans gushed over
Bettany's work in A Knight's Tale instead of his work as
The MCU's Vision.

This was around 2:00 PM as the crowds were clearly
packing the main floor.

It's R2D2, rolling like a boss!!!

Got to sit in on a panel for Frank Cho, one of the better-known
"Good Girl" artists in the comics industry. It's more than just fanservice though, as
Cho is regarded as one of the best illustrators, period.
I got into him through his Liberty Meadows work (a cartoon strip in the vein of
Bloom County but with more gratuitous sex and violence as part of the absurdist humor).

They had a camera set up to focus on Cho's penciling as
he demonstrated the illustrator's work creating a comic book scene.

Cho took suggestions from the room, which bounced between
Wolverine to Wonder Woman to dinosaurs. I suggested "Wolverine
dancing with Wonder Woman with a T-Rex playing bass guitar
in the background" and Cho immediately called for security
to escort me out.

So as you can see he's drawing Wolverine.

Cho is using the mid-90s outfit that was more dark browns
and more shading than the famous bright yellow uniform
of the 70s-80s.

So it looks like Wolverine is punching somebody.
'Cause that's what Wolverine DOES...

Hey wait a second...

Is that...?

Oh no...

WOLVERINE JUST GUTTED HOWARD THE DUCK!!!
AAAAAAaaaaaaaa!

This is one of the prints I bought from Cho at his artist's booth, to give you an idea of what he draws. I also bought a Liberty Meadows and a Batman/Catwoman prints.

Speaking of artists, a number of famous comics artists were in Artist' Alley this MegaCon,
including a rare visit from Frank Miller, one of the creative forces from the late 1970s-
early 1980s who contributed to the massive culture boom - The Dark Knight Returns - of graphic narratives/superhero stories in the mainstream.
I took this picture late in the day to demonstrate the line that had been ongoing since 11:00AM...
which stretched across the open footpath to another line you can kind of see stretching off
to the right of the photo. If I had joined that line at 11, I would have arguably gotten to 
meet Mr. Miller and get an autographed poster or some such... in about two hours of waiting!
I'd have missed half of everything else I wanted to do at the con. NONE of the other
major artists had a waiting line that long. 

Speaking of long lines, THIS awaited me as I walked over to the Chapin Theater part
of the complex in hopes of attending the big celebrity draw of the day:
Ewan McGregor (Obi Wan) and Hayden Christensen (Anakin), both insanely hot Star Wars
fandom draws due to their return in popular Disney-Plus series. 

This is the Fourth floor entrance to Chapin Theater... packed wall to wall with fans many of
whom started forming the line at 2:00PM (!). I got there about 5:15PM... only to get the 
word from the con's security handlers announcing to the whole floor that they've already
reached max capacity for the auditorium and the cutoff was... can you see that one white hat
to the middle left of the photo? Yeah. That was the cutoff. Everybody else between that hat
and me were doomed. DOOMED I SAY.
That was kind of the last thing on my to-do list, and unable to do that I headed to the shuttle buses...

Except when I got to the buses they were coded by color routes instead of parking lots, and I had
no idea which color route went back to the South parking lot! /rage
Instead of waiting for the bus, I dared to walk back across a sky bridge between the Concourses
(See? The county at least did THAT! They should put in rail lines instead...). On the way back
I decided to get a photo of the Orlando Eye that's up the road on International Drive.

And here's a closer shot of it at a traffic stop as I drove to where all the restaurants are north
of the convention center. 'Cause after a full day of walking, I earned that pizza for dinner!

It took another three hours to get back home - an hour and an half getting off a packed
International Drive coping with merging traffic, escapees from the MegaCon, and idiot drivers, THIS
is why I scream about Orlando/Orange County needing an elevated rail system - 
just so I could get in a head rub with Mal the Panfurr who turns 10 years old this weekend!

And so that was my comic con adventure. I've gotten a little weary of attending these things - yes, I am getting too old to walk across half the landscape, and there aren't enough chairs and benches to go around - unless I can scare up any friends or family who might want to attend any cons in the future, this might be my last one. Who knows? A future MegaCon may entice with a can't miss celebrity (but it would involve me risking the entire day getting in line and waiting, sigh).

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.