Comicpalooza: Geeks are Always the Hottest

Winter Widow and Captain Hydra will fuck your shit up. Just so you know.

Last weekend, I was lucky enough to attend Comicpalooza in Houston. It's my first time at that particular con, and I have to say it was a pretty great trip. I'm even more thankful to say I got to spend it with Ash (whose been my bestie since I was four) and Patrick, one of Ash's buddies who turned out to be really nice. So, yeah, geek bonding. WOOT!

Winter Widow and Captain Hydra have infiltrated Rocky... be afraid.

On Friday came one of the most meaningful experiences for me to start off the weekend. We got the shot above: a picture with Barry Bostwick, Patricia Quinn, and Nell Campbell from The Rocky Horror Picture Show. Patricia gets a special nod as well for being in I, Claudius, another one of my favorite things ever. I actually had the chance to meet Barry previously while with my husband at Dallas Comic Con several years ago, but it was great to meet all three of them together. They were warm and kind and generally awesome - not surprising, but still a great pleasure for us. 

I couldn't pose - too busy grinning and touching Jeremy's back.

Saturday was the day that brought us there because, you see, Ash needed to get a photo with Jeremy Renner. Okay, maybe we both did. Hush, it's a shared interest. I wasn't sure what to expect since this is the first con he's done where he did the photo ops and all, and I knew that might be a touch overwhelming for him. As it turns out? He was grinning, seemed to really dig our costumes, and was generally super duper sweet. If you get the chance to meet him, do it. 10/10 do recommend.

Later in the day we attending a Q&A with the Rocky folks, and I got to tell a quick rundown of how my husband and I (shoutout to my hubby for solo parenting our three year old while I did all this!) met when he was on the Los Bastardos cast and that, basically, I have a great husband and an adorable kid due in large part to their work. All three of them were hilarious and snarky and had a great banter worked out between themselves. It was a thrill just to get to talk and interact with them, and Nell Campbell teased me about our son's name (Pike, which she pointed out is a fish), and... well, it was fantastic.

This is how you age with pure awesome, people. Learn it, live it.

That night was yet another treat because Patricia Quinn and Barry Bostwick both attended After Midnight's shadowcast performance of Rocky Horror! They were adorable, and Barry even helped kill time by performing part of "Dammit Janet" when there were some technical difficulties. Patricia sat down in the row right in front of me and stayed the whole performance. I can now say that I have genuinely done the Time Warp with Patricia Quinn. I'm not sure what else I need from life.

Barton and Romanov are with Agent Johnson - nothing to worry about here, folks. Move along.

Sunday was another celebrity day since we got to get a picture with Chloe Bennet. She was super excited about our costumes, she gave us both hugs, and she's even prettier in person - which is ridiculous since she's adorable onscreen. For the record, she seemed like a complete sweetheart, and I would very much like to hang out with her. Just saying. She seems like awesome people.

Can you see how surreal I feel the world has become?

Monday morning brought the end of the con for me since I had to be on the road for home by noon, but it also brought something special - running into Patricia Quinn in the hotel lobby. Instead of brushing us off, she was warm and wonderful and chatted with us about Rocky and I, Claudius and insisted that we take a picture together (we had refrained from asking since we didn't want to intrude further). Then Barry Bostwick showed up to meet her (she'd been waiting for him to get down) looking tired but very, very handsome (really, people, he's a GOOD LOOKING man). We offered to help with luggage, and Patricia called us "angels" for asking, though she said they didn't need help. We then moved on to the con floor for one last spin.

Basically? SO MUCH fun was had, and I'm still fangirling. Thank you to all the celebs, all the cosplayers, and all the folks who made Comicpalooza such a fun experience for everyone!

For more of my cosplay shots and pics from the weekend, check out Wilde Cosplay. For more of Ash's photos, check out Kevlar Unitard. And like the pages while you're there. We need the ego boost. 

All-Con 2014

If you look closely, you see an ad for Wilde Designs. Hello sweetie! Yep, I'm that special.

This was our first year attending All-Con Dallas, which is a fabulous pan-fandom convention that caters not only to cosplayers and hardcore comic nerds but survivalists, intellectuals, writers... it's pretty awesome. This was also our first multi-day con with our toddler, which was an interesting experience. I'm pleased to say that it went well despite one night of projectile vomiting brought on by the odd schedule and con diet (I swear, we brought oatmeal and fruit and it wasn't junk food, honest!). 

My son is a Disney princess - at least at conventions.

I think the big highlight for Pike was the Disney sing-along with the DFW Disney Cosplayers Guild. They were fabulous - practiced, well-costumed, and adorable with the kids both during their panels and when they saw them out on the floor. There were two different Arials, and I think Pike was slightly in love with both of them. The first night he got up on stage after watching most of the performance and then we couldn't get him off. He even ended up dragging me up. Many of you know that getting me up in front of a crowd is something that I will pretty much only do for people I love madly.

There was some slight disappointment for me because a lot of the writing panels didn't happen because one of the presenters didn't show up. I'm grateful to Ethan Nahté, who stepped in for the horror writing panel and pretty much did a private workshop/rap session with those of us who had come for it. Great guy and some really great advice.

The hammer is my... wait... hmm...

A highlight for me was the showing of Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog presented by United States of Geekdom. Singing with a room full of other dorky fans and some geeks doing screamer lines was fantastic. Sooo gooood. Hopefully they'll get to do it again next year and I can once again be there for it.

Pike met R2-D2. You should be jealous.

If you're interested, you can see my full album of photos here. If you're a geek and have the chance to attend, I highly recommend it. All-Con was good times, good people, and a nicely low key hotel where no one gave me any dirty looks. Schedules permitting, we'll definitely be going back.

Dallas Comic Con 2013

I think it's fair to say that all conventions are a mix of amazing and annoying. Lines are never perfect. Organization often fails. Even if every possible precaution is taken by the folks in charge, things can go wrong.

Wait... Alan Grant plays video games?

In this case, they were at a disadvantage from the start when Nathan Fillion was struck with some kind of gross eye infection that meant he canceled his appearance altogether. So much for me completing my celebrity list this year. This made people understandably a little disappointed (okay, okay, we were all crying inside... shut up about it).

The con also suffered from the fact that their venue (which I understand they're contracted to for a few more years yet) is too small for how huge the event has gotten. The escalators get crowded (why large event centers use them instead of traditional stairs I will never understand), any attempts to herd the crowd fall apart, people are sweaty and short-tempered and just want to be where they're trying to get to. I really can't blame the organizers for a lot of that since it's the nature of the beast. I will say that on Saturday I was sad to see that no attempts were even being made in the early afternoon to help people figure out where to go in the crushing mess that was the ground floor.

I attending the make up effects tutorial with Heather on Saturday along with my sister (she let me put a wound on her arm - good sport!), and that was a lot of fun. I took pictures that are trapped on my phone... I'll try to remember to update with those later. It was a relatively small group, so we all got to chat with her and ask questions about Face Off. Since my hubby and I are big fans, it was really interesting. As much as I enjoy looking at art and cool vendor goods, it was also just plain fabulous to have an interactive session. I hope that perhaps in the future the organizers will consider more side events like that to relieve some of the crush in the autograph and Q&A areas where I think some people were flocking less out of interest than for SOMETHING to do. Programming matters as much as the guest list!

Ultimately on Saturday, we ended up skipping the Q&A sessions after the line got too long, too ridiculous, and never seemed to move, hit up the dealer room where we were thrilled to get to see Halo & Terry from Shonuff Studios - love them! There was some excellent stuff on display everwhere, and I was just sad not to have the cash to buy more of it. Especially the TARDIS-themed deerstalker caps. Super freaking cute.

Starship acting never goes out of style.

Sunday we braved the long line waiting to get in again because it was worth it to get decent parking and blaze a trail to the Q&A room. We parked our butts down and didn't move for anything but potty breaks. I am thrilled to say that the sessions on Sunday really made up for any lingering annoyance from Saturday. The TNG panel with Brent Spiner, Levar Burton, and Gates McFadden was fantastic. Brent is hilarious and light on his verbal feet, and I believe we birthed the #bigbangcougar push to get Gates on Big Bang Theory. I'm so in.

Ridiculously nice to a crowd that could easily have been quite bitchy.

After that panel (which my sister loved despite her utter lack of Trek education) came Adam Baldwin, who took over by himself a slot he was originally meant to share with Nathan Fillion (he of the diseased eyeball). Adam was a total trooper. They showed a trailer for Last Ship, his new show on TNT... with no sound. He helpfully added both dialogue and sound effects (which was probably better than the real thing anyway). He politely played off a questioner who obviously thought he was Alec Baldwin's little brother. He told sweet stories about watching Firefly with his kids after their dance class and the whole family singing the theme song together... and subsequently led the room in a round. The man's got a pretty decent voice.

He also called Nathan, so we got a little bonus bang for our buck, and I could frankly have just listened to the two of them chatting for another hour or so, but I guess the Richard Dean Anderson fan wouldn't have appreciated the change in schedule. In any case, it was fantastic. My sister and I promptly hightailed it out of there so we could spend time with my brother-in-law before he left (yes, we had family visiting on top of all this).

Ultimately Comic Con was fun and mostly satisfying, but I won't lie: I probably won't spend the cash on it again. Nathan was the deciding factor for me this year. That obviously worked out... For me, the lack of programming apart from celebrity Q&As and the fact that you pay a large fee to get in and then the autographs and everything else inside cost an arm and a leg feels a little rough. I know a lot of people loathe it, but I truly feel I get more value out of A-Kon. Next year? We're trying out Texas Frightmare Weekend somehow. Toddlers love Pinhead, right?

A-Kon: Success

A-Kon is over. It was lots and lots of fun and, well, frankly, I don't want to go back to the real world and work and all that, but... at least I had some fun first. We hit up Rocky (great show and SEXY AS HELL pre-show), Repo (Beau as Nathan whaling on a fake guitar for "Down with the Sickness" was win), tons of anime geekiness, got some new yaoi manga to read...

I know this is hardly a fascinating or comprehensive rundown of it all, but I'm tired and facing a long work week, so it's the best you're getting for now, lads and lasses. Heading to bed shortly to try and prepare by sleeping. Hopefully a lot.