Last weekend, I took time out of my busy schedule of being GAMbIT’s crappiest contributor to be GAMbIT’s crappiest contributor at Stan Lee’s Comikaze! It being my first time to a convention ever, it was decided that it might be a good idea for me to write about it. And, oh, was it quite a bit of fun.
First thing I learned: wear good shoes. You do a lot of walking at these things. No, seriously, Disneyland amounts of walking, for three days. I also learned that they have the AC up full blast, so the damn hall is like a frosty desert devoid of all ambient moisture. As such, carrying one of those water bottles like the one your asshole neighbor who bought the whole Tour de France suit to go biking as a hobbyist has is actually a good idea. You never know when you’re going to be about to die of dehydration in a desperate search for a water fountain, or when your expedition party might die of dysentery, so water is good.
You know what sucks worse than being poor? Being poor, and also at a comic convention. It’s like telling orphans they can go window shopping in the local candy store. Almost every single booth (exceptions later) has something you want to buy, and some of it is very reasonably priced. My editor and I happened across a booth that was practically blowing out vintage video games. Sure, you had to contend with that one very well meaning guy that couldn’t read the social cues that you didn’t really want to hear about arbitrary game content ratings around the world, but they had Quackshot Starring Donald Duck, complete, for $10. You can’t argue with prices like that.
Did I forget to mention all of the artists? They’re here, all right. I’m a sucker for classical art parodies, and there were plenty to be found. Sadly, I didn’t see any parodies of Napoleon Crossing the Alps, but that’s probably a good thing. I really didn’t want to sell my blood. I kind of need it, after all. Miles introduced me to a friend of his (Bryson Youngblood Keefer) who had half a booth. Nice guy, and as you’ll see, it was a good thing he was clear across the hall from another booth.
See, on the opposite side of the hall from his booth, you had the PETA booth. I could probably go on a screed about PETA blowing money they’ve conned people out of on fucking stupid awareness campaigns and self promotion, in addition to pointlessly euthanizing thousands of dogs and cats because why the fuck not, but… actually, I got most of it out in one sentence. Good on me. I can’t fathom why they’d get a booth at a comic convention other than to waste more of the money dipshits donated to them in the hopes that they’d actually help animals with it, but I’m guessing they’d take a pretty dim view of our blacksmith friend, what with his pelts and leather products. There was also a nicely appointed L. Ron Hubbard booth. Personally, my thetan count is over 9000, and that’s how I like it, thank you very much.
There were panels every hour. I unfortunately missed several I wanted to go to. Which reminds me; bring a watch. Convention halls are like casinos, minus the complementary booze. I did make it to the (very short) Adventure Time panel. That was nice. I also got to go to the Bojack Horseman panel, despite never having seen the show. I gave the first piece of SWAG I ever got away, a Bojack mask, to someone unfortunate enough to get in after they had run out. It was only a mild blow to my experience; things like that are always made out of materials I’m allergic to.
Also, there was a shitload of cosplayers. A lot of them are Spider-Men, Harley Quinns, and Deadpools. You see, when a Spider-Man and a Harley Quinn love each other very much, they have a special hug, and nine months later a Quinn-Parker is born. Except when Deadpool the Milkman sneaks in without Peter knowing; then it’s a Deadpool. And you thought Peter and Wade were friends!
I really can’t describe them all here. There was literally one woman whose entire ME!ME!ME! (I overheard someone else ask her if that was what it was, I had to look it up) costume was a bikini, shoes and a blue wig. You may just be capable of imagining how popular she was. Also, her shoes clearly weren’t that comfortable, because you could see the pain every time she went back to the bench after posing for a picture or something. The lesson? Wear good shoes, dammit. A crazy number of Wednesday Addams’, Marty McFly’s, members of the Akatsuki, and Starlords were in attendance. And a legion of irregular Stormtroopers and Mandalorians. Including one Stormtrooper in a pink tutu and kneehigh pastel rainbow socks of which I sadly didn’t get a picture.
The best part of the entire show, though? That moment when I realized I was 20 feet behind and to the left of Stan Lee, the man himself, and started to panic. Not because I was starstruck, no. Because I began imagining that he had psychic powers and therefore knew about that time I posted a (slightly wonky) parody of the Spider-Man theme immortalising Newspaper Spider-Man’s tendency to drop like a bitch to random pipe wielding thugs and falling debris on The Comics Curmudgeon. That would make any meeting awkward.
Excelsior!
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