For those who aren’t familiar with Comic-Con, it has its own magic system, floating staircases (volunteers shutting down and opening pathways everywhere) and hierarchy.
-Hall H is the creme-de-la-creme where all the big stars are. To enter requires the blood of your firstborn.
-“The Floor” is a cross between an intergalactic riot and some sort of psychedelic renaissance faire. Imagine the craziest fantasyland “market day” you have ever read in a book then multiply it by ten and you might have some idea what “The Floor” is like.
-Ballroom 20 is the bishop or rook on the board. It’s also enormous and prestigious and features a lot of the big names. Getting into Ballroom 20 comes with major victory points.
-“The Pavilion” is like some sort of ocean whirlpool room where you get to meet and do signings with your favorite authors/actors/famous people...but you have to sail through without getting caught or yelled at by the Convention Navy who have sworn a blood oath to keep everyone moving. They have no mercy for fan gushing or blistered feet.
-“The Panels” are like clusters of symbiotic life forms suctioned to the sides of The Pavilion and Ballroom 20. A series of small biospheres where you can enter their portals and learn anything from how to write a novel while standing on your head and reciting the alphabet backwards, or learning how to become a famous cartoonist with nothing but a belched piece of charcoal from a coal mine.
And that’s comic-con from a novice’s perspective...minus the other 120 thousand people roaming around outside the golden-ticket-only convention center.
Craziness abounds and nowhere does the cosplaying get more awesome than the annual Masquerade on Saturday night where a privileged few get to flourish their wares (routines) in a competition in Ballroom 20 (yes THE Ballroom 20!). I say this of course as someone who gets to play a minor part in the aforementioned promenading, and since I’m also not well versed in the backstage world of theater and productions...I have no stake in playing it cool and chill. Thus it is with total and utter sincerity (and the desire to let whoever is reading this in on the experience) I tell you performing at Comic-Con is totally 100% eximious. You could even pretend for a moment, that the security guards, tech people, press photos and backstage passes let you for a second pretend you’re someone fancier than the inconsequential girl who is on stage for a grand 30 seconds. But hey...I wouldn’t want it any other way. As Anne would say, I somewhat prefer my castles-in-the air over reality.
Our “group” this year was called “The Addams Extended Family” and the joke started with the creepy Addams coming out and doing their spooky thing. Then the key changed in the music and the “extended family” came out. Patch Adams, Amy Adams, Samuel Adams, Grizzly Adams, John & Abigail Adams….etc and then Ansel Adams (the famous b&w photographer) came out and took our picture just as the song said “...it’s spelled with double D or DIE!” at which point we all did our best impression of death and I tried to join Cordelia’s injured knee club by dying on a very sharp piece of my hoopskirt. As I lay there dead, trying to breath through my bodice stays and not groan or shift, I wasn’t sure if the audience actually got the joke because the 4,000 (Ballroom 20!) crowd was silent for what seemed like an eternity. But they finally roared with applause and laughter, the lights went out and we all hobbled off the stage to watch the rest of our competition. So. Much. Fun. And we won one of the main awards! Most Humorous...har har.
I wished I would have gotten pictures of the empty convention as we left at midnight. There was a rave going on in The Pavilion, but otherwise I felt like Templeton in Charlotte’s web. Rolling my drunk on life self through a wasteland of spilled food, forgotten pieces of costumes and bits of power puff girl advertisements.
I don’t know how people do Comic-Con for the whole four days. Just the one day took me all of the next day to recover. But my blisters have healed, my knee is only barely black and blue, I have a bag full of swag and free books (Thank you Ashley for being my guiding angel!), and I have the final results in for most popular costume at Comic-Con 2016 (according to me)…..
...Rey from StarWars!
Honorable mentions include (i.e. costumes I saw more than anything else):
Deadpool
HarleyQuinn
Ghostbusters (more classic than current)
Captain America
Popular Themes this year (and arguably every year) were:
Game Of Thrones
Anything Marvel or DC
Star Wars
Assassins Creed
Pokemon
And a whole lot of anime/manga stuff I didn’t recognize
...Until next year!