Huh. Never thought I'd reference a Barenaked Ladies song. There was no argument between Kelly and myself. However, it has been one week since I got home from Chicago Comic-Con. If you've been following me on Twitter (@klynchmob), then you've seen the little tidbits I've shared here and there.
Well, lots of stuff happened (most good, but one or two sour notes), so here I am with an after-report of Wizard World Chicago Comic-Con 2011!
Preview night was the same as always, except with one huge difference: We actually bought stuff on Preview Night! In years past, we reserved PN for doing some recon, scoping out what we wanted to get during the weekend, not for actually laying any money down. Hey, there's a lot of stuff there, you don't want to blow all your coin in one place, as it were. But, as Kelly put it, there've been too many years where we've said things like, "Hey, this is pretty cool, we should get this...tomorrow" and then whatever it was was gone by the next day.
That and the Walking Dead Compendium 1 was in one of the super-cheap trade paperback areas. So yeah, the first half of the series or so was only five dollars. Found the first two Daredevil ultimate collection volumes from Bendis' run on the book (not Ultimate Daredevil as someone asked) at the same place. I had been looking for those for awhile, and since it collects just BMB's work on the book, I didn't have to worry about the weird numbering issues that plagued that book (for example, Bendis didn't start writing with #1. They consider Kevin Smith's work on the Marvel Knights imprint to be part of the same volume). We also picked up the Gremlin Pop figurine (because it's much cuter than the Gizmo one) and a Darth Vader Mighty Mugg. Overall, a pretty good haul for PN.
Friday we set aside for most of the picture taking. I got to have my picture taken with Christopher Lloyd. And Sir Patrick Stewart. On the same day! How awesome is that?
Funny story about the picture with Patrick Stewart (and for those who do follow me on Twitter, you know where this is going). I have this shirt. Knowing that Sir Patrick Stewart is a Shakespearean actor, I thought he might get a kick out of it. So, I specifically chose to wear that shirt when I met Sir Patrick. With slightly offensive shirt and all, my brother (it was his birthday present) and I stood in line to get our photos taken. It was one of those deals where each person gets about three seconds with the celebrity (we joked that it was so quick that the photos would be the celebrity standing in the center and the fans would just be blurs in the back), so I figured he wouldn't notice the shirt.
I was wrong.
We get up to Sir Patrick and he shakes our hands (because he's good people that way). His eyes must have been drawn to the picture of the Bard, because he stops, studies it, looks up at me, and says, "oooh."
Now, I have no idea what this "oooh" meant. Did it mean that my shirt was good for a larf? Was he one second away from calling for his sword and slicing me in twain? I do not know. I feel I may have offended Sir Patrick Stewart, which was certainly not my intent. Especially because he's a knight (but especially the fact that he is Patrick Stewart, star of TV's Star Trek: The Next Generation) and is legally allowed to kill me for sport.
But yeah, still got my picture with him. And it's awesome.
Beyond that, we saw Nicholas Brendon's and Kelly Donovan's panel that afternoon. It's funny that both were at the Con this year, because last year Nicholas was there, and we were wondering if it was really him, or if Kelly was there in his place (it was Nicholas, Kelly's voice is different). Who is Nicholas Brendon and Kelly Donovan you ask? Nicholas Brendon was Xander on Joss Whedon's Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Kelly Donovan is Brendon's twin brother (and was in an episode of BtVS). They were really funny and Kelly spent most of the panel shirtless (Kelly Donovan. Not my Kelly).
The only bad part was that a young lady in the first row (and we were in the second, which was awesome) kept heckling and coming on to the two. I think even Nicholas and Kelly (both Donovan and my Kelly) were annoyed with her (and unfortunately, that wasn't the last we'd see of her that weekend).
Other than Kelly buying her tickets for her and her friends' pictures for Saturday, I don't think we spent any money.
The major event of Saturday is getting it's own post (yeah, it's that special), but if you'd like a preview for when I get around to writing it, you can watch it here.
Saturday, Kelly's friends Kat and Alicia (along with Kat's husband, Ed, and her brother, Hans) came down to spend the day with us (and get photos and go to panels and such).
Even though I knew there was a chance Patrick Stewart would have me killed on site, we still went to his panel and were in the second row (which, again, was awesome). The man is surprisingly funny. Just from his work, one has to assume that he has a good sense of humor (especially about himself), but I didn't expect him to be so charasmatic and witty. And the stories he told about Star Trek and X-Men were incredibly entertaining and informative. Also, I may have taken a lot of pictures. I mean, come on, were up front and it's Patrick Stewart!
If you watched the youtube video above, that is me in the video. And I am indeed proposing in that video. The camera was manned (so to speak) by a Slave Leia and those are Storm Troopers and other Star Wars characters escorting her from her place in line. I say this because we were in the audience for the Bruce Campbell panel not an hour later. Where a young man got Bruce Campbell to help him propose to his girlfriend. Yeah, that happened. I guess Comic-Con is just the place to propose. Who knew?
Sunday, we saw Bruce Campbell again. And I yelled at him. And he yelled back. The conversation was pretty much this:
Me: "BRUCE!"
Bruce Campbell: "YES!" (It was more of a confirmation he is indeed Bruce Campbell than it was inquisitive)
"You're looking rather dapper this morning" (He wore a variety of tuxes)
"Thank y...Wait, what'd you say?"
"You're looking rather dapper today!"
"Thanks. I'm just trying to keep up with all the well dressed people here!"
So yeah, I interacted with Bruce Campbell.
Sunday started on a bit of a sour note as we learned that Kelly's picture with Nicholas Brendon from the day before (she got it with Kat) had been destroyed by a leaky roof. We also learned that said leak may or may not have been responsible for destroying the remaining stock of photo paper so the rest of the pictures would have to be mailed out (still waiting on the Nicholas Brendon one and one other). But that did leave us with enough time to see James Marsters (Spike from Angel/BtvS). He was very mellow and was actually the most straight-laced of all the people we saw.
We were planning on having our pictures taken with Norman Reedus and Sean Patrick Flanery (the McManus boys from The Boondock Saints), but after hearing the news about the pictures, I was hesitant to pay for another. Kelly, however, was not.
We went ahead and got our pictures taken with the boys from The Boondock Saints (very nice boys). We then went to their panel, which was also a lot of fun (all of the panels were fantastic this year, but for different reasons).
On the way back down to the main convention hall (the panels were held up stairs this year. Something about a wedding and another convention), Kelly whispers that David Del Rocco (Rocco from The Boondock Saints) was behind us. Sure enough, Norman Reedus and Sean Patrick Flanery were right there with him.I was so close to the Boondock Saints, I could have touched them. But I didn't. Because Sean Patrick Flanery has just told us a story how he's really hardcore into Brazilian Jiu Jitsu. I did say they were awesome. To which I got a, "Thanks, brother."
After that, Kelly and I bummed around most of the rest of Sunday (we picked up some more books) and headed to dinner with some of my brother's friends (my brother hadn't been feeling well all weekend, so he skipped out). I will say this, Giordano's in Rosemont, Illinois has some of the best pizza I have ever had and going there is an event I look forward to every year.
The "after-convention" fun ended on a trip to the ER (and that's as far as I'll go with that story, since that is not mine to tell), but it all worked out in the end.
A lot happened in Chicago this year. I got engaged (no we have not yet set a date for the wedding), picked up a bunch of comics for dirt cheap, got a lot more pictures with celebrities than we did last year (I felt Wizard World had stepped up their game this year in terms of quality, but oddly enough, others disagree), and for the most part had a great weekend. It's still my goal to have my own panel at one of these conventions, but as I'm busy as hell these days preparing for the school year, I haven't gotten much editing done.
Oh well, there's always next year... ;)
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