Awesome con was April 18th-20th. Unfortunately, Macathu and Arwyn were down after getting some sort of pax plague so I attended without any other member of Feed Your Nerd. This was the second year of this con and holds a special place in my heart as it marks the anniversary of when Feedyournerd came to be. During last year's con, the discussion and purchase of the site domain came in between panels and wanderings. Last year Awesome con started as a small con that did a lot of tings right. It had a good number of guests and panels as well as a game room and good exhibitors artist area. This year, it grew an amazing amount. The exhibitor's hall could practically have held all of last year's convention in it by itself. The organizers put together a pretty impressive convention. They managed to bring in some really big media names such as Jewel Staite, Sean Astin, and Billie Piper (who has never done an East coast appearance) as well as some other names that have been popular over the years such as Ron Glass, Kevin Sorbo, and Walking Dead cast members. The literary and comic presence was strong as well featuring author Timothy Zahn (of the Thrawn trilogy) and George Perez. As with any con that has a major growth spurt there were some hiccups. The line on saturday to enter the convention all and to get badges was equivalent to wrapping around the block and then some. Fortunately, I had managed to get my badge on Friday and did not have to endure it. Lines for panels also seemed to have caused some confusion for people as originally some people thought lines were not going to be forming til a half hour before hand, when in actuality they started roughly an hour prior. Having attended a number or larger cons over the years (such as PAX east), I expected having to wait in line for an hour for a decent seat in any large/popular panel. Overall, i felt they did a fairly good job, and was very impressed with how they managed this jump.
Now to the actual convention itself. :
Now to the actual convention itself. :
picture from Jon On Friday, they attempted to beat the world record for cospayers of comic book characters in one place, which at the time and well, lets be honest, still is above 1500. It was a lot of fun. They held it at the reflection pool right outside the National Capital. So having all these super heroes outside the capital felt a little surreal. It was great socializing and meeting people who were just out to have a good time and be around others of the same mind.
picture from Jon I attended with my friend Christian who went as Captain America, and I broke Classic Wolverine out of retirement for it (Shatterstar was not on the "approved" listing).
picture from Christian Christian and I practically immediately bee-lined it to Timothy Zahn's booth to see if he was in yet. We were lucky and he was all set up and there was no one around. We had him all to ourselves for a good 20 minutes. It was a real treat! He is a great person. Very warm and open to conversation. If my con experience had ended right at that time, I would have considered it a success. Fortunately it did not. Christian was smart, he managed to later get a picture with Timothy Zahn. I did not think of it til much too late.
picture from Narasimha Shenoy I managed to walk around the artist alley and speak to a number of really talented artists and collected many business cards. The rest of the day was spent talking to artists and vendors, followed by playing some Werewolf with about 14 people and then Coup and Ninja Burger.
(picture from Christian) Saturday, Sean Astin Started the day of panels. I did not attend his panel, but from what I understand it was pretty great. I wish I had made it, but I had stayed up the night before attempting to finish up my Cade Skywalker cosplay. (spoiler, I did not manage to finish and passed out instead... maybe due to fumes)
The panel I did manage to attend was Jewel Staite. Her line started while the Sean Astin panel was still going on, so I got a pretty good spot. Jewel is a delight. At the beginning of her panel, her moderator announced that she had panned to start with some preset questions before opening up to a Q&A, but that Jewel had decided to have it go straight into the Q&A. There were a number of good questons asked by people in line. Questions such as what would be 1 thing she would have lked to keep from the set, (which is weapons... which devolved into a story about Nathon Fillian. and who can resist that?) She really does the relaxed, likeable and relatable well. She had a number of positive messeges for people and truly is a great role model.
(WILL UPDATE WIT CLIPS FROM Q&A)
(WILL UPDATE WIT CLIPS FROM Q&A)
pic from Shantz Following that, I hit the star wars discussion panel moderated by a friend @chaosbria with Timothy Zahn, Dak, and bluemilkcomics. It was nice to hear where they thought the direction of the franchise would be heading now that disney has taken over. It was interesting to hear perspectives and incites from people that are attached to the franchise in such different ways. Zahn being an author for the expanded universe, Dak, from the films and spent time with Mark Hamill and heard all the gossip directly, and Blue milk who do tha parody comic but obviously keep their ears to the ground. The best part of it being that they are all fans of the franchise themselves.
After those panels, I managed to grab a a bev, and a snack before heading into a workshop for comic artists/writers about copyrights and trademarks led by Joe Sergi. This was one panel I knew I needed to attend. It was obvious he had way more material than time right from the get go. The information he did provide was helpful and he peppered in enough humorous case studies to keep what could have been a very dry and tedious panel into something that was insightful. I wish he had more time in order to present more about trademarks, but alas that was not the case. I plan on taking some courses he mentioned and will be teaching in the future as well as picking up his book. He is a wealth of knowledge that needs to be tapped.
(picture from Christian) It was pretty amazing to hear that Billie Piper was coming to this convention. It is her first appearance at a convention on the East coast. Unfortunately, I went down and could not attend her panels. Most people who attended were delighted and said she was very down to earth and very gracious. One, day, I shall make up for the missed opportunity.
Overall, I would say the convention was a great time. They obviously have a few things to work on, but considering it was only the second year and the basically tripled their size I was impressed. They brought a lot of top quality media guests as well as amazing artists and writers. I enjoyed the lineup of panels, and the space for the exhibitors and artist alley was wonderful. I highly recommend this convention. It is absolutely one to key on the radar.
- SHANTZ
(thanks go to Christian Evangelista, Narasimha Shenoy and Jon Gluck for addition pics)
- SHANTZ
(thanks go to Christian Evangelista, Narasimha Shenoy and Jon Gluck for addition pics)
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