I walked a lot of miles over the weekend My legs and hips were hurting. I had to sleep on a hot water bottle because my back was so messed up. On top of that, to keep up “the look”, I was wearing shoes not meant for long walks. I tried to put some gel insoles in them but that just made things worse.
Despite that, I had an amazing weekend. It was like a mini-vacation but I didn’t leave NY. My brother and I went to Comic-Con! It’s that one time of the year where you can be as nerdy as you want. You go out of your way to be nerdy.
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I wanted to do some kind of cosplay, dress as someone from Fairy Tail, but I couldn’t think of a cheap way to do it. I tried searching for a Fairy Tail shirt or bag. I couldn’t find one that would arrive in time for the Con. Instead, I dressed as a generic anime character, hence the shoes. To add a hit more nerdiness, I strapped on my Zelda 3DS case and wore my headphones like they were jewelry.
I got excited walking to the Con and seeing all the people with the bright green lanyards and the cosplay. This sign, walking into the Con, made my day.
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Comic-Con in a nutshell.
The crowd…the crowd.
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You got used to pushing past people and getting pushed by people. That really was the only way to navigate the show floor. I couldn’t see the booths well either. One of the curses of being short. Fortunately, my brother is over 6 feet so he saw very well.
We didn’t sit on as many panels as I planned. Not surprising. In order to get into a panel, which is usually an hour long, you need to line up an hour beforehand. That’s two hours out of your day.
One area, SyFy Wire, had 15-minute panels on the show floor so you didn’t have to line up. Just stand in the crowd and try to see over people.
We walked in on one panel.
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That’s Karl Urban in the front row!
We really wanted to see the Dark Phoenix panel.
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Didn’t get any Comic-Con exclusive clips but the interview was interesting enough. I also enjoyed the Runaways panel. I like the comic book but I haven’t gotten into the show yet.
And the cosplay.
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I think he was done at this point. I didn’t see him in full BumbleBee costume. Would’ve been cool.
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This was a working R2-D2. Obviously, not as advanced as the one in Star Wars but it moved seemingly on its own and it beeped.
It seems, Comic-Con is outgrowing the Jacob Javits Center. They had a couple of events off-site. Hope this doesn’t mean Comic-Con will be moving.
We got passes for AnimeExpo/AnimeFest, which was off-site. According to the NYCC map, it was only a few blocks from the Jacob Javits Center. The map was wrong. The Javits Center is around 33rd Street. AnimeExpo was at 52nd. It took us a while to figure that out. There no signs pointing us in the right direction.
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The walk wasn’t that long but it was annoying because we were lost for like 30 minutes. Eventually, we found Anime Fest. What a contrast it was to the main area.
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Lots of walking and sitting room. You weren’t squeezing past people to get to booths. And, there were cool places to sit.
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I spent most of the Con trying to find an affordable nerdy bookbag. Mostly I found Harry Potter, Superhero or Pokemon bag. I was fine with all of that but 1) most of them cost $70 and 2) I wanted an anime bag. I finally found it at Anime Fest.
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I wanted a Fairy Tail bag but I’m quite happy with a Naruto one and it was super affordable. Finally, finally, I got the Elder Wand. And we got a nice little surprise on the way the home.
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The nerds totally took over that area!
I’ll be posting pics of my swag on Instagram over the next couple of week. Got a lot of comic books, graphic novels, cool bookmarks, and artwork.
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