Awesomecon 2014

Awesomecon was something that only barely registered on my con schedule. A few friends of mine had expressed interest in going and then the momentum built from there.

This will be the convention of The Selfie. I’ll explain why in a bit.

—what a comic book convention was like before EVERYONE RUINED IT.

I didn’t plan on Awesomecon. I was fatigued for several reasons. These reasons are listed here in no particular order of importance:

  • Drinking almost every night
  • Walking upwards of 12 miles a day on the ambitious days that I went into Boston to play Ingress “check it out”
  • A late night eight hour train trip back to the District
  • Making poor life choices in terms of bedtimes

So I really wasn’t thinking about attending a convention right away. Then a couple of people were asking if I’d attend and then I made a snap decision to attend on Saturday.

I woke up tired, so I coffee’d up at Chinatown coffee and then got my ticket from the advance presale ticket booth. It was relatively painless. I wandered aimlessly through the exhibition hall, getting flashbacks to San Diego and what a comic book convention was like before EVERYONE RUINED IT.

I mean, before it got too large.

A small convention has several advantages, at least for me. The first is that lines for the interesting panels are nearly non existent. I attended three panels, and I even had questions answered by the panelists. I attended two by just walking into the room: Writing Fantasy, and 3D printing for Cosplay.

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UP Family Cosplay at Awesomecon 2014

The final panel I attended was the one with the largest line, and it was a voice actor panel where everyone reads scenes from a movie script in one of the character voices that they do. Needless to say, it gets absolutely crazy. This panel featured Rob Paulsen, Maurice LaMarche, Phil LaMarr, Richard Horvitz, and Veronica Taylor. 

Highly recommended and I laughed a lot.

Also, midway through the panel Ernie Hudson showed up and it was even more amazing. My guess is that once they found out it was Ghostbusters, con organizers ran off and got Ernie Hudson from the green room. He was great, and got standing ovations all around from everyone in the room. The other panels were more informative, but overall well moderated and also a good time.

But now—

The Selfie

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Myself, Walter Jones, and Jewel Staite

I’m going to post this here because it is a thing that happened. It is astounding to me that it even happened in the first place. It is amazing, I love it, and it is probably going to be one of the best memories I’m going to have about attending a convention. I’m going to keep this short, because it’s easy to gush and fanboy and this isn’t the place for that.

This is just going to be me talking about how much I loved the Power Rangers because it was a Sentai show in the West, and also how much I loved Firefly. These two happened to be in a bar where I was, and I walked up and just told them thank you for the great memories that I have because of the characters they portrayed on television.

Then I asked them if they would pose for the “World’s Worst Lit Celebrity Selfie.”

And they did.

Just another fantastic memory that they’re responsible in part for, and I cannot thank them enough for it. Well, maybe I owe them both a drink at least—next time.