Busy Weekend

After some friendly nagging and a nudge from my husband, I bought a Saturday pass for C2E2. Why would such a glorious geek gathering require nagging? I hate crowds and I hate constant noise. And I had no one to share the experience with, since all of my really geeky friends are in Ontario. We couldn't go as a family because our daughter isn't into any of that, and hates noisy crowds more than I do, so I was going to be on my own.

The instructor for the MOOC* I'm taking on gender and comic books was going to be there, but it didn't work out that we were able to meet up. Another person from the class was there with his wife, but again, it didn't work out. A friend I hadn't seen in years was going to be there, not for the content but for the scenery -- he was taking pictures of the cosplayers. I did meet up with him, which was cool, but he fails to share my enthusiasm for action figures and hasn't read comics in years. To needle me, he referred to them as dolls at one point, and (giving him the reaction he wanted) I protested that they were action figures... much to the amusement of some guy riffling through a box of comic books.

I made it to one of two panels I'd picked out from the program, Comix Chix with Kate Kotler (who hosts a weekly podcast on GeekNation) and some awesome guests.

Left to right: Kate Kotler, Amy Reeder, Jen Aprahamian, Heidi MacDonald, Jill Pantozzi, Jenny Frison and Ashley Eckstein.
I was sitting in the back row. It was a small room.

It was great to hear from women in the industry about what they perceive the state of women in comics to be. (Short answer, it is getting better.)

After the panel, I resigned myself to going back down into the fray. The line to get in looked like this:

This was before the panel started, about 10:30am (30 min. after the floor opened).

After the panel, about noon. Two hours after the show floor opened, the line was still
solid people. It moved fast, but it was still a ton of people.

I made it back inside, and tried to see... anything... but because of my height and the number of people in there, I'm sure I missed a lot. I was pretty excited to see in person for the first time ever, the Butterfly Woman† figures (2 of them anyway) by Olmec. He wanted $50 apiece for them, and that was more than I wanted to spend. (Not that they aren't worth it, but not worth that much to me at this time.) I told him -- and meant it -- that just seeing them made my day. He was pretty excited that I knew who they were.

I did pick up Sorceress and Teela (from the '80s He-Man line), a vintage Zarana with earrings and a current Cover Girl (G.I. Joe), Galadriel, Éowyn and Arwen (Lord of the Rings trilogy), and some really awesome art from Ant Lucia, Michael Dooney and photographer Adam Jay. I covered pretty much the entire floor, walking up and down, ducking into booths where I could, taking only about a five minute break to sit before my impatient companion wanted to get back to his photography. (He had an awesome hand strap for his camera; have got to get one of those. WAY more convenient than a neck strap -- his camera was pretty much always ready to go.) Because of the inconvenience of my camera, I only took a few photos.

Plenty of Star Wars happening. (Taken before the floor opened, with my phone.)

This was just funny. :) When he walked away from this photo, he was kinda boppin' along,
but I couldn't tell if he had to walk that way because of the costume or not.
Or maybe he's just a happy guy -- who knows?

Harley Quinn and a clever Up costume.

I spent about 6 hours on the floor. I was tired, my feet were killing me, and the crowd was just about more than I could stand. My friend had plans for the evening, so we parted company, and I got the heck outta Dodge. (Only to find more crowds; Saturday afternoon traffic on a beautiful spring day in Chicago...)

Sunday was the semiannual Kane County toy show, that I haven't been to in a number of years. I talked my husband into going with me, bringing The Kid. I was hoping to find some Yummy Donut keychains for her, but I didn't see anything like that there (much to her disappointment). I found Trinity (The Matrix), Isis (52), Connie (Coneheads), Hellen (Attack of the Living Dead), Red She-Hulk (Marvel Legends), Ann O'Brien (Monkeyman and O'Brien), Queen Gorgo (300) and a creepy broken figure that I'm 99% certain is a McFarlane toy, but I can't ID it. I think she's missing 2 of her 4 arms, but even with that, or maybe because of it, she looks sick and cool. (Update: Yes, she is a McFarlane toy, and yes, she is missing 2 arms. Szaltax is her name.)

Creepy-cool mystery fig. Update: She is Szaltax from Clive Barker's
Twisted Souls 2 line by McFarlane.

It's been a really long weekend. My feet hurt. I'm tired. But I scored some awesome things, and I got to hook up with someone I haven't seen in a long time. Long weekend...

This was C2E2's 4th year. Next year (April 25-27, 2014) it's moving to the South Building of McCormick Place; going from 460,000 square feet of exhibition space to 840,000... I'd say that this con is growing.


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* Massive Open Online Course

† Butterfly Woman and her small line was made as a knockoff of She-Ra (Mattel). Olmec was a business founded by Black entrepreneur Yla Eason. Her lines of toys, including Butterfly Woman, featured Black heroes and heroines, with differing skin tones, and more ethnic features. Photos here: http://www.thelaironstormisle.com/theroost_b.html#Olmec.