Comics, Zombies, and Dancing Robots oh my!…
I just had one of the funnest weekends, ever. This weekend I was one of the lucky 20,000 people that came to the Phoenix Comicon. It was my very first time going to a convention of any kind, and I loved it! My feet were dead tired afterwards but it was worth it! I had such a good time, I wanted to tell the tales of my epic adventure and share some photos and videos.
To be honest, I haven’t ever had the urge to attend a convention. Especially something like, the comicon? Isn’t that were all the people who like comic books, game systems, and those weird cartoons… anime? I was asked to go last year and I said no.
This year my dance group, Thrill The World Phoenix Valley, was asked to attend so we could teach Michael Jackson’s Thriller. I really enjoy doing Thriller FlashMobs so I decided to check out the Phoenix Comicon website. I got to the Phoenix Comicon homepage and the first thing I saw was Leonard Nimoy’s photo. HOT DIGGITY DOG!! Spock was going to be there, super cool! The more I kept looking the more I got pretty pumped up about the whole thing. I signed up for my photo opportunity with Leonard Nimoy and Adam Baldwin right then and there! I came pretty close to buying a photo with Wil Wheaton too.
I don’t know how you gain the title “nerd” or “geek” but I suppose at times I would fall into that category from time to time. I’m not really a die hard Trekkie fan, but at the same time I am. Star Trek reminds me of my Granddad, we would watch Star Trek every day together. I’m pretty sure I didn’t know what was going on 1/2 the time but I was having fun with my Granddad! So, getting to meet one of the biggest icons of our time and the star of the show I used to watch with my Granddad made me pretty excited!
I’m a pretty big fan of the TV show Chuck. I have been rooting for Chuck since the first episode hooked me in like a fish. I found it by accident too, just random channel surf fun back in the good old days before I had a DVR. I’ve always been into computers, gadgets, and fixing things so the show instantly caught my eye. Don’t believe me? Check out this blog post I wrote about all of the gadgets I own, I have even more now too [Heather’s Gadgets Post]. So, you cannot believe how excited I was to meet Adam Baldwin [John Casey] in person. He was such a cool guy in person! The first thing he said was “Hello Gorgeous” so he’s an A+ in my book, Hahaha!!! Looking back on this opportunity… I wish I would have asked him to do his annoyed man grunt that he does in Chuck… hahaha! I love it!
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| Wil Wheaton [left] Elvira [right] |
Another famous person I got the opportunity to meet was Wil Wheaton. I didn’t pay for a photo or anything but I did see him by the photo booth hang’n out. So my group of friends went over to say hi and see if we could swindle a photo or two with him. He was such a chill guy, he let us down easy about the photos but he did tell us when we COULD get a photo with him without having to pay an arm and leg. Awesome!
On a side note… I’m almost certain Wil does his own tweets because he was face-planted in his phone before he chatted with us in person. You see all of these famous people on twitter and you always wonder if it’s really them doing it. I think he was tweeting right when we came over to say hi. How cool and legit is that? Later on we saw him again and I was able to snap a distant photo and then I saw him walking downtown Phoenix when we were on the Darth Vader Bike Taxi. I vote that Wil Wheaton is the winner of the Phoenix Comicon Mr. Congeniality Award. I ended up getting to see him 3 different times, super cool.
Did I mention this was my first “Con”? That means my schedule planning was WAY off. I’m kicking myself in the shins right now thinking about all of the stuff I missed out on. I bought a full event pass but I only was able to make it on Saturday and Sunday. I guess I’ll have to learn how to play dungeons and dragons on my own time. I was also looking forward to the film previews, the rockband concert, learning how to draw a dragon, the Chuck panel, and of course the Leonard Nimoy Star Trek panel.
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| The Line to get your pre-paid ticket |
Being busy all week took a toll on my Thursday, Friday, and Saturday [evening] availability. I was finally Con-bound Saturday at 11:30am. I had my photo op with Leonard Nimoy at 12 and the notes on the ticket said to be there 10 minutes before. Since I had already pre-paid for my tickets I thought I wouldn’t have to wait or worry at all. I couldn’t have been more wrong in my life. If you hadn’t already gotten your lanyard pass the line to get it was Six Flags extreme roller coaster line long… It was 100% certain I wasn’t going to make my photo appointment with Leonard unless I did something drastic. I could feel my arm pits and palms starting to get sweaty…
Luckily, we were able to call in a favor from our artist friend Derrick. He was one of the comic book artists with a booth so he had an extra pass. He let me have that pass so I was able to jump out of the line from hell and get into the Leonard Nimoy line. I was lucky enough to run into my friend Chris who let me have some cutsies in the Leonard Nimoy line, he wasn’t far from the end but it made waiting in line a lot more fun. I guess I was wearing my lucky socks or something Saturday. They should have called it Phoenix Line-Con 2011 instead of Phoenix Comicon 2011, haha! I give many many thanks to all of my friends for saving the day for me, like a true comic book heros for real!
My adventure doesn’t end here…
After my Leonard Nimoy and Adam Baldwin photo we went to get something tasty to eat. I was so hungry so I didn’t even think to get a photo, but the tacos I got were so tiny it was “comic”al. I think the shell was 3 inches wide, I had a pretty good laugh.
Every Diva needs her wardrobe change. Since my nice photo ops were finished I was ready to get into my Zombie Trekkie costume. I went into the restroom and a nice girl came in and as it turned out, she was a zombie makeup artist expert. It was so cool, she took charge of the whole thing and my zombie makeup has never looked better. I picked a really awesome bathroom to use I guess. What are the odds? There were two sisters in the bathroom getting ready with too. They were working the Star Wars booth and the one was dressed as Princess Leia. Seems like a start of a bad joke… 2 Star Wars girls and 1 Zombie walk into a bar…
We walked around for a while, in full Trekkie costume. I had a few people ask me for a photo, wonder if I’m out there on the internet somewhere looking very cool and undead! It was getting close to Thrill time with my dance group so we headed to my car to grab the printed goodies I made to pass out. It was such a far walk, after standing around all day and I hadn’t even danced in thriller flashmobs yet.
On my way back to our special Thrill The World Phoenix Valley room I could hear Thriller blasting through the halls. I looked at the time and my tiredness must have gotten the better of me, I must have been walking really slow. I ALMOST missed my Thriller flashmob! I ran down the hall stumbling through the crowd and made it to the dancers… At this point I remembered I didn’t pass off my backpack or any of my things… I went in anyways. I started busting out my rawr turns and booty bounces and before you know it I heard a loud plastic break noise, I thought something of mine must have fallen. I ran off to the sidelines to see if it was my camera filled with photos, I had been wearing it around my neck all day and now it was gone. These little girls said it was a makeup case, but they weren’t for sure. Soon I found out that I passed off my camera and I was able to pass off the rest of my stuff. I was ready to get back into the Thriller flashmob!
It was like a game of double dutch, I waited for the right time to hop back in… Rawr turn rawr turn, I was back in… If you watch the video you can see I had a fan. A red shirt wearing Trekkie guy bolted through the crowed and plopped down right in front of me to get his paparazzi on. It was really cool having a fan, but it was also awkward because my costume wasn’t the greatest for all the Thriller dance moves. I regret the decision to dance in a skirt, haha. It looked cool and I was also wearing shorts, but it wasn’t cool when you had a photographing fan on his knees taking photos of you. Live and learn, I still had a lot of fun! 🙂
We did another flashmob in the food court, nothing fell and there weren’t any kneeling photographers this time. We directed everyone into our room so we could teach the everyone Michael Jackson’s Thriller! Our room was already filled with potential Zombies. It was pretty amazing to teach that many people the dance moves. They caught on quick [only a 45 min class] and we were able to do the entire dance a couple of times through. They “killed” it, haha!
I’m almost certain this blog post could be a small novel. I’m not even close to being finished yet. Haha!
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| Darth Vader Bike Taxi |
My legs and feet were ready for some sitting and my tummy was ready for some eating right about now. This is where we found one of those bike taxi’s to take us to our friends Dain and Sherry for food. This was my first time getting to ride one of those bike taxi things, and it was soo cool! Did I mention it was the coolest bike taxi, ever? The driver was dressed as Darth Vader and as you drove down the street he played the theme song. It was by far, my favorite part of the whole Phoenix Comicon event. Everyone cheered as we drove past and we even spotted Wil Wheaton walking down the street! I’m telling you, award winner of the 2011 Phoenix Comicon Mr. Congeniality! We made it to The Rose and Crown in pure Comicon style. Dain let me sample one of his chicken wings and I’m telling you, nothing has ever tasted so good in my life. I had no choice but to order a full plate for myself. I’m having a mini daydream about those hot wings right now. It was a lot of fun to wind down with friends, meet new people while enjoying those wings over conversations of “Con” adventures.
My first day of Phoenix Comicon was over. I had to drink a gallon of water and take 2 Aleves to make the pain and dehydration go away. Pure Awesomeness, I’d do it all over again! I think I’m just a wee bit out of shape, I wasn’t even there that long.
Sunday, I slept in way too late. I blame my alarm for not punching me in the face to wake me up. Like a beep beep is going to do the trick. Finally got my “Con” back on around 4pm. I was feeling pretty pumped because on my way there I saw a DeLorean parked by the gas station. Ok… here is one of my nerd alerts. What is my favorite movie of all time? Back to the future! If anyone from that movie was ever at Comicon I’d pay any amount to meet them and have my photo taken with them. If I was rich, I’d buy a DeLorean and pimp it out time machine style.
Sunday was a nice and calm day at the “Con”. We were able to leisurely walk around and look for goodies to buy. I ended up finding the coolest shirt design ever. It’s a picture of a number 6 all freaked out because 7 is eating 9. Hahahaha!! Too cute! While we were looking, we ended up getting to meet the artist of my shirt and he agreed to sign my shirt. We were both very excited about the whole thing. I knew I had brought special markers with me for a reason! You should check them out online. HouseofHaHa.com and HouseofHaha on Facebook
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| Aaron the artist from the HouseofHaHa.com |
Our next stop was the karaoke room, but it looked like it was already finishing up so we went to the wrap it up panel down the hall. It was the only panel I got to go to, so I was still pretty excited. At the end, they gave away all of this stuff and I got my very first comic book. I don’t know anything about comics, but I have ONE now. I think that’s pretty cool. I almost left without getting one. Whoo hooo! Look at me getting my geek on! I have it in a safe place so I don’t have a photo of it yet.
That’s the end to my glorious journey! I have many photos you can view and a video of all the video clips I took here and there, you can even see the Thriller flashmob.
HOPE TO SEE YOU ALL NEXT YEAR! My goal is to try for the San Diego Comicon one day, so I can meet more and more people.
My 2011 Phoenix Comicon Photos — Comicon Flickr Album
I found a video of our Thriller Flashmob