Conned

I got a bunch of free tickets in 2014 to a convention called Fantasy Con from my work. I took my kids to experience it, and ever since then, my younger daughter has been desperate to go to another one like it.

My daughter has only become more entrenched in the geek culture since those days. She's become a hardcore artist, spending hour after hour drawing away in her room. She's become a giant fan of anime, watching series after series in great gulping binges on Netflix and Hulu. And she's always been into the geek culture that the rest of us are exposed to, like the Marvel movies that hit theaters each year, and the various television shows out there that feature superheroes or paranormal investigators, or time lords.

Fantasy Con turned out to be a one off. It never came back. But the year before Fantasy Con, they started up a Comic Con here in town, and that one has come back every year. Last year, my daugter tried to use her allowance to get Comic Con tickets that a kid in school was trying to unload at a discount, but I wasn't going to be able to take her. She was really depressed, so I promised her that I'd take her the next year instead.

Well, this weekend, the next year rolled around, and it was time to make good on my promise. I know that parents promise a lot of things to their kids to make them feel better without ever actually intending to make good on those promises, but I really hate that. I try to live up to any promise that I make, even if it's hard. Of course I love going to something like Comic Con, so on the whole, it was a pleasure.

I got us tickets, rearranged my work schedule so there would be no conflicts, and we headed out to the Saturday session of Comic Con.

Out front, they had these giant statues of the trolls from the Hobbit, feet raised, ready to stomp on a pesky halfling. Rish and I had to get a picture...not with the statues, though, but with the sign that was posted beside them.

We're sad, not because we can't touch the trolls but because we are the trolls and no on will touch...I guess if you have to explain it, then it wasn't very good to begin with. Sorry

Once inside, the very first thing inside the door was Artist Alley. Immediately, she'd found her place, and didn't want to leave. dozens of amazing artists were displaying their wares, and my daughter moved from booth to booth, deciding to spend the $40 of allowance she'd brought with her at each one. I forbid her from buying anything until she'd seen it all, because I'd been to enough cons to know the buyers remorse you will feel when you've spent all your money and then come across that thing that is better than anything you've seen so far. She was irritated with me, but complied.

I forced her to leave Artist Alley for a while, to attend the Famke Janssen panel.

She played Jean Grey in all but the most recent X-Men movies. It was neat to see her, but her panel was actually really boring. The moderator, and the audience kept asking her questions, to which she would respond with answers like, "Oh, wow, that's a really good question. I'm not sure if I could choose just one experience to tell you about. It was really great to be in the movie, and I'm grateful that I was cast as Jean Grey. Thanks." Absolutely no information, no funny stories, no interesting gossip, no insights into what it was like to make five different X-Men films with Hugh Jackman, Patrick Stewart, Ian McKellan, James Marsden, Halle Berry, and Brian Singer.

I was feeling pretty let down. I wanted my daughter to see that there was a lot more than just Artist Alley to enjoy at Comic Con, and Famke Janssen was apparently not the one to show that to her.

When the panel let out, we went back out to the convention floor, and wandered around looking at what the artists had to display. That's when she found the thing that got her the most excited. Since becoming a big fan of anime, she has also become a big fan of manga, the comic book form of anime. Apparently, there's a special type of markers that are used to create these manga books. These markers are called Copic markers. She has been asking for Copics for a while now, but they're really expensive. Copic had a booth in Artist Alley, and she was immediately calculating what her allowance money could buy her. Spoiler alert: it wasn't very much.

I forced her not to spend her money immediately, but to think about it first, and I dragged her to another panel. This time, it was two of the main actors from the TV show Arrow.

She is a big fan of the show Arrow, having binge-watched the entire series (again) this summer, so she was excited to see the stars from the show, even if they turned out to be as boring as Famke Janssen. In fact, on our drive in to the comic con, she got a good laugh out of the tweet that came in from the Comic Con app. "Stephen Amell has arrived!" it said. Then moments later, it was followed with this message: "And he brought his abs!"

These guys put on a much better show. They were funny, and engaging. They told some really great stories from the set, never shying away from saying silly stuff, or sharing embarrassing things about the guy sitting next to them. It was exactly the kind of thing that you paid your money to see at a comic con, so at least we got one good experience in at the panels.

We went back out to the convention floor, and I made my daughter look at some of the booths beyond Artist Alley. While we wandered, I took a few pictures of her with people in costumes. Then I found a woman in a costume that I just couldn't pass up getting a picture of:

What was crazy was that this woman even smelled like an '80s toy. I remember my sisters had little Strawberry Shortcake dolls that puffed out a whiff of strawberry scented perfume when you squeezed their stomachs, and this Rainbow Brite smelled exactly like that stuff. Now that's taking your costume to the next level.

Soon, however, my daugher had me back at the Copic booth, which is where one of her best friends from school found her. The two of them are both artists, and he had already blown his money on some Copics. Quickly, the two were picking out which colors would be best for my daughter to buy. They were planning on pooling their markers together to be able to create the best art.

And so passed her allowance money, may it rest in peace.

Her friend wasn't too interested in attending panels. He said he'd gone to one, but it had been so boring that he'd fallen asleep, so I didn't try to push them into any. Instead we just looked for fun things to do. They had a giant action figure box in the lobby that you could go inside of and get a picture. And they also had a replica of the Iron Throne from the TV show, Game of Thrones. So, we all posed on that.

I always wear my Dunesteef shirt to conventions if I can. I'm always hoping that someone will see it and say, "Oh, wow, Dunesteef. I listen to that show." Hasn't happened yet, but maybe someday.

I let the kids wander by themselves for a bit, while I attended an absolutely horrible panel about toy collecting. These people showed up with nothing whatsoever to talk about. They opened it up to questions from the audience immediately after introducing themselves. Which was pretty ridiculous, when you consider it. "Hi, I'm Joe Blow you've never heard of. Now, ask me questions." Why would anyone want to ask them questions? People actually asked questions like, "What is your favorite toy you've ever collected?" Who cares? Why would I care what toy a complete stranger with no credentials that mean anything to me thinks is neat?

Let me just say that the panels I attended at this comic con left a little bit to be desired. There were tons of panels on writing, and had I been there on my own, instead of trying to show my daughter a good time, I might have been attending those instead. Professional writers tend to be the ones putting those panels on, so I might have gotten something worthwhile out of them. But professional toy collectors? I'm pretty sure that's not a thing. This panel would probably only have been cool if someone that I respected for some other achievement, like being a writer or an actor, was on it talking about how they also have a toy collecting habit. One guy, Kerry Jackson, who is a local DJ and Podcaster, was supposed to be on the panel, but he never showed. He might have had something to say worth hearing. Instead, I could have been on the panel and offered as much of worth as these folks did.

I came out of that panel and found the kids in...you guessed it, Artist Alley. They'd spent the hour wandering through and looking at all the art on display. We hurried to the grand ballroom where the YouTube sensation Studio C was supposed to be giving a panel. Instead, the Vampire Diaries actors were still going. Someone at the door told us that Studio C had cancelled at the last minute. Another panel let down. It was a good thing that Stephen Amell and David Ramsey were so good, because I wouldn't want to ever come back to a comic con at this point, I think.

We went back to the convention floor, and I forced the kids to come away from the art for a while and look at the other booths around the floor. They were using more of the building this year than I'd ever seen before. The booths went for miles. My daughter was on her last legs though. We'd been mostly standing and walking the entire day, and, like me, her feet were killing her. We looked at a bunch of toy booths, but I didn't find anything I'd be willing to blow money on. Then finally, we decided it was time to go home. We said goodbye to her friend, and hit the road.

I think she really enjoyed it, and I think the other kids would enjoy it too. I think next year I need to find a way to bring everyone. It'll be a lot of fun.