C2E2 Convention Recap

On Saturday April 17th, I had a chance to go to the new convention in town C2E2. This convention was kind of special for me. See I've been working ALOT lately and it looked as though my plans to go to this show were lost. It was especially disappointing because I had passed up on going to Wizard World Chicago. I had heard a lot of hype about this new convention and the operators, The Reed Exhibitions Pop Culture Group (their blog), who run the big New York Comic Con and The Star Wars Celebration just to name a couple. So here I was thinking I was going to miss out on any conventions because I decided not to go to WWC and now couldn't go to C2E2. At the last minute my boss made arrangements for each of the supervisors under him to have two days off. In my case he scheduled me to be off Saturday and Sunday. Can you say superduperhappy?!?!?! I was now going, not the three days as I had planned but I could make it at least one. I did!

We've needed a major pop convention by a major promoter in Chicago for a long time. Well we got one. I went with a friend of mine and we had a great time. First and formost there were comics and lots of them. I went through lots of Golden Age and Silver Age ones but didn't really buy any. I went with some specific things in mind I wanted to get and I was able to get most of them. Of course I had to add to my T-shirt collection and picked up four or five new ones. Man I've got a lot now. I need to do another post on that and update my Photobucket gallery. We wandered around and got to see a lot of very cool stuff. Some of the highlights for me were:

Lots of great costumes, my favorite of which was a guy dressed as the Red Skull. He looked awesome and we only saw him as we were leaving. Glad we didn't leave like 10 mins sooner or later or we might have missed him.

Saw a replica of the 1960s television Batmobile. You could wait in line to sit in it and take a picture but seeing as I was only going to be there the one day I didn't want to take up too much time doing any one thing. There was also a replica of the DeLorean time machine from 'Back to The Future'.

Like I said above. T-shirts and more T-shirts. I also picked up a very cool C2E2 collectors glass from the show sporting Superman on it. There's a Golden Age and modern version of him on it.

Picked up some great books and comics including lots of new stuff of Kolchak, one of my favorites!

Got to stop by the Moonstone Books booth, where I got the Kolchak books and graphic novels. I also got to meet Lori The Comic Book Goddess who runs the blog for Amazing Fantasy Books. Funny, I picked up all the Kolchak books I thought I didn't have and then as I was leaving the booth I found more. So of course I had to buy them. Right? I need help. No I don't, I like my geekdom.

But the best part about the convention was, I got to meet Emma Caulfield. Emma played Anya on Buffy the Vampire Slayer. I talked to her for a few minutes about the collaboration on a web comic she is doing called Contropussy, I picked up a copy. I also got an autographed photo of her which made me a very happy Buffy fan. Oh and just in case anyone thinks I'm pulling their chain:

A picture speaks a thousand words. I got to the booth just as she was taking a break but instead of running up and getting her autograph I let her take her break. She's a person too and God knows she probably gets enough of people bothering her. I waited for about twenty minutes and then she came back. We talked for like a good ten minutes when she came back. I was first in line so everyone had to wait behind me. She is really smart, has some great ideas on what she wants to do with her newest work and is very down to earth. Some celebrities seem a little difficult to talk to or approach. Not her. She was great.

My buddy and I ended up being at the show for like seven hours. I didn't even know it. I was having such a great time. But all good things must come to an end and we finally left. After all the hours I had worked that past week, by the time I got home I was beat. I put my new stuff away, sat down to watch a little television and I was out like a light.

So you would think that would be the end of my recap but it's not. While we were at the convention we stopped by the Tonner Direct booth. Tonner makes large format premium dolls. These dolls cover everything from fashion to pop culture. The have a line of DC characters, mostly women, which is what drew us to the booth. They are good looking dolls and at seventeen inches tall each it's hard to miss them. I had no intention of buying any. Action figures are my thing and these are plain and simply dolls. Really big, really good dolls but still dolls. Besides being in the $150 - $200 range each puts them a bit outside of my budget, however it doesn't hurt to look.

While we were looking at the dolls one of the ladies came over and asked if we wanted to enter into a drawing to win the DC Women of Power set they had on display. The set consisted of Wonder Woman, Powergirl, Supergirl, Harley Quinn and Poison Ivy. I said what the heck, I never win these things anyway so I filled one out.

Four days later, Wednesday, I got a call and believe it or not I won! It was very cool and made the convention that much better after the fact. I'm not exactly sure what to do with them but I'm sure something will come to me.

Here's a link to all the photos I took at the show C2E2 photos (click the albums at the left of that page)

C2E2 - The best new convention in town. You can be sure that I will be going again next year!