Indiana Comic Con Diary, Day 2
Last year’s Indiana Comic Con was both a wild success and a debacle. The Con organizers, expecting a modest crowd, only secured two small halls for their convention. Indianapolis, hungry for nerdy Comic Con goodness, swarmed to the Indiana Convention Center and created gridlock that led to thousands of people being turned away from the con. Immediately after the end of the Con, organizers laid out plans for this year: a vastly expanded space along with brand new guests, including the legendary Carrie Fisher (Princess Leia), the up-and-coming Aquaman (Jason Momoa), and others. Film Yappers Joe Shearer, Ben Johnson and Evan Dossey invaded the Con for 2015. Here are their thoughts on Comic Con.
Joe: Day 2 started later than usual for me. I decided to hit the Con in the afternoon. However, my cousin James and his son Caleb wanted to join me, so we ended up with heading down around 2 p.m. My oldest son Riley wanted to join us now that his cousins were coming. Between Comic Con, Motocross, a St. Patrick's Day celebration and a Pacers game, traffic was insane. We ended up parking far enough away for a 10-minute walk.
It was a lot of fun to introduce new people to the Comic Con experience; I gave them a little primer on photo etiquette, and pointed out the Exhibition Hall and the panel / Q&A rooms.
It was about 4 p.m. when we arrived, and the crowds were ENORMOUS. There were thousands of people roaming the halls, and where the cavernous Exhibition Hall was busy on Friday, it was at least two to three times that on Saturday. Still, though, there was plenty of room to navigate, and I didn't feel like it was half as cramped as the Wizard World Cons in Chicago. That's a credit to the convention organizers, who reserved plenty of convention space this year.
We bandied about the Exhibition Hall for awhile, browsing through more comics. I am a casual collector as I mentioned, but I was interested in buying the entire "Avengers: Age of Ultron" series that I found yesterday packed in one of a couple of dozen boxes marked "$1 each." Alas, they had a $25 minimum purchase to use a credit card, so I had to abstain. I returned with cash in hand today ... only to find the set gone.
Meanwhile, my friend Dax, a longtime convention buddy of mine, had already arrived, and was in the "Game of Thrones" panel, where Rory McCann and Jason Momoa were speaking. The Carrie Fisher panel was happening immediately after, and Dax had secured front-row seats.
We found the enormous hall designated for "Star Q&A," and stayed and watched for a few moments. The room was packed to the tune of no fewer than 500 people (likely many more than that), so we stood and watched for a few moments. Neither of us were "Game of Thrones" fans in particular, and the language being bandied about reflected that show's content, so we took the boys and headed back to the Exhibition Hall.
We were waiting for the panel to let out, and commenced fingering through the stacks of comics. Riley grabbed a handful of New 52 books, including some 3D covers of No. 1 issues. Then we heard the announcement: "The Exhibition Hall will be closing in 2 minutes." We hastened our purchases and filed to the exit amid the slew of Dr. Who fans, people dressed as obscure aliens, heroes, monsters and villains, and bounced back over to the Star Q&A room.
Our own panel, dubbed "Movie Critics Speak Out!," was to commence at 7 p.m., and while the room we had was significantly smaller than the one Momoa and McCann were speaking in, there were still a fair number of seats. Fisher's Q&A, for me easily the highlight of the con, went from 6:30 to 6:50 p.m. I was supposed to be at my room 20 minutes prior to start, so that meant I had, at best, 10 minutes to listen to Princess Leia speak. That means I gave up FRONT ROW seats to this panel, in a room that held at least 500 seats.
However, Dax, Caleb, James, and Riley still had those seats, and stuck around until 6:50 to stay through.
I waited until Fisher came out, and she was accompanied by a small dog, whom she proceeded to make out with for the first couple of moments of the panel. I decided it was time to head over at this point, and jetted over to my room.
To my surprise there were people waiting outside the door. I talked to them for just a moment, then was joined by my two co-panelists, Film Yappers Christopher Lloyd and Sam Watermeier.
This is the third Q&A we have held at a comic convention, and each of the previous two had what I'd call a small turnout. The first, at Indy PopCon in July, was held on a Sunday morning in an upstairs room and had all of four people. Our second, at AwesomeCon in November, had about 15 people, held on Friday night, when it was less busy. Taking place on Saturday night, we were more hopeful that we'd have a decent crowd.
We went inside and took our place at the tables and hobnobbed until the start of the panel. I got a text from James saying Fisher had talked to Riley during the panel and immediately I was some combination of giddy and disappointed that I didn't get to stay to witness it.
As it turns out she was discussing her encounters with bipolar disorder, and noticed Riley in the front row, and decided to speak to him directly since he would obviously not be familiar with it. She then continued to come back to him to explain other things directly to him.
We did indeed have a solid crowd — I'd estimate between 50 and 75 people — and we had a great time talking shop with people who came armed with pretty smart questions. Much of the talk was dominated by superhero movies, which was just fine with me. Overall it was a great experience, one that was a lot of fun and hopefully announced the presence of The Film Yap to a large number of new people.
That pretty much marked the end of our day, though the festivities continued until midnight. We jetted back across downtown and got to our car at about 8:30 p.m., through a parade of drunken St. Patrick's Day celebrants and sports fans.
Evan: I didn't attend any panels Saturday afternoon, instead devoting it to shopping and dorking around the Con Floor. I collect bound editions (paperback, hardcovers, etc) not single issues, and to my dismay that was the focus of most of the book booths. Still, a good time browsing.
While my girlfriend, Aly, split off the spend time with her 5-year old niece, my roommate and I went off in search of anything interesting. My personal favorites:
A company devoted to men dressed as ninja turtles.
Roxy the Rancor.
One man's custom Hulk statue with...unfortunate crotchal proportions.
And a booth bought by a parent for her two children to display hand-drawn artwork (10c!) and a very impressive collection of Star Wars Legos. It was the weirdest booth I've ever seen at a convention.
All in all, a pretty cool time looking around the floor. I didn't end up spending any money, but Aly got a beautiful Hawkeye / Widow print from artist Jae Lee.
The Carrie Fisher panel was planned to be the highlight of my day, and, boy, it was...illuminating. Carrie opened the panel by greeting the crowd wit ha "How're you hookers doing?!" and French kissing her dog. I was aware going in that Fisher's career has deviated from her Princess Leia image for decades, but I'm not sure the rest of the audience was. She was hilarious and revealing, to the point of being a little off-putting. At times she lapsed into complete nonsense. When it comes to a convention Q&A, however, she was also the most entertaining I've ever attended.
Some highlights included: a story about dating Dan Akroyd over the passed out body of John Belushi. How much she loves being part of people's childhood, but not their adolescence. In particular, her avoidance of the "Beatles" question, where she elected only to say she knew each of them and that she had a "particularly good story about George." The best moment for me, as a fan of Star Wars, however, was moderator (and my close friend) Christy Blanch awarding Fisher a Yavin Victory medal, because she never got one at the end of the movie. You could tell Fisher was, at the moment, tremendously affected by the gesture. For the first time in the panel, it felt like Fisher was on the same fandom page as the crowd.I hear Fisher threw glitter on the queue line as she arrived at the panel. That seems fitting. I wish I'd gotten some.