Because I can be talked into anything I’ve written a two part post detailing my experiences at WizardWorld: Chicago last weekend. Melissa has added commentary in italics rather than sit down and write her own.

Hey, we did the SAME THING. It’s not like having two separate reports would be anything but redundant.

To my credit, I didn’t take it as a bad sign when I got lost before leaving Oklahoma City for Chicago. Or when I realized past Tulsa that I’d forgotten the main part of my costume. Or when I was lost for over an hour in Springfield looking for a dancewear store so I could buy a green leotard to replace the forgotten costume. (I did not succeed at this.)

I actually took it as a good sign when I got a flat tire, because I noticed this at a rest stop where there was a family in the next parking spot willing to help me change it!

I did however get a little discouraged by the Detour From Hell, which took me around Rosemont in a terrifying spiral labyrinth rather than simply let me make one right turn that wasn’t blocked off by construction and led me to the street I wanted.

My trip was much less eventful. Also shorter. My ex-roommate Amber and I drove from Lansing. Well, she drove. I’m not allowed behind the wheel on these sorts of trips by mutual consensus. (Because as a driver I suck.) We did get lost in Chicago, where I spent a happy fifteen minutes arguing with the rental car location tracker thing.

We DID ultimately find our hotel. Even though our location-tracker thing ACTUALLY led us to a 7-11 instead. Yeah.

When I finally got to the hotel room we all celebrated by going to the 7-11 to get Melissa cold medicine.

For the record, if anyone ended up coming back from the convention with the cold from hell, yeah, my fault. Sorry.

Right next to the 7-11? A dancewear store.

It was closed.

The next day we skipped the hotel shuttle in favor of more cold medicine and a hot meal. We still made it to the convention fairly early. The first booth we saw was actually the SuperFrat one, where they were conscientiously swearing in new members. We chatted, Amber got her picture taken, then we lingered at the DC Booth a little while.

We got Green Lantern rings! Also, I’m pretty sure those Superfrat guys still owe us a guy-guy kiss from when we pledged last year. Chickens.

Then it was time to spend money. I should have known better than to enter the dealer’s floor so early in the convention, but we had to go through it to reach Artist’s Alley and my ultimate goal of Pat Gleason’s autograph. I’m from a long line of souvenir-collectors, and I’ve always preferred in person shopping to online junk accumulation. I found myself in a room of comic books, books, clothes, toys, general superhero-related junk that I could paw through and buy as suited my whims. I wasn’t the only one who felt this way. We bought our hearts out. We bought the booths out. When that was finished, we started buying up floorspace and throwing money at whoever seemed to work there!

I came mostly broke, though I did buy a Fallen Son #5 for signature hunting later, since I’d left my copy at home. I got the Turner variant cover with the Brokeback Mountain overtones. Because I’m twelve.

Okay, I’m exaggerating just a bit, but there was a point (10:30 in the morning on Friday, actually) when we’d bought so much that Amber declared that we would just go straight to Artist’s Alley as soon as she could get five feet without spending money. That was the point we saw the Guy Gardner action figure. We were truly doomed.

Hah! Guy Gardner action figures for the win! Amber and I almost fought over that thing. I think the salesperson was very startled at our exuberance. Also: Guy Gardner fangirls are scary.

At some point we made it far enough to introduce ourselves Michael May and see that Gleason was too busy to sign anything for me yet. This was a good thing, because it shook me from my spending spree enough to realize we still had to buy costume items for Saturday and, less importantly, eat. Coincidentally, that dance store by the 7-11 had just one green leotard in my size and black arm-coverings and leggings. We managed to try on costumes, shop for odds and ends, grab lunch and get back for the DC panel just in time to miss all of the good seats filling up.

God. Shopping with you and Amber was so boring! You guys shop like girls or something! Next time I’m bringing a book.

Our seats weren’t too bad though. We did get to see most everyone. Just really hard to get called on over there.

I really enjoy the DC panels, the editorial/busines staff at DC have a decent comedy routine worked up. They have to have something funny ready, because the fans really can ask any inane question at all and they need to keep the panel moving and everyone entertained. Last year, they’d had Giffen making the quick quips on behalf of the panel, this year they had Jim Starlin saying he killed every character in New Gods.

He was very enthusiastic about it.

For those of you who may be curious, I did get to ask an inane question. I was the one who complained about the proliferation of teenaged blondes. Though the writeups didn’t quite get it right. I said that it had been bugging me since the 90s, and immediately got made fun of for waiting so long to ask. (I didn’t quite get to point out that the remaining teen heroines at DC were Wonder Girl — blonde, Stargirl — blonde, and Supergirl –blonde). I managed to get the point across, and point out how in Young Justice we couldn’t tell the girls apart and got stopped with “That’s why they’re all dead!” I doubled over with laughter and had to hold my chest I swear I felt the left side of my heart trying to burst. I think I stammered out “Oh my god” because I really just couldn’t believe he’d made that joke. It was too funny, it was unexpected and it was likely get so many fans angry at him.

Peroxide. The silent killer.

Yes, now you know the awful truth about me, I am one of those fans who laughs about your favorite characters dying. At the panels.

Eeevil. Especially since I’m pretty sure all the blond YJ members are actually still alive.

Hey, false advertising, Didio! I demand blood!

The timing of the last question was pretty impressive, because all three of us are pretty sure at this point that Didio meant to let that bit about Bart slip sometime during the panel. I can’t decide whether the guy who asked about Barry Allen was a ringer or if they were just waiting this convention season for someone to ask about the end of Lightning Saga so they could slip that. Either way, he seemed to have too much fun jumping up and down about his “mistake” and Bob Wayne took over the panel with his announcement about the Saturday event much too smoothly.

Miss Sarah Bernhardt will now be playing the role of Dan Didio.

After the panel Melissa went to bother John Cassaday, and I went with Amber to bother Richard Hatch. When we all met up again I dragged the other two to bother Pat Gleason.

Hence the reason I bought the Fallen Son issue. I decided not to ask him to sign the cover, on account of it being the Turner variant, and got him to sign Cap’s bare chest instead.

John Cassaday is really, disgustingly, attractive, by the way.

We spent the night making costumes. Well, Amber just had to glitter her costume. I was trying to use my paint, stencils, and sticky fabric paper to make a Green Lantern symbol. It took two tries before Melissa talked me into abandoning the paint and just cutting out the white part, then I’d made three cutouts before I realized I could trace the Lantern symbol on the backing of the fabric paper and not have ink on my costume. Hey, I had a long drive the two days before and a long day at the con. My brain was akin to cottage cheese by that point.

I on the other hand got to be the incredibly whiny peanut gallery. It’s a hard day’s work.

To be fair, her costume looked fantastic by the end. Next year, I’m going as Guy Gardner if it kills me.

The Fangirls’ Wizardworld Adventure Part II

This entry was posted on Friday, August 17th, 2007 at 9:54 am and is filed under Conventions, DC Comics, Fandom, News & Views. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.