Being a veteran to conventions of the geek nature, from Comic Book shows, to Video Game Cons, to everything dork under one roof, I went into Mini-MegaCon with the expectations of something put together quickly and no “big name” guests as well as not a lot of people cosplaying (cosplay = people in costumes if you are unfamiliar with this term… and I only put this because I still know people not knowing what the word means). Well my assumptions were semi-correct for this two day event. Sunday ended up being ‘meh’.. but Saturday was as good as any of the regular MegaCon shows and really out-weighed any thoughts I may have about Sunday.

Saturday started with walking through the fairly far away parking lot with my cousin, wondering if there will be a lot of cosplay or not. I figured, if there was, it will be Ghostbusters for sure, the hype surrounding the video game and another movie in the works made it the focus of costumes (much like Watchmen/Rorschach was the cosplay of choice last Con). I do not hate being right, as the first set we see even before we get into the show was the following group to the right. Right away my worries that there wouldn’t be a lot of cosplay were set aside before even walking in the con because of these ghost fighting nerds.

Entering the con itself felt perfect. Tables were set up so you can wade through the vendors and their mixed goods of comics, anime, manga, toys, clothing, and even something new.. tattooing. I remember FX Show sporting a few booths like this, so it was nice to see MegaCon making sure that they wouldn’t be left out on this, which is definitely it’s own form of art to be appreciated.

Going through the tables you can find a mixture of all the artists and writers, behind them were the independent and amateur tables pimping their products by having booths full of their art all around. Near the food area was fighting with big foam swords and Legos.. yes, there was a full section with Lego building. Getting as far away from geeks with foam violence and the building blocks were the “famous” people signing autographs. Here you could find media guests ranging from D-List to A-List, with people from Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Charmed, all the way to wrestling divas like SoCalVal.

The focal point for myself at this event is… the comics. Where I brought many of my own comics to be signed by the likes of Greg Horn (Elektra), Alvin Lee (Street Fighter), Jim Cheung (New Avengers), Jimmy Palmiotti (he does EVERYTHING), and legend of comics Dick Giordano (known for his Batman work). Still drawing to this day, he blew me away by drawing myself a picture of Batman with five minutes (that I now need to find a frame for)

After getting a few things signed, it was time to check out the panel circuit. The first one I attended was “Art of Visual Storytelling”, which included Alvin Lee, Greg Land, and Billy Tan, very well known artists in the comic world. I stayed the full hour and listened in as they had prepared questions to answer as well as taking on audience questions. Check out youtube.com/user/BingeGamerDotNet within the next few days as I will have some video uploaded for any of you aspiring artists who want to hear advice from those already in the game.

As a person who just draws for fun, listening to these guys and the process they go through making the comics was still really interesting. A good example is finding references for artwork, which all three agree they use Google Image search when necessary, but having an extra source of reference is Alvin Lee, who needs only to boot up any Street Fighter game to know what he needs to draw.

Another panel I attended was “Pen & Ink Panel: The Art of Drawing Comics”, which included Brandon Peterson, Sergio Cariello, and Mike Perkins. All three provided not only an informative panel, but Brandon a very amusing guy (next door they seemed to be blasting some random Lady Gaga song to which Brandon broke out in a little dance).

For the most part this panel ran different than the last, with full audience participation with questions and all three guys giving you the straight up info on how they get things done. It was interesting to hear how Photoshop has become basically a necessary tool for all the artists at some point of their drawing, and amusing to hear “get it anyway you can” (ie, piracy doesn’t seem to be frowned upon).

With that, I left the panel, walked about the grounds taking more random pictures of cosplayers, had a nice discussion with Brandon Peterson where my cousin started asking some direct questions regarding Greg Land, I ate a $6 hot dog and drank a $3 Pepsi (which was the cheapest food available, for comparison, a very small plate of chicken and rice was $9), and pretty much my feet were tired and it was time to relax and get ready for the Sunday show. While exiting, it was amusing to see a line full of cosplayers getting ready for some panel that I didn’t know of, so I snapped my last shot of the day.

Coming in on Sunday was a far different experience than the day before. I had to pick up a friend that lived 40 minutes away, I forgot my press pass so had to run home, I basically showed up later than I wanted to… but in the end, I found it didn’t really matter, as Sunday basically full of people who didn’t seem to be ‘feeling it’ anymore. There was very few people in costumes. Some artists had already abandoned their tables and went home. And even the vendors were packing up their comic book boxes for sale and taking them out to their cars.

I did find something for me and my friend to attend though, the Quick Draw Contest, which made the day all worth while. There was a room with around 20-30 people (though some of those people weren’t drawing, they were using a table to play Magic: The Gathering). There were three categories with the topics “Manly”, “Robot/Mech/Electric”, and the last being “Fantasy”. We were given 20 minutes to draw for each category, and basically those were the only rules. Being the bad ass that I am, and having a background in reading Maddox forever, I knew the most manly thing for me to draw was a Pirate Lumberjack. Which I won first prize!

The sad part about this, the prize was some Naruto poster and an anime dvd (despite being Japanese, I am not a fan of anime/manga/big eyes).

Other than the art contest, the day was a dud. The amount of people packing up and heading out set a somber mood in the convention hall. I hit up a few vendors, bought a couple of The Tick comics for a buck each, and ended the day early. Overall, the Saturday more than made up for Sunday. Being a part of the winning crowd during the art contest was also a ray of sunshine for Sunday. Thanks to all the people behind the MegaCon events, having a “Mini” version at a random time of the year is something I would be all for next year as well (just make stricter rules on the artists and vendors to stay until the end of the day, splitting early sucks!)

[ To see the Cosplay click here and also read my piece on comic artists stealing from other artists ]

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