Rebecca Blogs Comic Con: Day Three

Another convention has come and gone and I'm here to document my Friday experience. When I came in view of the Salt Palace I was disturbed to see a line winding its way away from the entrance around the block. The other two days I have been able to walk right in so I was like, “……if this prevents me from meeting Felicia Day I’m going to riot.” After a momentary debate about trying to cut into the line closer to the entrance, which I observed others do, my Lawful Good side won out and I began my quest to locate the back of the line. It ended up being all the way around the block, under a bridge, and back at the other entrance of the Salt Palace. In other circumstances it probably would have been miserable. However everyone was good-natured about it and it was fun to spot cosplays as they passed us on the way to the back. The line was mostly in the shade and moved steadily forward; I was inside within thirty minutes, when I had anticipated probably two hours. Crushed it.

The first thing I did was go on the hunt for a Deathly Hallows necklace for Mckenna, because you may recall that I am now a Comic Con dealer. Hit me up next time it comes to town and I'll hook you up. Once the necklace was located I got in line to meet Felicia Day. She is one of the few celebrities (at least of the ones I visited) who allowed selfies, so I was excited to have photographic proof. The deal was that if you bought her book and got it signed you got a free selfie. All three of those things for forty dollars is a good deal; color me sold. I chatted with the girls in front of me and we spied on Robbie Amell (from The Tomorrow People), who was signing autographs a few tables down. Dean O’Gorman, from The Hobbit, came out to do his signing on the table right next to us while we waited. The man knows how to do tousled hair right, yowza.

 It finally got to be my turn meeting Felicia, but she had to run to the bathroom. So I was standing in front of her table for ten minutes trying to compose myself (spoiler alert: it didn’t really work). When she came back I told her how glad I was she’d come to Salt Lake again; she ate a gummy worm and said thank you. She is so gorgeous and adorable in person and I LOVE HER. She thanked me for buying the book and we took a picture together, in which you can see that I am infatuated. The volunteer took several of me meeting her and I’m just like :D. I'm sure she gets that a lot. 

After that I wandered around the booths some more, trying to get a handle on everything that I would only have easy access to for one more day. I ran into Andi with one of her friends; they are both delightful and impressed upon me the importance of going to the Twisted Toonz panel later in the day. Today was my day for encounters like that. I didn't meet anyone I know the other two days, but yesterday I also ran into Joy, McCord and Lisa, and Thomas’ little brother, who introduced himself to me in a fashion that was miles out of my comfort zone when I was that age. The con was tightly packed yesterday; throngs and throngs more people than the other days had joined us. I’m always glad that I get a multi-pass, because trying to get everything done in only one day sounds like hell.Everything moved more slowly because of the crowds, but it was all right because there were only a few things on my list. I caught of a glimpse of Hannah and Hilly Hindi from the Hillywood Show as they were greeting fans; I can’t get over how *tiny* they are.

Alan and Production Man

The next panel I wanted to go to was the preview for Con Man, Alan Tudyk’s new show with Nathan Fillion. The line filled the lobby and into Hall E, but I was all right with that because I was getting overwhelmed with people and I just wanted to eat my pizza quietly. Hall E was a good place to do that. I was surprised when I actually got in, that Grand Ballroom is ENORMOUS. The panel was hosted by Sean Astin, Felicia Day, and a member of Con Man’s production team. We were told Alan Tudyk would join us via Skype, but then he ran out onto the stage and we were like YESSSSS. Alan is great. And yes, he brought his bag of sh!t. (His words, not mine.) It's his thing. He gives out signed random stuff from his house to people who ask questions. When Alan said that we reminded him of San Diego Comic Con Sean Astin said that ours was better. Sean Astin has our backs. Best quote from this panel: “Hi, my name is Sean Astin and I go to conventions."

Felica and Sean being adorable

I stayed in the Grand Ballroom for the Twisted Toonz panel per Andi's command. I’ve never gone to this panel before, but definitely will again. They have five voice actors who can do basically any voice, impression, whatever and read scenes from a script (in this case, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets) as characters that the emcee assigns. The actors, for those of you who are cooler than me and may recognize their names from shows like Simpsons, Futurama, the Animaniacs, TMNT, and many others, were: Maurice LaMarch, Rob Paulsen, Tress MacNeille, Jess Harnell, and Dee Bradley. 

It was HILARIOUS. Dee Bradley was my favorite: he could do all these crazy noises like elephant seal, crickets, or any other animal without any trouble. These animal noises were always assigned to Ginny, haha. He did Daffy Duck for two scenes and is apparently the only actor who can do that voice in real time. My favorite moment of his was when he did Harry as this German guy. Talking to Dobby: “I wish you came with subtitles, little creature.” Jess did a great Kermit and a mean Christopher Walken. His Transformer voice was hilarious. Tress was Dot from Animaniacs and it was awesome. Rob would do this adorable pandering grin every time he did a new voice and was too adorable for words. Maurice did Inspector Gagdet and you guys I cannot communicate how funny this panel was in words. I think they put them up on YouTube, I'm definitely going to check them out. My favorite thing (besides Arnold Schwarzenegger as Ron) was how much the panelists adored our Comic Con. They sincerely loved it, especially Jess. He threw in Salt Lake City shout outs whenever he could, whether they fit or not. Crowd pleaser. (I love him for it.) I hope they come back next time so I can meet them, I didn’t have time after the panel. 

That was a two hour panel, and it was getting close to the time I had to leave for Drowsy Chaperone, so I was almost done with Comic Con 2015. Sad day. (Our con broke world record yesterday for Most People Dressed as Comic Book Characters in one place. Aww yis.) I went through Artist Alley one more time. The first time I went to a convention I don’t think I went through the art at all, which was a huge mistake. I find it more interesting than a lot of the merch, because you can find that on the internet and these are originals. I only hope next year they don’t organize it by color…. I bought some adorable stickers, took some more photos of cosplayers (my favorite sighting was Ash fixing Belle’s hair), and had my wristband scanned for the last time on my way out. I played “Tonight You’re Perfect” by the New Politics as I drove away, because that has been my theme song for this convention. Until next time. <3