Dallas Comic Con 2012 Recap!

Stan Lee. Patrick Stewart. Summer Glau. George Perez. Kevin Conroy.

DALLAS COMIC CON!

This star studded event demolished Ben Steven’s previously anticipated “hopeful” goal of 15,000 with around 20,000 – 25,000 comic fans lining the walls and prompting the convention itself to apologize for nearly doubling the capacity of the Irving Convention Center! Though we here at IHOGeek, especially our Dallas natives ladyvader99 and killerrqueen, are no stranger to the chaotic nature of cons in general, pulling up to the convention center an hour after their scheduled opening time of 11am was extremely surprising. Luckily, being shoulder to shoulder with our cosplaying bretheren was distracting enough that time flew by and, before we knew it, our autographs were collected and we squished our way to various stands.

There was the usual convention fare: dealers specializing in rare figures, gorgeous prints to be signed by Captain Picard or art legend Perez, comics by the long box, artists pimping their particular brand of crack (i.e. prints we must buy), and on the fourth floor, a company called Big Freeze had set up a platform that took fucking amazing 3D action photos of cosplayers and con-goers. Click here to see an example of their craftmanship featuring local cosplayer, Lhars Ebersold. Hint: She was the amazing Catwoman!

Not to be put out by the damper that was Friday, one shining moment of DCC Round Two was meeting Stan Lee on Saturday, something every geek dreams about! In a wonderful moment of connections forged and favors being asked, we were able to spend ten glorious minutes in the presence of Stan Lee. Energetic and with a flair leaning toward theatrical, Stan charmed the figurative pants off of us. With one leg swung over the arm of the chair, he regaled us with the tale of how he ended up co-running Comikaze Expo (yep, the same one we interviewed Regina Carpinelli about!). As our mini-interview came to a close, we turned our attentions to capturing photos of our fellow geeks in colorful costumes, but due to the utter mass of people crowding each and every hallway, finding an empty spot was nearly impossible. We decided to reconvene the next day in hopes of getting better coverage.

On Sunday, the lines were thankfully lessened and we felt less sardine-like as @ladyvader99 made her way to the Kevin Conroy (or as some may know, Bruce Wayne from Batman: The Animated Series) side of the convention in the hopes of acquiring an autograph and hearing a raspy rendition of “I am the night!” Unfortunately, this quest sadly failed as Conroy’s line was capped 20 people ahead of her after two hours of waiting. The absence of thousands allowed us to easily explore the rest of the convention and take many as many photos of wandering cosplayers as we could capture. Our discovery of the fourth floor photo exhibit, The Big Freeze, left us captivated. The Big Freeze exhibit consisted of a raised platform with well over a hundred mounted cameras that when triggered create a bullet time special effect, sometimes called the Matrix camera or 360 camera. The effect left us stopped in our tracks for a good half hour as many, many extraordinary photos were taken (our favorite being a fight scene between Deadpool and Dark Phoenix) Luckily, this is when we were also privy to an adorable chase scene between a tiny Robin cosplayer and an adult Joker cosplayer, another highlight of the day.

As the afternoon began to wane, we decided to try our luck with Firefly and Serenity actress, Summer Glau. While we were denied the time for an interview due to the multitude of people and Glau’s quickly approaching flight to catch, we were allowed to shadow the last half of her private autograph session. Summer Glau is as absolutely stunning in person as she is on film, a petite beauty with locks that fell in perfect waves. Someone make a tutorial on Summer Glau’s hair, STAT! As her session ended, we expected to be ushered out with the other media but surprisingly were allowed to linger and witnessed Laura Vandervoot coming in to meet and fangirl over Summer almost as much as we were doing ourselves!  All too soon though, we decided to head out and ran into several of the gamer models for Charisma+2, including owner and founder, Yvonna Lynn (who was representing the warrior princesses dressed as Xena!) before heading out for the day.

Unfortunately, the moment that the convention was over, fans took to the Interweb/Facebook/Youtube to vent their personal frustrations on waiting 3+ hours for autographs and swag in a packed Dealer’s Room. Listening to fellow fans around us definitely shed some light on their experiences and expectations, though Con-goes need to expect the unexpected at times and remember that not every issue can be blamed on someone else. Stan Lee and Patrick Stewart, both previously scheduled for the entire weekend, ended up having to cut their visits short as their schedules changed which prompted a lot of attendees to shift the days they planned to attend to make sure they saw who they paid for. The conclusion of the convention saw numerous fans lodging complaints with the convention organizers, most notably a one hour long diatribe from YouTube user escottish140 personally directed to Ben Stevens, to the point where NBC sought out Dallas personality, cosplayer and long time Convention fiend, Taffeta Darling, to get her thoughts on the whole thing based on her initial response video to escottish140. You can also read the full article via Aggressive Comix HERE.

Despite the small slice of negativity, most fans realize that the mishaps, mistakes and mayhem of conventions is part of the excitement that leads us geeks to go there in the first place! If you attended DCC, what were the highlights of your experience? Let us know in the comments below and be sure to check out our photos on FB!