{"id":28317,"date":"2012-06-17T18:39:21","date_gmt":"2012-06-18T00:39:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/?p=28317"},"modified":"2014-06-13T16:44:44","modified_gmt":"2014-06-13T22:44:44","slug":"denver-comiccon-issue-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2012\/06\/17\/denver-comiccon-issue-1.html","title":{"rendered":"Denver ComicCon Issue 1"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>I was pretty jazzed to hear about Denver getting its own Comic Book Convention when I first saw online notes about it this spring. \u00a0Perhaps I’ve been spoiled by the various times I’ve been to San Diego, but I’ve never felt like StarFest picked up the slack as far as conventions go.<\/p>\n

And everything I saw with their online presence<\/a> looked pretty good — both the guest lineup and the site itself.<\/p>\n

And given that it was Fathers Day weekend, and I’d been thinking about dinner plans for Saturday night (avoiding the Sunday rush), it seemed like a perfect opportunity to put a couple of events together.<\/p>\n

So Saturday around Noon we headed for the light rail, and took the train<\/a> right to the Convention Center, which was both highly convenient and a way to avoid weekend parking costs and annoyances in downtown.<\/p>\n

The ground floor of the convention center was taken up with the registration area and, behind that, the various panels rooms. \u00a0Registration was a snap because we had pre-registered online — which allowed us to bypass a very, very long line for one with a dozen people in it. \u00a0(Kudos to their having staff walk the lines and let people know if they were pre-registered they could skip to a better line up front).<\/p>\n

Signage wasn’t very good, so it took us a little while to figure out that the main showroom floor was on the upper level. \u00a0There was plenty to see during the journey, though — a lot of folks in costume, as well as some tables set up for some local groups.<\/p>\n

The main floor that was open was pretty big, all things considered. \u00a0It took us about four hours to go through it, and stayed fairly constantly on the move. There was a large array of retailers (games, woodworking, fezzes, pins, art, dice, comic books, posters) as well as a\u00a0sizable\u00a0artist alley.<\/p>\n

(Ironically, Mile High Comics, a large, multi-store retailer here in the Denver area, had just a small corner booth with pictures of it stores and computers for its online sales, without any actual merchandise on display. An interesting decision on their part.)<\/p>\n

Of note as a difference from San Diego is that they Denver ComicCon sells wine and beer. \u00a0Breckenridge had a special “Fan” brew that they worked up just for the occasion. \u00a0As Mary noted<\/a>, the idea of 125K folks in San Diego with brewskis in them is problematic, but it seemed to work out here just fine.<\/p>\n

We didn’t attend any panels. They had a few that sounded interesting, but nothing I couldn’t live without or that I was willing to miss out on the floor on (and\/or drag the others to).<\/p>\n

There was a lot of cosplay going on, a lot more than I’d expected, and some of it was quite good (though I did not take many pix, dagnabbit). Best goes to the two Kaylee Frye’s I saw (Firefly), one in normal jumpsuit, the other in full “Shindig” wedding cake hoop dress (she also looked the part, which made it even better). \u00a0Beyond them there were a fair number of Imperial Stormtroopers, a lot of folks with the Doctor Who look (one Fourth Doctor was pretty darned good), a noteworthy number of Last Airbender<\/em> characters (including at least one Korra), and an array of Catwoman, Black Widow, and Black Canary folks. Only one scale mail bikini sort, and she was way too skinny. Several furries. Some (but not an excessive number) of mysterious anime\/manga types. \u00a0And, yes, a few other comic book characters (GL, Flash, Power Girl come to mind), but not a lot of them.<\/p>\n

Still, if you stood anywhere, someone interesting would walk (or skate) by, often in packs of interestingness.<\/p>\n

While we didn’t costume up, we did all make sure we were wearing appropriately Con-friendly t-shirts.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Dave<\/figcaption><\/figure>
\"\"<\/a>
Margie<\/figcaption><\/figure>
\"\"<\/a>
Katherine<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/p>\n


I had several folks give me an unsolicited “I love that shirt.” Margie got more than one “I know that! Girl Genius!” And folks at some of the tables enjoyed trying (or having Kay try) to identify the A-Z superheroes.<\/p>\n

So we enjoy comics, but we’re not about the cult of personality sort of thing. I mean, it’s fascinating to meet a famous author or a TV series star you like, but short of stammering out, “I, um, love your, uh, work,” there’s not much interaction to make standing in a long line worthwhile.<\/p>\n

So while I saw <\/em>a number of comics\/SF\/pop-media figures, I didn’t actually queue up for any of them. Some of the folks I saw included J. Scott Campbell, Barry Kitson, Neil Adams, Bruce Boxleitner (who’s definitely aged, but still looks distinguished) and James Marsters (who doesn’t appear to have aged, which is kind of creepy). I probably saw some other folks I should have known, but didn’t recognized by face, or by name (when the name was clear).<\/p>\n

We did pick up some swag (Kay, especially). My favorite person we saw, and from whom we got some nifty bits, was Katie Cook, from whom we acquired a spiffy “Firefly” poster, and who drew a Hogwarts owl for Kay.<\/p>\n

And that’s about it for the report. We finished the floor, then revisited some booths we’d wanted to get some stuff from (one of which had run out of the stuff we wanted, as a fair warning). We crossed the street to the Hyatt, where the gaming rooms for the convention were being housed (and where there was also some sort of military unit party going on, as well as the Miss Teen Colorado competition, all of which made for some delightful “Which event is that person there here for?” moments).<\/p>\n

And then we went to my office, dropped off the bags, changed into some non-geeky t-shirts, and went out for a nice Fathers Day Eve dinner.<\/p>\n

A good time had by all. Especially me.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I was pretty jazzed to hear about Denver getting its own Comic Book Convention when I first saw online notes about it this spring. \u00a0Perhaps I’ve been spoiled by the various times I’ve been to San Diego, but I’ve never felt like StarFest picked up the slack as far as conventions go. And everything I … Continue reading “Denver ComicCon Issue 1”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":28342,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[529,11,75,26],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-28317","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-avatarairbenderkorra","category-media-comics","category-media-performers","category-travel"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/06\/denver-comiccon-2012.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":43021,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2014\/06\/14\/photos-from-the-denver-comic-con-2014-saturday-at-least.html","url_meta":{"origin":28317,"position":0},"title":"Photos from the Denver Comic Con 2014 (Saturday, at least)","author":"***Dave","date":"Sat 14-Jun-14 7:10pm","format":false,"excerpt":"We headed off to the Con this morning -- got there to queue up before it opened, since we had to leave early for a band event. Didn't get to any of the program stuff, but had some success on the exhibitor floor and visited a few of our faves\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/06\/IMG_20140614_090410084_HDR.jpg.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":36823,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2013\/06\/03\/denver-comic-con-cosplay.html","url_meta":{"origin":28317,"position":1},"title":"Denver Comic Con Cosplay","author":"***Dave","date":"Mon 3-Jun-13 12:17pm","format":false,"excerpt":"I saw a few of these when there on Saturday, but it seems a lot of the cosplayers tended to hang out in the front lobby, where there was much photography-posing (which, to be honest, given the crowds inside, that's kind of understandable).I particularly liked 3, 6, 7, 17, 32,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":43029,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2014\/06\/15\/speedier-entry-lines-at-denver-comic-con.html","url_meta":{"origin":28317,"position":2},"title":"Speedier entry lines at Denver Comic Con","author":"***Dave","date":"Sun 15-Jun-14 5:21pm","format":false,"excerpt":"If this was their Number 1 Priority, they hit the mark. Getting in Saturday morning was a longish walk, but an easy and non-chaotic wait. Well planned and well staffed. Bravo, +Denver Comic Con.Reshared post from +kaci foultnerWhen doors opened at 10, the entire line of people with badges waiting\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":36647,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2013\/06\/01\/some-denver-comic-con-2013-shots.html","url_meta":{"origin":28317,"position":3},"title":"Some Denver Comic Con 2013 shots","author":"***Dave","date":"Sat 1-Jun-13 11:37pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Saw a lot more cool stuff than just these -- but it's hard not to go into visual overload \/ shutdown at a place like that.In album Denver Comic Con 2013 View this post on Google+","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":36826,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2013\/06\/03\/denver-comic-con-by-the-numbers.html","url_meta":{"origin":28317,"position":4},"title":"Denver Comic Con by the numbers","author":"***Dave","date":"Mon 3-Jun-13 2:31pm","format":false,"excerpt":"48K attendees? \u00a0That's pretty big-time for a second-year event (last year was around 28K). \u00a0On the other hand, there were some serious growing pains, with 6K turned away at the door on Friday (some after hours in line, and some who apparently had tickets) due to Fire Marshall intervention and\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":28315,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2012\/06\/16\/tweets-from-2012-06-16.html","url_meta":{"origin":28317,"position":5},"title":"Tweets from 2012-06-16","author":"***Dave","date":"Sat 16-Jun-12 10:45pm","format":false,"excerpt":"4 of 5 stars to The Best of Fredric Brown by Fredric Brown Link # And off we go to the inaugural Denver Comic Con. Woot! # Big long line. Prebuying online ticket recommended. # Remarkably strong turnout of cosplayers at the DCC. Pretty good ones, too. # Though a\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~Tweets"","block_context":{"text":"~Tweets","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/tweets"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28317","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28317"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28317\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":42697,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28317\/revisions\/42697"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/28342"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28317"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28317"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28317"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}