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papersandkeyboards · 7 years

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4/10: Geek Out!

Pretty much half of April I spent outside of school—outside of Seattle, for that matter. I just spent a week away because of the AFS trip and right the week after that was spring break, and Karen and Eric got a major scheme planned precisely for the next week.

I only got one day after I got back from AFS trip to be spent in Seattle, before flying away again. And thanks to destiny and luck, Sunday is the last day of the thing I put on the top 10 of my exchange wish list: a comic convention.

Another reason to be grateful to be placed in a big city like Seattle. On my second visit to the comic book store near Seattle Central in the past, I asked the comic book store guy about any comic cons. He told me there was gonna be one here in Seattle, called Emerald City Comic Con. And he said it was quite famous, although, obviously, not as famous as the San Diego one.

Emerald City Comic Con was held from April 7-10. I nearly had a heart attack when I checked the guest list and found out that Danielle Panabaker (The Flash) was gonna be there. I would be depressed if I didn’t go. I also found out that my AFS trip was from April 2-9, thinking that I might fly home on the tenth, but I didn’t. It was a close call.

Next problem: someone to go with.

I wouldn’t mind going alone, but it will be much less lonely if I go with someone. I tried contacting my fellow Indonesian exchange students from all over Washington and even Oregon, but to no avail. Desperate, I did something I have never done before: literally put a desperate request for anyone to go with me. Like, anyone.

Ended up going with Gretar. Yaay. Turned out he had someone he was dying to see too. Booked the tickets for Sunday only, and got the pass shipped a couple weeks before the event.

So I have told you the story of my camera getting wet in Washington DC. The thing seemed to run out of battery just before I left for Comic Con, so I charged it for like five minutes. And it sure as shit did only work for five minutes before it died mysteriously. I only took one freaking picture of Washington State Convention Center, and now I had to carry this heavy not-working thing around. Uggggh.

So this is what a comic con looks like. An ocean of eccentric-dressing people as expected. A lot of Deadpools, jacked up ones and potbellied ones. Several Ms. Marvels. Some Batmen. Many over-the-top video games and Japanese anime characters. Lots of sexified characters, don’t matter if the characters were sexy or not in the first place. Saw a couple of real-life robotically moving R2D2. Many Reys. A couple Darth Vaders. One really pretty Princess Bubblegum (or whoever her name is, if I’m mistaken with her name). But of course, there were also a lot of people who are too lazy to dress up, like me. Having a t-shirt with four Deadpool faces on it definitely wasn’t a costume, but it was enough to express fashion contribution to the convention.

I also just discovered that a comic con was not merely a big room of exhibitions and souvenir stores. There was a whole big room for the guests autographing and photo-op, a whole floor for stores and online shops to sell comic books and shirts and action figures. The rest of the smaller rooms were used for talk sessions, like fandom meet-ups, comic-making classes, or discussions about different topics in comic books in particular or in general. The bottom floor was a family area, filled with exhibition from Lego and scheduled demonstration from Pacific Science Center.

A lot of interesting stuff happening. Yay. Though gotta admit I wasn’t that big of a geek since I didn’t recognize most of the stuff happening in the conference rooms.

Finally I got in line for an autograph and a picture with Danielle Panabaker and took it with Gretar’s phone camera after he got his picture with whoever actor he was in line for. Gotta admit, not the best quality, but it sure was something. Still numb from disbelief that I met Caitlin Snow in person for the next hour.

(mantap abis)

But I got another agenda. Aside from Danielle Panabaker, I also discovered that Raina Telgemeier, an illustrator/comic book artist, was having a talk at noon in one of the rooms. I honestly don’t know her other works, but from before I know she made these three comic books: “Smile”, “Sisters”, and “Drama”. The first two are based from her own real life experience. I didn’t even know why did I buy “Smile” years ago, but I found out that the way she wrote and illustrate it was really interesting and flowy and easy to follow. It’s one of those light books that doesn’t take that much concentration that you can read during break between other heavy books you may be reading.

I discovered the last two in Harper’s room, so I borrowed them from her and finished them in two days (one for each book—if I really put my mind into it I could finish them in a day). Since I’m not really fangirling for these books, I couldn’t really say I was dying to meet Raina Telgemeier. But I was pretty hyped to get a chance to see her.

Gretar and I split when the time for Raina Telgemeier came. As expected, the room was filled with rather little kids. Like, little kids. Elementary. Kids in princess costume and spiderman attire from the kids’ section in Target. Felt more like Halloween instead of Comic Con.

But no, I wasn’t the oldest one. There were several teenagers in the room, though.

After some waiting, she finally came up the podium in front of the room. She was as pretty as her picture in the back of the books. She talked through this podium on one side of the stage where a moderator would be if there were a panel inside the room. You know.

She talked about her books and her experience in writing her own experience and how she draws and other things. At one point, she picked two kids to join her in a reading session where she and the chosen kids read a few pages of her second book “Sisters”, which we could see the panels through the projector screen. She showed some comparisons between her childhood pictures and her illustrations in the book. At the end of the talk, before Q&A, she voluntarily drew from whatever random ideas the kids threw at her. I think it was someone eating an apple getting abducted by aliens in Boston commons or something.

It was fun. I asked a question during the Q&A, hehe. I don’t know, a little regret I had was maybe for not taking a picture with her. I just didn’t feel like it at the time. Stupid me. Oh well. I still got to see her. That’s what matters.

As I said before, turned out I wasn’t, obviously, a big geek as I thought. Maybe I am among my friends. But I was definitely no one in this sea of people who dedicated their time and sweat to make costumes and money to buy tickets for the whole four days of Comic Con and their comfort to look on fleek in their costumes for the whole day. I called Eric a few hours ago to bring me my white small camera, and he came some time in the afternoon, maybe around 2. I gave him my dead heavy camera, and Gretar and I split because he wanted to see Batman vs. Superman. I didn’t join him because a) I’ve heard what the critiques said, b) I’ve heard what Nate—someone in fourth period—ranted about the movie and how it was a bad one, and c) points a and b turned me off, supported by the fact that I wasn’t THAT huge of a DC fan to watch it eventhough people said it was bad.

So I stayed because I wanted to make my $35 worth it. I planned on going to Pacific Science Center’s last exhibition for the day, which was around 4ish, so I waited by exploring the whole building. Or more like the floors where they sell souvenirs and merchandise and all that stuff.

I was trying to be a better fangirl by trying to buy something. But most of them were either too expensive for such a simple design, or unavailable for my size. I almost bought this STAR Labs sweater which would be really cool if only they didn’t only have the size XL. sigh.

I ended up buying nothing. I suppose it’s good because I saved my money. Hehe.

Okay. Maybe not nothing. When I was trying to kill time before the science show, I walked a few blocks to the Central Library and made my Library Card. Then I walked a few more blocks back to the heart of downtown. I entered Old Navy.

The story behind this was that since the end of 2015, I’ve been eyeing this cardigan, which—bear with me—suits me really good, and my mom said it suits me really good, and it came from the maternity section. It was $25. Waiting for an opinion from my mom at the time, I left the store and decided to wait until I’m really sure.

So I came back in the beginning of 2016, and it was freaking $30. For some unknown reasons, I didn’t buy it. So this day, the day of Comic Con, I came back to see if mayyyyybe the price has gone down?

So I looked at the maternity section... only to find that them cardigans were replaced by tank tops.

I totally forgot that items in the store are seasonal. You can see here that I don’t shop much to know about this kind of stuff.

But I did spot one cardigan—the one I wanted—on the top rack, alone. I asked the store person and he said it was the last one. He took it down and it happen to be my size. And guess how much was it.

It was $3.28.

Hurrah!

I sure as shit bought it straight away.

Then I went back to the convention center, watched an exhibition show by Pacific Science Center about electricity or something, then, hoping I would have a question to ask but I didn’t, I went home.

All in all, although what happened wasn’t exactly like what I expected, but I am very extremely happy that I got one of my goals achieved. Kudos to fate for placing me in a big city like Seattle. I might be the biggest comic book geek in my environment back home, but I sure am the tiniest comic book geek in the convention, literally and figuratively. And the convention was way more than American comic books, as it reached farther out to American TV shows, cartoons, and Japanese anime. I wasn’t completely like a kid in a candy store to have all these geeky stuff I’d never got back home, but it definitely was worth it.

The only downside was probably the camera. The stupid camera. Correction—stupid me.

But why the hell should I focus on one low light when there were two high lights of the day: I got to go to a freaking Comic convention, AND unexpectedly got a piece of cardigan I’ve been eyeing for the past several months for a price lower than a lunch combo in KFC?

Hell yeah.

#langkahanakbangsa #comic con #eccc #fangirling life

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