For those of you who don't know, Comic-Con is a yearly event held in San Diego. It started as a place for comic enthusiasts to share in their common comic love and has grown to a place for nerds of many genres to unite in a four day nerd fest. This was my first year and I went because: a) I was curious b) three of my friends were going c) Twilight sometimes comes. Here are ten of my preconceptions I had before I went and ten postconceptions I now have after my foray into geekdom.
Pre "Con" ceptions:
1) We'd definitely be the cutest girls there. I mean seriously, I went to a nerdy school (with these girls, in fact) and we were considered high on the nerd/pretty scale.
2) Most of the people there would be awkward nerds who only step outside of their electronic caves for Comic Con.
3) We'd see a few things we liked and some things we didn't like.
4) I'd be tempted to buy everything with Wonder Woman on it.
5) I would get lots of free stuff (swag).
6) I would meet someone famous who would instantly see the 'star quality' I possess and sign me on the spot.
7) I would realize the extent of my own nerdiness because I would recognize and have a positive emotion toward many of the things I would see.
8) The people in costumes would be both cool and a little strange.
9) Our shirts would be awesome and people would stop us to tell us how awesome our shirts were.
10) We'd wait in a lot of lines.
Post "Con" ceptions:
1) We were not, in fact, the cutest girls there. There were some girls who were way cuter than we are...I don't know why they were there...
2) The wide range of people there was amazing. It was a people watching haven and some of them certainly fit a certain 'nerd' profile, but most people just seemed like normal, happy fans. It was actually kind of like going to UCI...
3) We got to see the "Chuck" panel and see the whole cast. That was just awesome. But I actually enjoyed the whole day. Even for things I didn't know anything about, it was really interesting to hear the panels and I had a great time the whole day. A lot of it had to do with the fact that I was there with my girls, but seriously, super fun day.
4) I would have bought Wonder Woman stuff, but they only had t-shirts. I wanted notebooks and pens and useful wonder woman stuff. I didn't even see any wonder woman comic books (although I didn't really look for those). Good thing I've got my underroos (ask Auntie Carol).
5) The only free thing I got was the bag they gave me to hold all the free stuff I was supposed to get (and a magazine). I was really hoping for pens or tattoos of wonder woman.
6) No one saw my star quality. The one famous person we met (Zach Whedon) did not seem too excited about meeting us, but he was kind enough to take a picture with us and humor us as we talked about Dr. Horrible.
7) So I am a nerd. I feel like the dam holding back the flood of nerdiness was broken down at comic-con and now I have fully realized how much of a nerd I am. I love Wonder Woman (but that was well documented before all this) and Chuck and half (or more) of the other stuff we saw there. I understood most of the referential jokes made on stage (Alias jokes, Firefly jokes, Dr. Horrible jokes...). But maybe it's like my friend, Aleta, says - I'm a geek translator: I speak and understand the language, but it's not my home country.
8) The people in costumes were both cool and a little strange. Some were just fabulous and really amazing. Some were just trashy. Some were super funny. Some were just strange.
9)We made our own shirts that had "Chuck" references on them. I was told by the same guy (two times), "I LOVE your shirt!" while he jumped up and pointed at it. One of Jfo's friends twittered about our shirts and included a picture of all of us. Later on, a girl stopped us and showed us her text, "That's really strange," she said, "I just got this tweet!" We were famous.
10) We did wait in lines, but they were all so efficiently managed and we had so much food with us and the company we kept was so entertaining - it didn't matter. The lines were part of the experience and actually a great part of it.
So now that I've been, I'm pretty sure I'm hooked. And the worst part is, you don't know what people or shows are going to be there until one week before comic-con takes place. Tickets sell out long before that, so the only way to see all that you want to see is to buy a four day pass. I'm pretty sure this will become a tradition for us and the four day pass will probably be a choice we'll automatically make. Overall, I had a fabulous time, I can't stop thinking about it, and I have all the pictures to prove it.
