It wouldn't have been Comic Con in Portland, Oregon without that guy. Yes, there is only one of him, so far. Although I seriously think he needs to recruit and get a unicycle bagpipe band together for the Rose Festival Starlight Parade. Am I right, PDX?
GeekDad's Jonathan Liu and I had a great weekend playing games and sitting on panels. Friday, I got a chance to wander the floor and see what was going on during a relatively slow time. It was fun to see people like Brent Spiner, but I am just not enough of a fan boy to make the $40.00 investment to get face time with him or anyone else for that matter... except maybe Adam Savage (who wasn't at this con). There was plenty of cosplay to go round, some of it quite impressive. The local chapters of the empire, rebellion and bounty hunters were out in full force (pun intended), and there were some great artists in attendance signing their work all weekend.
One of the great things about a regional comic con is that it was possible to attend every panel that you wanted to see. I participated with Daniel Wilson, Will Hertling, and David D. Levine on a science fiction panel in which we discussed how speculative fiction has inspired so many technological advances and changed peoples outlook on life. It was a great conversation. Jonathan hosted a panel on serious comics which included Kurt Busiek, Shannon Wheeler, Gail Simone, and Barry Deutsch. They talked about the influences which led to their work in the field of comics and discussed how they came to see comics as something more than escapism. Jonathan and I participated together on a panel about parenting geek kids and how to bring them into the hobbies you love without shoving something down their throat. Author Daniel Wilson graciously moderated for us. (Sadly, GeekMom Cathé Post got the flu Sunday morning and was unable to join us for the Geek Parenting panel.)
In between panels Jonathan and I got to spend a great amount of time with James Ernest from Cheapass Games who was there showing of the first printed game from Cheapass Games in the last five years. Unexploded Cow will be in store in a few weeks. Ernest also has a Kickstarter coming up which I will write more about later. When we weren't either helping Ernest game test or demonstrate his work we got a chance to play a couple of games which I have for review.
Jonathan and I finished the weekend by attending a presentation by Laika's Mark Shapiro. He brought with him models from both Coraline and ParaNorman. At the end of his presentation the audience was invited up to hold them and see them. It was a great way to end a fun weekend.
