Wandering Wondercon 2013

Wall-E Robot at Wondercon 2013

For the second year in a row, Wondercon arrived at the Anaheim Convention Center.  The only day I was able to make it to the convention was Easter Sunday, and it marked the first time going to a convention on its last day.  Last days are interesting: the craziness of the convention generally dies down a little and the crowds are a little less intense, but there's still plenty of fun to be had with events, vendors, and cosplayers roaming around.

I wandered the convention center with my friend Elizabeth Ann (Nerdlush) who festively wore a bunny-eared fascinator while I had decided that it was the perfect time to bring out my TARDIS costume with a modified fascinator hat for Easter Sunday.

Elizabeth was my partner in crime at last year's Wondercon in Los Angeles, where we had quite an adventure getting there in torrential rain and had the surreal experience of being surrounded by concurrent cheerleading and volleyball tournaments while at a geeky/nerdy convention.  This year, there was no rain and sports tournaments, so perhaps my perspective of a more laid-back Sunday is a little skewed.

When we saw the line for the Arena, we both decided that it was perhaps not the best investment of our time to try and get into the panel for Much Ado About Nothing, the much talked about Joss Whedon foray into one of William Shakespeare's most famous plays (Cinema Blend offered an excellent live blog about the panel).  So we concentrated on a time-consuming game plan that reflected our last year's adventures: walking the floor of the Exhibition Hall.

One of our first stops was at the Small Press Area at the end of the Hall, where Jimmy Purcell (Been Better Comic/J&J Studios) offered us an additional challenge to our wandering - a scavenger hunt!  We were encouraged to be creative as we looked for the items.  For example, we combined "zombie" and "bunnies" with Jim Hillin's Wireheads: Zombie Bunnies!, featured at a table in the next section.  We also tried to cover some of the clues through T-shirts, especially the Seven Deadly Sins.  A Star Wars shirt featuring Jabba the Hutt was our answer to "Gluttony" and another one featuring a curly-mustached R2D2 represented "hipster".

    

Zombie Bunnies

from Jim Hillin's "Wireheads: Zombie Bunnies!" 

"Hipster" R2D2 and
Flat Bonnie Sloth Doll

Chatterbox Puppets

Of course the best part of our wandering around and participating in a scavenger hunt was how it let us talk to vendors and check out some pretty cool and unique items from artists that perhaps we would have walked right by!  One of them was a Flat Bonnie sloth (pictured above) that was far from being one of the seven deadly sins (and if so, a very adorable one).  We also found a "double-heart" necklace from House of Darkly (for those non-Whovians, Doctor Who has two hearts) and decided that since I was dressed as a TARDIS, me with the double hearts could represent "true love".  My very talented friend Lori Lane (Chatterbox Puppets) had a table at Artist Alley, featuring some awesome original creations and some familiar homages to Star Wars, Pokemon, Pac-Man, and more.  Her Storm Trooper Hand Puppet let us check off "stormtrooper" and "black and white" from the list.

A post about conventions like Wondercon wouldn't be complete without commenting on the cosplay and photo opportunities.  R2D2 and a Wall-E seemed to follow us everywhere we went. We also spotted classic references to Star Wars (Storm Troopers, Darth Vader), Batman, Transformers, and there was even a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle!

All in all, it was a pretty excellent day of geeky fun!  And yes, we did win:

Elizabeth Ann (Nerdlush) and Charity Tran (ExperienceLA)
with Scavenger Hunt Winning Print
Photo by Jimmy Purcell (Been Better Comic)

-Photos and Text by Charity Tran