Geeky Weekend

Geeky Weekend

I had a great weekend at the Cincinnati Comic Expo and I thought I would share with you all about my experience. Unfortunately I didn't get any pictures but I have several stories to tell about my experience. 

First off though I want to talk about the new movie I saw on Friday, This is Where I Leave You. It was so good, I had expected it would be good from the trailers but it was even better than I expected it to be. The cast was great and portrayed really full characters. It had many sad elements throughout it, with the characters having to deal with a variety of big issues. It also had a lot of funny moments too, which helped make it such a well rounded and enjoyable movie. It's really the kind of movie that while you're watching it it gives you this feeling of how powerful and how wonderful it really is. It's rare to find movies like this, so I highly recommend people to go see this. It's filled with lots of family drama and lots of funny quips. 

The Cincinnati Comic Expo went on all this past weekend, but we went only Saturday. We had a wonderful time looking at the artwork, shopping, and going to the panels. I went fully decked out in an R2-D2 costume, an R2 dress, blue ruffled skirt, grey tights, R2 knit hat, rebel pin, and green light saber earrings. I received lots of compliments on my outfit and several people all day were calling to their friends to look at R2-D2. My husband and my cousin were more boring just wearing super hero T-shirts. There were a lot of great costumes, loads of Harley Quinns and Star Wars bounty hunters. Probably one of my most favorite costumes I saw was a baby dressed up like the white power ranger. Although there was a guy who had built a life sized Dalek and he was pulling it around all day, it was really cool, though would have been better if the guy had actually dressed up as something himself. 

The day started off really exciting because when we were walking down the street to the convention center Henry Winkler came up behind us. So we were a foot away from him and got to cross the street and enter into the building with him, which was pretty awesome. Then we got inside and could tell right away that it would be hard to not spend all of our money at so many of the booths. There were so many things that I wanted from awesome Doctor Who memorabilia to adorable Pokemon T-shirts. There were a lot of great T-shirt places and lots of really good artwork, we decided to give it all a walk through and then go back to buy a few things that we liked the best. I ended up getting an adorable baby Groot shirt that says, "Save the galaxy, plant a Groot". When I saw it I just knew that I had to have it, I'm a little obsessed with baby Groot, as my husband and cousin saw all day as I had to point out every one that I saw. We also ended up getting some awesome hand designed prints, the boys getting some Game of Thrones, Guardians, Doctor Who and Firefly, and I got one that had Groot in the background and baby Groot in the foreground. I also got one that had Hiccup and Toothless from How to Train Your Dragon. The boys found it hard to narrow down to just a few prints, but I knew which ones I wanted the minute we stepped up to the booth. 

While going through the booths I was also looking for Ellen Schreiber who was there signing books, I had a bit of a hard time finding her since she was hidden amongst a couple hundred booths. I did end up finding her and got to meet her and get my copy of the first Vampire Kisses signed, it was so nice to get to meet one of the authors that I like. 

Our afternoon was filled with going to lots of panels. First off was Jewel Staite, who was our whole reason for going to the expo at first. She was amazing and really funny, I just wish we could have sat a little closer because I couldn't see all that well. She gave some awesome insight into behind the scenes of Firefly along with telling us about how obsessed she is with food. She was so cute every time one of the little kids would come up to the mic and ask if they could give her a hug, out of all the panels that we went to she definitely got the most hugs, and I think she had the biggest crowd.

The second panel we went to was with  Jason David Frank, probably better known as the green or white power ranger. He was very entertaining and had a lot to say about inspiration and working towards goals, he was so great to all of the little kids there. What was very entertaining about his panel was that the black ranger decided that he would come in and crash the panel since he hadn't got to see Jason all weekend. So they got up on stage and borrowed someones morphers and did morphing time for all of us, which was so great.

The third panel was Henry Winkler, who was amazing. Still not sure what he has to do with a comic convention, but he's awesome and it was perfectly fine with me that he was there. He talked about his career and the different things that he's done over the years, how he got into acting, what actors he really admires. Which was surprising but great to hear that he thinks Ryan Gosling is one of the greatest actors of the time, and he suggested him for Fonzie if there was ever a Happy Days reboot. He talked about being there for the beginning of Robin Williams' career, which was fantastic to hear him describe. It was also great to hear him say how he wanted to show the real person of Fonzie in the show, not just the tough guy. It was really a great panel to watch. 

The last panel we saw was with Jonathan Rhys Davies and William Kircher, two very fantastic dwarfs. It was so great to hear them speak about their experiences and what it took to become a dwarf for their movies. They were so passionate about the movies, acting, New Zealand, and Peter Jackson. It was really something to hear them talk about these fantastic experiences that they had. Especially since Davies' told of how he didn't think that The Lord of the Rings would ever become successful in the beginning, or even finish filming, so he actually turned the role down at first. But it was clear that he changed his mind very early on once he saw the magnitude of the work going into it and the preparedness of the crew. It's great that he did change his mind and decide to be a part of it because the franchise would not be the same without him. It was great to hear them quote some lines and even do a little singing for us. Hearing Kircher's first red carpet experience was amazing too, how in awe he felt about the recognition and the joy he felt over his work. They had quite the packed panel as well, but we had fairly decent seats, not nearly as well as we had for Frank or Winkler's though. 

It was so great to see all of these amazing actors, really they were all so good that I couldn't pick a favorite panel. They were all very different but all very informative and inspiring. The personalities really shined through and their passion for acting was very evident. It was really something great to see and I'm so glad that we went. I'm hoping next year they bring in some more great actors that we'll want to see. 

As always, thanks for reading.