Travel: Salt Lake City Comic-Con Fan Experience 2015

Ever since its first run in 2013, it seems like Comic Con has been all the rage in Salt Lake City.  So much so that they decided to host the convention twice a year now.  While the primary event will still be held in the late summer or early fall, SLC hosts a Comic Con in the springtime, and is known as the Fan Experience (or FanX).  The difference between the two is rather slight; the FanX event seems to carry over a lot of the same attractions, vendors, panels, and stars as the regular Comic Con, only FanX is said to include more in the world of sports, wrestling, music, live entertainment, and more.

This is the place...

This year, the convention ran from January 29th to the 31st, and I had the good fortune to receive a multipass from a good friend who was unable to attend.  Last time I went, I took the train to the city (from Thanksgiving Point to SLC, it takes about 40 minutes).  I decided to just suck it up and drive this time; I found that the parking lot next to the courthouse is perfectly viable, since it's cheap ($4 for the whole day), and within walking distance of most everything downtown.  The only major problem is that it can fill up substantially when a major event like Comic Con goes on.

This is the car...

As before, the convention center was quite congested with huge swarms of people, most of which were dressed up in all manner of outfits.  I must have seen more than 20 Harley Quinns all over the place.  I spotted quite a few Jokers, Batmen, and Poison Ivys around.  Probably saw a Bane somewhere.  There were plenty of stormtroopers, clone troopers, and Mandalorians around.  Saw a few Darth Vaders.  Saw a guy dressed as Dr. Horrible taking his photo next to Vader.  Saw a rather tall Chewbacca.  Somebody even came dressed as the AT-ST (you know, the Chicken Walker, with a little Chewie sticking out of the top hatch).  A few ladies came dressed as Elsa from Frozen.  One was dressed as Maleficent.  One, I'm pretty sure was Chun-Li from Street Fighter.  One was Captain America (yep, a lady Captain America).  And one had the famous bikini outfit Princess Leia had in Return of the Jedi.  To say nothing of the bajillion anime characters represented (of which I couldn't recognize many, but at least I identified Ichigo from Bleach and Edward from Full Metal Alchemist).  A few of the vending stalls featured some unique sights, including the original Batmobile from the 60s, the DeLorean from Back to the Future, the jeep from Jurassic Park, Jawas, droids, Ghostbusters, and a number of paramilitary dudes with Umbrella logos (from Resident Evil).  One of the cutest moments occurred when a few little kids ran up to the Umbrella soldiers with little toy guns and started shooting at them; one of the soldiers swung his massive minigun over and the barrel rotated.

Individual stalls presented a huge wealth of merchandise to peruse and buy, including loads of comics, graphic novels, artwork, cards (primarily trading cards or Magic:  The Gathering, but to my surprise, I found some of the Star Wars Customizable Card Game there too; that's a game I used to collect from quite a bit as a kid), notebooks, tablet covers, books, movie posters, weapons, costumes, and various pieces of merchandise (including lanyards, buttons, badges, pins, decals, shirts, and more).  They even had a stall selling fudge.  I picked up a number of items all over the place, including a shirt with the Weyland-Yutani logo (from Alien), artwork by Jason Oakes (which is notably splotchy and artsy-looking, but I think it has exceptional detail and color; I got a print of Darth Vader and the starship Voyager from him), a Bioshock:  Infinite poster, a compendium of Witchblade comics (issues 1 - 50 in one huge book), and various other stuff.

This is it...

There were celebrities present, although I personally never had an interest in meeting them or paying for a photo op.  The biggest celebrities to visit this time would have included Carrie Fischer, Lena Headey, Nichelle Nichols, and a few other recognizable faces.  There is only one celebrity I actually got to see in the flesh, and that was Christopher Lloyd, who hung around the BTTF DeLorean, and loads of people lined up for a photo op.  Unfortunately, he had left by the time I got there.  But, this is still my first-ever celebrity sighting, and he looked like a friendly fellow.

My biggest prerogative for this trip, however, were the panels.  I specifically went to see a number of panels about writing, presented by a large number of published writers.  Among them, Larry Correia seemed to steal the show repeatedly, for he is a pretty loud and friendly guy.  Above all, Larry's sensibilities seemed to match my own, and now I'm curious to read his books and see what I can learn from him.  Other writers present include Jared Quan, Nathan Shumate, Dan Wells, Natalie Whipple, Dan Willis, Cheree Alsop, Peggy Eddleman, David Powers King, JR Johansson, Craig Nybo, and J Scott Savage.  The topics specifically discussed were:

• "First, A Writer Needs an Audience," which discussed the current state of the publication business, and how writers today can take advantage of the changing marketplace to find a target audience and be successful.  It is quite an informative session.
• "Bad Writing Advice," where the writers talked about all the advice they've heard that's just plain terrible and should be ignored.  It proved to be quite amusing, as well as informative.  There is indeed advice writers should ignore.
• "Overcoming Writer's Block," which is self explanatory.  I may have known some of these tips before, but it's inspiring to hear how other writers struggle, and how they work past their blocks.
• "Writing Action," in which Larry Correia talked all about how to effectively write action scenes and make it work.  It pretty much confirmed all my thoughts and feelings about the subject (and affirmed that my own work needs some overhaul).
• "Horror, Mystery, and Thrillers: How Authors Keep the Story Moving and the Readers Glued to the Page," just like it says, the writers talked about how they structure their stories and writing to keep the readers turning the pages.  It's fairly informative.

There was a panel for "Equality in Writing," but it was so late in the evening that I became thoroughly exhausted and didn't want to stick around for it.  Seriously, I had to wait six hours between the first and second panel that day, so hours and hours of walking around took its toll.  While waiting for one of the later panels, I also sat in on a Star Wars mythology panel, but it seemed rather dry and unengaging (a number of people walked out).  Fortunately, all of the writing panels I attended felt informative, fun, and worthwhile.  I'll even plan on blogging about what I've learned soon.

Out of the three days this event raged on, I spent only two days there, but for a grand total of ten hours or so, I felt I had seen everything I wanted to, bought more than I needed to, and saw more than I could expect (despite having seen it once back in 2013).  It has been a great experience this time around, and if anybody is considering attending, it's definitely encouraged, as long as you can withstand the crowds.

Move along...