Photos from BCC day 1

Here are more photos from Baltimore Comic Con 2011. Seeing all the costumes is one of the things that make going to conventions so much fun.

Charles Schroder--Dr. Strange

Nicole Jean as Baby Doll

Nick Raffensberger as the Green Goblin

Lisa and Mr. Jason

Sherry

Raven McCoy as Star Sapphire

Elizabeth Neuhaus as Black Canary

Samantha Humphrey as Flash

Kylee Barton as Death

Henley Slater as Poison Ivy

Krista Elizabeth Lee as Psylocke and Fred Gor as Nightwing

Barbara Wilcox as Batgirl

Angela Render as Dazzler

David Lyle as Northstar and Ciana as Jubilee

Suny Stoudermire as Alice

Jeanette as Huntress and Chase Patterson as Nightwing

Steph Newcomer (Penguin), Hilary Henson (Poison Ivy), Tim Sowell (Joker) and Han Pan (Harley)

Cathy and Matt Bloedorn as Marvel Girl and Cyclops

Cathy Gannett as Rogue

Victoria Myers as Wonder Woman

Wondy as Black Canary

Ziggo as Nightwing and Lucid Cosplay as Mystique

Claire Denney as Zatanna

Melissa Miller as Zatanna

Tabby Devita as Death

Katrina Gaar as Supergirl

Wes Barthlow and Natalie Dawn

Revivify as Loki

Ashley Matthews as Death

Libby Dorot as Black Canary

Baltimore Comic Con 2011 photos 1

Another convention has come and gone. This is the first year I have attended conventions. Otakon and BCC were located in the same building, Baltimore Convention Center, but Otakon rented the whole hall while BCC had only one room which made things quite crowded. It was hard to move around at times. If I could change one thing it would be to rent a second room and allow things to be a little more spread out.

Otakon had many more people doing cosplay than BCC but I was more familiar with these characters. Knowing who these characters are beneficial since people appreciated it when I could name what many considered to be an obscure character.

I have many pictures to post and interviews to conduct for this page. Bear with me. I will get everything posted as soon as I can. You can become a follower of this page and see all the updates. I am going to put all the artists and writers apart from the cosplayers so they will each have different pages.

Taking these photos and meeting these people has taught me to be gracious. I try to always thank the person whose photo I am taking. It is a little thing but I think it is the right thing to do. They put work into their costume and thanking them shows an appreciation of their work.

Tiffany Perry came as White Tiger on Saturday and Scarlet Witch on Sunday (both of which were great). I look forward to seeing her Dumb Bunny costume.

Laura Jones came on Saturday as Dark Phoenix. I met her at Otakon when she wore a Tinkerbell outfit. I am grateful she recognized me since I was completely fooled (I know, I am an idiot) and in awe of her costume. You cannot see it here but she has a small phoenix symbol attached to her sash.

One thing I liked was meeting people I knew from FB and other places wearing their costumes.

Melanie Spencer is one of these. She is posing as the character Cassandra from the comic "Gideon and Sebastian" by PLB Comics. I saw a notice she was going to be at the convention. When I met her, I mentioned she looked just like that model Lady Dark Dragon. The look on her face as she said "I am her" was priceless.

Next is Amber Love. I saw her in a Rogue costume (not knowing it was her) and immediately needed to have a picture. Afterwords, when we were exchanging business cards (hers is much better than mine) I realized who she was. There was a complete and total geek out moment on my part. "You're Amber Love?!? I have been following your site for some time.". Meeting her, even briefly, was fantastic.

Now comes two people who are friends with me on FB. Han Pan came as Harley Quinn and I figure the mallet came in handy over the weekend. She told me Lucid Cosplay came as Mystique.

When I ran into L.C. I asked for a photo and then said "You must be Lucid Cosplay". Her eyes grew huge and the only thing she said was "What?". It got better when I explained how I knew who she was.  That is a gun under my chin which rendered me speechless.

She was with Leroy Rivera who came as Nightcrawler. As he prepared to take a picture of Mystique, he told me to "watch my hands cause she is my mom." For those of you who do not know, Mystique is Nightcrawler's mother. 

This was a group of a mother and her daughters. I did not know they were related at the time. I found out later when they tagged each other on my FB photos. I was flattered when Elizabeth (Black Widow) decided to use my photo as a profile picture. Abigail Recabo was Batgirl and Katlin was X-23.

Another person who garnered interest due to their costume was Gareth. Shortly after I got this picture some girls ran up to me and asked "Did you get that Batman's picture? Who is he?". All I could say was his first name, Gareth. The girls ran off chanting his name. Ah, fame.

I also go to meet Freddie Nova who was costumed as Rogue. I got to see 3 Rogues in one weekend. My cup runneth over.

There are many more photos coming. This is only the tip of the iceberg.

Comments always welcome.

VA to Thailand

Virgina Pitler is doing something fantastic. She is leaving the country and is doing it voluntarily. No, she is not in trouble with the law. She is going to Thailand to help teach the natives English. When I found out I offered her one piece of advice. "Drink bottled water"/ I am not sure how the water quality is but I am sure they do not have state of the art water purification systems in Thailand. She says she is going to update her blog so people can know what is going on. Follow the link to read it.
http://virginiapitler.wordpress.com/

It is a bold thing she is doing. She is leaving her comfort zone as well as her friends and family. How many of us can say we would be willing to do this?

Recent events with Americans in foreign countries should give people guidelines. Don't murder your roommate (Amanda Knox)/ Don't be the star of a reality show and get so drunk repeatedly that the police getting involved (Jersey Shore). With all these exports representing us to the world, is it any wonder that other countries hate us? I'm a citizen and I hate that these people are representative of Americans. I am quite sure that V.P. will not do any of those things.

Comments always welcome.

Everything must go!

I went to my first auction today and I was a little disappointed. Shouldn't I expect to get millions of dollars for the few things I sold?

It was full of older people so are auctions not children friendly? Are they made for senior citizens? Antiques buying antiques. There were a lot of old things there (and I do not mean the bidders).

It was a large room, bigger than a breadbox, smaller than a convention hall. Plenty of seats but, of course, the one person with the hacking cough has to sit right behind me.

Auctioneers do speak fast so the image you see in the media is no exaggeration. In fact I think the portrayal has them speaking slower than they actually do. The only thing I could understand the auctioneer say was the numbers. The bidders do not use paddles anymore which is a shame. I think the world needs more paddles and paddling.

I have to wonder at American consumerism. Some one said people will buy anything and auctions proved this rule. I really cannot see anyone needing a wicker basket filled with pine cones. Can't people get their own pine cones. I always thought the cones should be free but not here. Do people really need a cracked soap dish with a starfish on the side? At least I was able to see many old men walking around in plaid shorts, black socks and sandals. What is it with old men and black socks? Can't they find white socks in their size? Doesn't wearing socks with sandals defeat the purpose of sandals?

There is a lot of waiting in an auctions. Just sitting there and waiting for the bidding to proceed to the item you want. I wanted to shout "Oh, for the love of God, make it end" but I realized the auctioneer  may take that as a bid and then I might get stuck with a collection of icicles.

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Comments always welcome.  

Oh, those wacky Chinese economists.

How dare they lower our rating in the world market? How dare they suggest Americans need to learn to live within their means? Don't they understand that living on credit is the American way? Can't they see that Americans don't want to pay extra taxes for all the government programs and, at the same time, protest the cutbacks of said programs to meet a government budget? Just because the Chinese government has 1.1 trillion of our debt allows them to say these things about us? So what if you have an economy that is heating up while the Unites States is stagnant and you have huge trade surpluses that is allowing your country to buy a large chunk of America;s Treasury Bonds?

How dare they impugn a flawed government that sees its officials more concerned with personal scandals than doing the work they were elected to do? Isn't this why we import technology? Just so politicians can send dirty pictures of themselves to various members of the public? What could the Chinese see wrong about this?

How dare the Chinese government insult ours for not having the foresight to handle this before the last minute!

Thanks to Abby for the advice on this post.
Comments always welcome.

the precious

I saw something terrible recently. It was during Otakon, the convention mentioned in a previous post where people were having a grand time. It was outside so most did not see it. I happened upon it, just like I happen upon so many odd things.

A mother carrying a white plastic bag was walking along a street with her very young son. She started to cross the street against the light. Cars going in her direction started to move forward. She saw those cars coming toward her and the one in the first lane had to stop suddenly but not quickly enough. The mother pulled the child back to the sidewalk but lost her bag. The boy came away with a small cut on his foot. He was crying and his mother was trying to quiet him down. Her items were scattered under the moving cars.

Here's the horrible part.

 The driver of the vehicle pulled to the side of the street, put the truck in park, got out and went to the front to inspect the grill. He did not go to see if the child was fine. He did not say anything to the mother. He just inspected the condition of his truck.

Is this where evolution and society has brought us? Are we now more concerned with things than other people? Is this where the acquisition of wealth ends, the idea that our personal items are more important than people?  Is it true that a 42" TV is more important than charity, that the physical condition of our autos matters more?

I cannot just blame others. I am guilty of wanting things and getting things. I hate that I cannot put myself out of this grouping, that I cannot say I am different in this manner. I'm not and neither is anyone else. I suppose this is what it is to be human. We all want "our precious".

I think we should start referring to each other in possession terms.

"She is a Ipad Touch all the way"

"You're a pager!"

We already rate each other based on what we have, why not refer to each other as expensive items.

Comments always welcome.

Otakon photos

I went to Otakon for the first time this year. It is very big convention with over 30,000 people showing up. That may not be half the size of San Diego Comic Con but it is still a lot of people. I had the foresight to bring a digital camera with me and some of my favorites pictures are posted below. A few pictures are here and many more are postred on my Facebook page. One thing I did not do which I should have is to get the cosplayers names. So if you happen to know who they are, please let me know. This is just the pictures. There is another blog posted which has my adventures in Otakon.

This is Jennie Breeden with me. She writes a webcomic called "The Devil's Panties". She says it is "Not satanic porn" and is only "semi-autobiographical". I just wonder where the line between the truth and the strip is. She is a very nice person. I have met her three times over the last few years and she has yet to call security.

I also met Yuffiebunny, a model and owner of HeadKandi. Head Kandi is a store that sells crin. She is in the two pictures above. She is also a great coplayer as well. I am in love with her Rikku.

Another group I came across was the Cosplay Burlesque "where fandom gets a little naughty" (cosplayburlesque.com). Meeting them introduced me to Allan Ryde and Victoria Belmont (who are pictured below),

I am a huge fan of Zatanna. I mean huge. So you can only imagine what happened when I saw people in Zatanna costumes. The first picture is of Anne Marie. The second and third pictures are later in the day. I showed Jerry from Trilogy comics the picture and he just laughed. I was so happy. I fell in love with Zatanna all over again. Yes, I know she is a fictional character. Leave me alone.

Along favorite is Black Canary. There were more of her than of Zatanna. I caught a few of them.

Black Canary and Zatanna. Fantastic. The Zatanna was Anne Marie again.

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Other characters include Supergirl, Wonder Woman, Green Arrow, Saturn Girl and Cosmic Boy, Catwoman, Poison Ivy and Catwoman, Harley Quinn, Raven, and White Queen with Polaris and Scarlet Witch. These people all did great jon on their costumes.

And, in the end, is Death.

This one has Death alongside Desire.

Many of the video game cosplayers were the Final Fantasy characters.