What is SUPERCON?
A Comic Con is a festival that celebrates superheroes, anime, fantasy, science fiction, video games, pop culture, and more. Lots of people dress up as their favorite characters, and people come from all over to see and be seen. Some Cons are genre specific and others a mixture of mediums. In July [2018] I went to Raleigh Supercon for the first time. This is actually the second convention I’ve been to in my life. The first one was Ichibancon, an anime convention, back in January of this same year. Raleigh Supercon is Raleigh’s largest multi-genre comic con, bringing in 30,000 attendees over a three day span. This Comic Con featured activities and celebrities from the realm of comic books, anime, animation, fantasy, science fiction, video gaming, and more. Below is my 3 day weekend adventure unfolded!
Day 1: A Mini World
We ended up being about 2 hours behind schedule. When I say we I mean my boyfriend [Kevin], his best friend [Crystal], and I. I stayed at her apartment to get some design work done that needed my immediate attention. Besides it wasn’t going to take me long and they went off to find Kevin some black boots for his cosplay outfit, that he ended up not wearing, and breakfast from Chick-Fil-A. Once they were back I went downstairs and hopped in the car so we could get to the Raleigh Convention Center and park somewhere nearby.
Sidenote: Difference between this convention and the last one [Ichibancon in Concord, NC], other than size, was parking. At Ichibancon the convention center has enough parking and it’s free. You just have to get there early for a good spot. Supercon on the other hand was your regular old downtown city parking. Find a parking lot or parking deck and pay to park.
Finally after circling the blocks a couple times we find a parking deck that ends up being our go-to for the entire weekend. It’s about a couple blocks down from the convention center. So you better have your walking shoes on! I did not so my feet suffered. For some odd reason I forgot to pack comfortable sneakers and was stuck with my slides the entire time.
By the time we get there the line is gone, so we enter the building and head to check-in to receive our 3 day badge. You must keep up with your badge and have it visible so security and volunteer staff can tell you’re allowed to be there. After that we grab a paper schedule/guide and decide to check out a comedy show hosted by the “Pineapple Shaped Lamps” group. It’s a mixture of comedic jokes and impromptu skits basically. Pretty much all PG-13 material.
By the way, most cons have an app you can download to have all the events readily available and create your own schedule of all the things you want to do. That way you can easily tell which events are happening at the same time and decide which one you want to go to the most.
Soon after, we grow tired of the show and head out towards what is known as “the Dealers Room”, “Artist Alley”, or the “Exhibition Room”. To sum it up it’s where all the merchandise is, where celebrities have booths for autographing or fan photo ops, and for local artists to sell prints of their artwork or arts & crafts. We browse through the booths all lined up and down each isle and make mental notes of booths we want to come back to.
We leave the Exhibition room and head to the next event we have marked on our schedules which is a Q&A panel for “Women in Voice Acting”. This was one of my favorite events of the weekend. I say this because I was in the same room as the women who voiced things of my childhood and young adult years that I love.
The women who stood out to me was of course Naruto's voice actress: Maile Flanagan, one of many Barbie voice actresses: Erica Lindbeck, and a personal favorite: Kimberly Brooks who played Stormy on the Winx Club and Luna from the Hex Girls on Scooby Doo! Another reason why I love Kimberly Brooks is because this was the first major black woman I have seen in the convention world. Most voice actors I see are white, so it’s refreshing to see someone who looks like you playing major roles now and from your childhood.
Later on that evening we head upstairs to go watch “Steal That Voice”. It’s a panel of voice actors who will reenact scenes from movies but with their own best impressions of the characters. A member from the audience is picked and asked to come up to the stage to choose a category. Once they pick the category a scene from a movie is revealed and then roles are assigned to the voice actors already on stage, and to the crowd member who picked, plus one other crowd participate. There are only 4 categories/scenes total.
From my memory they did the scene from 300 where the messenger from Xerxes comes to tell Leonides that they should submit and then Leonidas kicks him into the deep vat and screams “This. Is. SPARTA!!!!”. The also do a scene from The Bridesmaids? Where they're all trying on dresses but apparently they had food poisoning from the night before and are either vomiting or have bad diarrhea. It’s hilarious. After this event we pretty much call it a night. Exhausted, we walk back to the car grab some dinner on the way back to the apartment and call it a night.
Day 2: Cosplay Mishaps & Adventures
Boy was this the day of errors, mistakes, and mishaps. First off Kevin still had not found glasses to wear for his cosplay outfit, so when he and Crystal went to grab breakfast they went looking again. I on the other hand was going to get dressed while they were out to speed up the process. Yea, that’s not how it went down. Instead, I realized I was missing the bow to my outfit so I called my boyfriend to let him know I wouldn’t be cosplaying. Look, if I’m not going to cosplay correctly then I don’t want to cosplay at all. To no surprise they came back for me and took me to Walmart to grab some supplies. I ended up buying two little packs of fabric (accidentally the wrong length) a pack of safety pins and some spandex.
We got back to the apartment and Kevin and I began jerryrigging the fabric into a bow. We did a lot of cutting. Then we did a lot of safety pinning it to my outfit. After that I was good to go until I realized I had to redo the braid in my wig. I can braid, I just suck at feed in braids where it’s down to the head. I struggled with that for a bit. Meanwhile, Kevin and Crystal are struggling with their belts, theirs are different from mine and they won’t stay buckled. I have to help Crystal with her wig and then jerryrig the sleeves on her jacket from sliding down past her elbows. I did my best. Then Kevin needs help because there are these bands that are supposed to go around his leg, so I pin them to stay in place. Failure because we ended up having to take them off when we got to the convention because they were too tight.
Alright, so we’re all as ready as we can be. We get in the car and immediately we’re burning up. These costumes are hot and the weather even hotter outside. It’s Saturday which is normally the biggest day of any Con. We see lots of people dressed up as we walk towards the convention center. When we get there we first have our weapons check in and tagged proving they are only for cosplay purposes. Then we try taking photos in front of one of the Supercon backdrops, but the lighting isn’t right so we go outside.
In the midst of us trying to get our photos taken people are stopping us and asking for photos. Either of us or with them in it and we’re happy to oblige. The cool thing about dressing up is because you feel like a tiny celebrity. People look at you in awe. They ask who you’re dressed up as or from what show. Sometimes they recognize you and think it's super cool. Lastly, the weapons make it 10x better. Everyone loves a cosplayer with a weapon and especially a group of cosplayers. We were all matching and dressed as characters from the same show. Seraph of the End to be exact. And if you love military fighting and vampires all in one I suggest watching it. It’s on Hulu and it's in English for newbies to the anime world!
At this point we’ve got pictures out our system and we get Crystal out of her wig. The wig cap is apparently too small, but she powered through the pain for us. I head over to the cosplay repair station. The way my weapon is set up one of the PVC joints isn’t glued down so my entire scythe blade is swiveling, and it’s annoying the heck out of me. We get that fixed, and then Crystal and myself find a spot to sit down in while Kevin searches for something to get autographed by Naruto’s voice actress. After he gets his autograph we go on a mini manhunt searching for any booth that might sell Hidden Leaf village headbands, but we come up empty handed. So we head back to the apartment to put up the weapons and change into normal clothes for the evening.
After a late lunch and naps we head back to the convention center. We explore the video game side, attend a couple of 18+ comedy shows, sit in on an American Horror story panel, and Naruto Chunin Exam (Jeopardy Game). That’s is for day two!
Day 3: Dumplings & Souvenirs
Our last day was pretty chill. They usually are because not that many panels are going on that day. Our first scheduled event was a Q&A event with Maile Flanagan. It was cool to hear about her studio stories and the differences between American voiceovers and doing Voiceovers for Japanese shows that need to be dubbed (put into English). For lunch Crystal and Kevin got dumplings from a food truck outside while I stuck with a safe option: personal size pepperoni pizza from Papa Johns. We ate outside and enjoyed the sun and music. After lunch we headed down to the Exhibition room again for some other souvenirs. I ended up getting two car decals and a Hunger Games Mockingjay pin that I placed on my purse.
We split up for awhile since Crystal had a friend come to the convention that day. Kevin and I went to sit in on a cosplayers panel. Interesting stuff. I don’t know that I’ll ever get that far into it, to make my own outfits, but who knows? All our outfits were ordered, even Kevin and Crystal’s weapons were ordered. The only thing made was me scythe, which honestly is a surprise in itself that I finished it.
Immediately following the panel Kevin wanted to get some more dumplings so we went back outside. This time I ventured to try one. It wasn’t bad to where I would want to spit it out, but it was overwhelming. It was big for one. So it was a lot to chew. The breading I guess you’d call it was almost rubbery and when I bit into it it felt like a mini explosion of chicken broth and ground beef. Not bad but a one and done kind thing. Not much happened after. We all met up and headed back to the Exhibition room for one last look around, and then headed back to the apartment to rest up for the drive home the next day.
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