Laura and Emily Go to Comic Con

Emily and I with Tiny Batman

I suppose I should update all of you about Indianapolis Comic Con, which was the whole reason I made the Marauder's Map shirt in the first place. It was...an experience.

Let me preface this by saying, I have no idea what a con is supposed to be like. I had never been to one before, nor had I spoken in depth with anyone who had. All I knew was that it was a kind of nerdy nirvana, a place where fandoms collide, and that it might be okay to be very excited about Harry Potter, the Avengers, and Welcome to Night Vale there. That assumption was correct.

The con also was incredibly, incredibly crowded. When my friend Emily and I arrived, we discovered hordes of people, some of them dressed normally, some of them looking as if they had raided the shelves of the local Hot Topic (perhaps for a costume, perhaps for everyday wear--we could not tell), and a select few appearing as though they had put the kind of work into their costumes that put me (and the 20+ hours I slaved over the Marauder's Map shirt) to shame. Others were the "cosplay girls" who horrify Jennifer and I, who wear the most revealing, trashy outfits possible in order to be slutty in public without being accused of selling anything. There were lots of grown men and women dressed as My Little Ponies. The Brother said it was more socially acceptable for women to dress as My Little Ponies than for men. I beg to differ.

Some of those costumes were amazing. The Indianapolis Star was there taking pictures. You should really take a look. Someone came as a Big Daddy from Bioshock, and his costume was so awesome...you have to see it.

But more than anything, there were people. So. Many. People.

I later discovered that the reason for this was that the convention center could, in the area the con was being held, hold 6,000 people comfortably. The people planning the con expected 10,000 over the entire weekend. On Saturday, there were 15,000 people who bought tickets. This is not counting the people who showed up and did not buy tickets, including the many, many people who waited in line for hours and were turned away at the door because the room was too full for more people to come in. I'm sure there were well over 15,000 people there. It was...uncomfortable. The entire thing had sold out by 3:00 PM, which was just after we'd left due to the insane crowds.

Emily and I with stormtroopers from Star Wars Indiana

Imagine footage of a festival, or New Year's Eve in Time's Square, or that awesome colored chalk festival in Asia, or maybe a subway during rush hour. Add about a thousand people. Maybe 2000. Then you have what it was like at Indianapolis Comic Con. When I walked into that room, I was not claustrophobic. When I left, that had changed. If one person had panicked in that convention center, we would have all been trampled to death. If there had been a fire--let's not think about what would have happened then.

But the whole experience was so different and new, I would not have traded it. I would have just shown up very early, preferably with a large security escort. I'm wondering if the whole thing will take over the convention center completely next year, so that there will be plenty of space. I hope.

I found, overall, most of the exhibits were genuinely dedicated to comics and only comics. I had expected more of a range. There was one booth that had costume supplies for cosplay, but that was all we saw that wasn't comics and prints of comic book art. Have any of you been to a comic con before? Is it normal for the exhibitors to only be comics?