My weekend at Comicon......

Well, this past weekend, I did something I had never done before, but have always sort of wanted too. I went to my first Comicon. Now, I am not a huge comic book fan, or sci fi geek or anything (although, I do love the Star Wars movies). I did go for a reason however, and that was to record an episode of the podcast "Maskerpiece Theatre" of which, if you follow this blog, you know I appear on fairly regularly. One of the perks of taking part in this panel, was that I got an all weekend media pass to the event. So, Thursday evening, I jumped on the light rail, and made my way to downtown Phoenix and the sprawling downtown Phoenix Convention Center, to not only record the podcast, but to take in all the sites and sounds this event has to offer....take a look at this quite video....

OK, so, not a lot of beer in this post, but let me point out a few things I learned at this event.




1. Its not all about comic books. This could be more accuratly described as a "pop culture festival". It wasn't all comic books (although that was a large portion of it) there was also a lot of Sci Fi, zombies, and just general TV and film paraphernalia. I saw a lot of Star Wars, a ton of Walking Dead etc.








2. My preconceived notion about the type of people that attended this type of thing was somewhat  confirmed, but also modified to a fair degree. One on one, hardcore "geeks" can be hard to converse with, socially awkward (or down right inept) and just plain off, or weird, at the very least, admittedly a bit different then most. However, as a crowd or large group, they are pretty awesome. They are friendly, happy, polite, courteous and the one thing I noticed, and impressed me the most about them, they are all accepting. It didn't matter on your race, complexion,  social statues, mental or physical ability, or limitations, or age, everyone seemed to just melt into one large group. Everyone was accepted, and that, was probably the thing that surprised, and impressed me the most.

3. On the topic of beer, it seems that beer is a growing intreast among this community. Not only was there a craft beer booth set up (I got to meet Ryan of 8 Bit Brewing) but there were also a fair number of casual beer fans in the attendance at the podcast taping! Now, they don't geek out on beer as much as they do about comic books, or meeting Stan Lee, but they seemed to have a general appreciation for the art and craft of brewing, without having any sort of hipstir, snobby edge to them, and that to me, was also a pleasant, refreshing surprise as well.


I also want to give a quick shout out to Ryan, and 8- Bit Brewing, for donating a couple of glasses, and a t-shirt to our list of giveaways we had for the podcast! It was much appreciated. Also, congrats to Tim, for successfully answering the question "What Arizona Brewery was recently named "The best new brewery in the World" to win the glasses, and the t-shirt!


OK, now, for the main reason I was there, we did a live recording of Maskerpiece Theatre. Just about  all of the regular "guests" of Maskerpiece Theatre were there, myself included. Just over an hour long (we actually started early) we had a great time, chatting about the event, and a plethora of other topics as always.

You can listen to the podcast by clicking here.....

OK, so, while Comicon is not something I would do all the time, or even all weekend (I was there for a few hours Thursday night, and Friday morning, and that was plenty for me) it certainly was something to see, and take in, and I am glad I went. The fun, anything goes attitude was fun. An odd mixture of excited kids, dressed like Iron Man or Elsa, running past busty females, proudly displaying their cleavage dressed like Slave Leia or Mystique, and a chubby middle age man dressed as Wolverine, somehow just works. (Also, I'm not sure when dressing up like a favorite character became synonymies with excessive displays of cleavage, when that became a thing, but I'm fine with that.....it works for me. That is just a plus for attending Comicon........)

So, there you have it, I want to thank The Masked Blogster for the opportunity to take part in this fun event, I am already looking forward to next year!!!

If you want to see the entire photo album from my time there, you can check it out here.....
If you haven't already, you can "like" us on Facebook while you are there!


Until next time
Bottoms up my friends

The Beer Czar