The Phoenix Comic-Con was a memorable experience this year. I have to say I had some anxiety this year because I was going to give a talk about my favorite subjects; comics and movies/TV. I had an idea of how I wanted to give the talk because I talk about this all the time at work, so I wasn’t too nervous about standing in front of a crowd doing the same thing. As the time got closer, nerves kicked in. I continued to go over the information I wanted to present in my head and I think I got so caught up in things I made myself worry about things I didn’t need to worry about.

When June 6 care around, the day of my talk at the convention, I was feeling pretty good but I was tired. I worked the night before and by the time I left work I was amped. I knew if I stayed up all day I would burn out by the time of the talk but I was worried if I slept I might sleep too much, get my timing messed up for public transportation and get to the convention late. I know it was my usual overactive imagination piling on, but that’s what I do when I get nervous. I went home and got two hours of sleep, made something to eat and was ready to go out the door an hour earlier than I planned. Thankfully I took a moment to pause before walking out the door.

I had forgotten a few things I wanted to take and forgot to put out food for the cat. I was ahead of the game so I waited 30 minutes before leaving. It gave me time to get a few things together, get my notes in order and by the time I got to the bus I was much more relaxed.

An interesting thing happened on the light rail soon after I boarded. Two old men got into some sort of altercation. I mean a good shoving match and a bit of punching. People near them moved out of the way but I was in the comic book mindset. A part of me wanted to move in and break up the fight, but I’m glad I had taken a rest earlier. If I was tired, like a few years ago when a similar thing happened when I was leaving the San Diego Comic-Con, I would have gone into action to break the fight up. Because I didn’t I was able to see a young guy, who I think was the grandson of one of the men, standing off to the side, watching like he was spoiling to fight. His grandfather pushed the other man down into a chair after much yelling and just as the light rail stopped at a station. They got off and the young man threw his soda and ice at the old guy still on the train. Needless to say people were stunned.

I got to the convention, registered then entered the dealer’s room. There was more room than last year I think, because where they used to have registration was moved to another building so that previous space was filled with vendors. There were all sorts of cosplay characters, steampunk shops and comic books. As much as I love heading to the San Diego Comic-Con it is nice to have a convention where comics are the main draw. Being among ‘my people’ felt wonderful and I took in all the sights and sounds. I had a mission to get decals or bumper stickers for my laptops. I saw some nice ones but nothing that made me want to pay. I’m glad I didn’t have a lot of money because I fell in love with a new game I saw and if I had the money I would have bought it. I didn’t know there was a Star Wars tactical board game that came out a few years ago. They have miniature X-Wings, TIE fighters and the like. The models are incredibly detailed and reminded me of the days of AD&D and the miniature figures I have. What made me drool was the Blockade Runner. It was scaled to size of the fighters, so it was over 1 foot long and pretty detailed. I stared at that piece like a person lusting chocolate! On a side note, I looked up the game the next day which is called the Star Wars X-Wing Miniatures Game. There are all sorts of expansion packs like Slave 1, the Millennium Falcon and another large ship, the Rebel transport. One day soon, I will have them!

I didn’t take a lot of pictures this year. I needed to soak everything in and if I had another day to attend I probably would have had a ton of pictures. The few I took were nice however. Most of time I spent in the dealer’s room was soaking up the atmosphere. I ran into a couple of comic book people I wanted to see, saw my favorite comic book dealer, Ken from Drawn to Comics, looked at a lot of merchandise and had a relaxing time.

Soon it was time to get ready for the panel. I found a spot and listened to some music. It got me in the right mood for the talk. I went over the topic in my head, made sure all my talking points were in order and got myself in a nice comic book Zen state. My panel started at 7:30 and by 7:10 I wanted over to the room where I was having the talk. I walked in and there were a lot of people in the room. What struck me was people were coming in and sitting down! I know, I expected people to come to the talk but in my head I thought maybe 20 people might show up. When I saw the people in the room I thought they were there for the last talk and were going to leave before I started but that wasn’t the case. I walked outside and saw more people showing up. I caught a few looking at the board with the topic, making sure they were at the right place and walk in.

I got happy. I was going to have a crowd listen to this subject. I got a little nervous but it was good nerves. By the time I walked in, which was 10 minutes before things were to begin, there were about 75-80 people in the room. No one knew who I was so it was funny walking up to the stage, then telling the moderator I’m Reg. We went over how I wanted to be introduced then I sat on stage. Oh, that’s when things got real! I looked at the crowd, which filled up about a third of the room and I saw all these eyes on me! The nice thing was the crowd was happy to be there and hear what I had to say. One woman told me before I started she thought I was brave because I was doing the panel solo.

When it was time to go I started with a little about myself then got on topic. I felt a little stiff at first because it was taking a bit to gauge the crowd, but I saw a few people smiling and nodding their heads at some of the things I said so I figured things were going well. When I opened up the floor to questions, man I think 15 hands shot up right away. The Q &A was by far the best part for me. That’s when the crowd really reacted and I honestly felt I was at home, like really home with a few people sitting around talking. The cool part of the whole event was when it was over, I had people waiting in line to talk to me! People were shaking my hand thanking me for the talk, asking me more questions and I even had one person ask me for a photo with him.