Slice of Life: Adventures at Motor City Comic Con 2017

Hello All! I’m finally back with a new Slice of Life post! A few weeks ago I attended my first ever comic con which was Motor City Comic Con 2017. I spent one day there, but the event runs through the entire weekend. It’s one of the biggest comic conventions in Michigan, and since New York/San Diego comic are a bit far and expensive for me to travel to, having the convention in my home state is super convenient. I’ll be sharing my con experiences and pictures, along with comparing MCCC to past conventions I’ve attended. Enjoy!

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With my advance tickets in tow, I woke up early on a Saturday morning ready for a day of fun. After arriving at the showplace, and parking (which went way faster than I expected). I waited in the advanced ticket line, this would get me into the convention an half-hour early than the general public. Turns out, it didn’t make much of a difference because I stood in that line for almost an half-hour. I was still grateful I bought my tickets ahead of time since the line to buy tickets was three times as long.

After getting my day pass, I meandered through the many aisles of fandom goodness. Discount comics, media themed apparel, and special guests awaited me. I wanted to kill a bit of time before getting in line to get a good seat for the first panel of the day so I walked around some more. I literally hit the jackpot, and ended up buying quite a number of comics (and I would have bought more but I stopped myself).

Then came the first guest speaker panel that I attended.

That’s right, the one and only Levar Burton!

His panel was very laid back, relaxed, and it was an interesting hour of Q&A. He was the person I was most excited to see the entire day. Reading Rainbow meant a lot to me as a child and see a TV shows that advocated literacy and recommended awesome books, completely blew my mind! Here are some of the things he discussed during the panel:

• He is currently working on a new podcast that is due to come out in 2018
• How he initially opposed the 2016 reboot of Roots, but grew to support the idea after realizing the story needed to be told to a new generation in a new style.
• If he would choose to be on a ship with Captain Kirk or Picard? He chose Picard. The reason? “Not that Captain Kirk didn’t read, I just never saw him pick up a book, while Picard was seen reading on the show (Next Gen) multiple times.”
• How difficult it was to wear the visor that his character Geordie wore Star Trek: The Next Generation.  The majority of his vision was cut off and it was hard for him to walk around.

After the panel, I wandered around the aisles some more which now had become incredibly crowded due to the afternoon crowd. I finally found my way to the fan art section of the room, where I got to chat with artists, admire their artwork, and add some new art prints to my collection.

I was sad that I couldn’t take more pictures of the awesome cosplay that I saw. The crowds were becoming larger, plus I like to be respectful of people’s privacy (ex. not asking for a picture when they’re clearly trying to relax or eat).

My second panel was the last of the day. I got to see the comedic Rob Schnieder.

He opened the panel with the famous line from the film, Waterboy:

Which sent the audience into laughter. His panel was set up in the same format as Levar’s, a bit of Q&A mixed with talk of his current projects. Here are some things that they discussed during the panel:

• Many, many stories of his friendship with Adam Sandler, how the two met, and what the duo was like behind the scenes of SNL (Saturday Night Live).
• The process of working on Real Rob Season 2 for Netflix. He said worked hard on creating new and content for the show, and spent twice as long writing for Season Two than he did with Season One.
• He talked about how genuine Adam Sandler is, but the thing that annoys him the most about Adam is making him and others repeat scenes over and over until they get it right (as the directors). Rob said he understand where Adam is coming from, but he can still nag too much at times.
• One of his favorite movies to film was Benchwarmers. He said it was much different from other movies and he liked the positive message he sent.

My Haul (except for my books):

My Overall Thoughts:

I’ve been to book and anime conventions before, but never a comic convention before this. I found them to all share the similarities of conventions, but this was still a different experience. I had a fun time at MCCC, but I would definitely not attend on a Saturday again.Through I love conventions, I’m an introvert at heart and the amount of people in the main room made me feel very claustrophobic at times. Compared to Youmacon, a local anime convention, there was no person at the door to count/control the amount of people going in and out of the main room. As the day went on, more and more attendees came and some of the aisles were almost impossible to get through. I was disappointed that even though I spent most of my day at the con, I couldn’t see as much as I wanted to. The panel rooms had a good amount of volunteers so it was easy to file into seats and everyone was respectful of one another.

What really shocked me is that how much they charge for professional pictures with media guests on top of the characters for an autograph or taking a selfie with your favorite actor or actress. I had never seen this before ever! The conventions I had been to before never charged for autographs or pictures. The only thing I spent money on was admission, food (so I wouldn’t pass out from hunger), and things that you could purchase. I could see paying for a professional autograph, but for paying for a phone selfie is a bit ridiculous. Other than that I had a good time, despite the crowds. I would attend MCCC again, but probably on the least crowded day.

For more information about Motor City Comic Con visit: http://motorcitycomiccon.com/

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Have you ever attended a comic convention before? Or any type of convention recently? Share which one you attended and what your experience was like in the comment section below.