Rose City Comic Com

It was a whirlwind two days at Rose City Comic Con!

Our Comic Con experience actually began on Friday when we found out that GeekyLibrary reviewer Mark was working a shift at the Convention Center and ended up being a doorman to Sean Astin (Goonies, Lord of the Rings) and Garrett Wang (Ensign Kim from Star Trek: Voyager).

For Taylor and I, the highlight of a convention is just the seeing all these geeky people in one place.

That idea was echoed by Angela of The Doubleclicks when she said told the geeky audience “good job” after singing the line ‘find your people…’ (part of the song Dimetrodon) during their Comic-Con performance.

After missing seeing  The Doubleclicks, a local Portland geek band, perform at Norwescon 37, we enjoyed hearing them perform a selection of geeky songs on Saturday.

Taylor backed their Kickstarter campaign and I once listened to “Mr. Darcy” on repeat for an hour while trying to write a story. Needless to say,  hearing them and their  modded amplified cat keyboard was a treat. Later we stopped by their booth to say hi.

The floor was packed with people and booths and vendors and a tricked-out DeLorean which I was quite excited to sit in.

Kelly Sue DeConnick dispenses some writing advice.
Kelly Sue DeConnick dispenses some writing advice.

We stopped to chat with Kelly Sue DeConnick, the current writer of Captain Marvel (yay Carol Danvers) and the creator-owned Pretty Deadly. I asked her what the differences were between writing established characters and something that’s new.

“When a character has 70 years of history, I can hear the voice in my head,” said Kelly Sue DeConnick, but even with established characters, “if you worry too much about what other people think, you will paralyze yourself.”

Which is good advice for any writer.

The Geek Portland Poetry Slam at Rose City Comic-Con certainly featured some writing (and performing) talent in a high-energy competitive face-off and geek-filled prose. Be sure to check out our full coverage of the slam, whose winner took away a sweet Star Wars print.

Dee from Rat Queens.
Dee from Rat Queens.

We took plenty of pictures of cosplayers, and loved spotting cosplayers as our favorite book-loving princess, Belle. We will forever be jealous of her library. Loved seeing a cosplayer as Dee from the Rat Queens comic, which proves its popularity.

After reading Raise Some Shell Taylor has regained his childhood interest in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Rose City Comic Con 2014 was a perfect way to further explore the phenomenon during a panel with the original voice cast of the 1987 animated television show.

Indeed, we did sing the theme song and I don’t think anyone expected them to go into the second verse.

We ended our Comic-Con experience by kicking of Banned Book Week. We attended the panel “Ban This!” which featured panelists Jonathan Hill (artist for Americus), Justin Stanley (president of The Uprise Books Project) and Sarah Mirk (online editor of Bitch Magazine). Comic books are some of the most frequently banned books.

As Banned Books Week continues, we’ll post more coverage of the panel, our thoughts, and more about The Uprise Books Project… whose mugshots were a highlight on the #RCCC twitter feed.

Be sure to check out all of our Rose City Comic Con coverage, including our photos. It was great attending!