Some vague thoughts about my experience in Baltimore Comic Con

I went to Baltimore Comic Con over the weekend, and I have to say it was a fun and entertaining experience. This post comes a little late, but I was really tired on Sunday to do anything, and way too much time trying to fix all the crappy pictures I took…

Anyway, I went with my brother to help him out, he had a table on Artists Alley.

It was my first time at a comic convention, and in a way it was kind of overwhelming at first, I’m not used to seeing so many people in costume in the same place.

I also got me a few souvenirs. I bought a Galactus poster signed by Neil Adams, three t-shirts, and a Wolverine sweater. I thought about getting a few figurines, but those were kind of pricey, and that Wolverine sweater was calling out to me…

I was actually gonna go for the Magneto sweater, or the other Wolverine one with the regular yellowish/mustard colors…but I’m happy with this one, even if it makes me looks like a furry cosplayer…

Speaking of costumes, I managed to take a few cosplay pictures (and mess up most of them). Some costumes were real works of art, others were your classic pajamas. Some even made me wonder how they were planning on using the restrooms, they were that complicated. Scroll down the post to check some of the pictures I managed to take.

I also noticed a lot of artists kind of cheated on their displays. My brother mentioned everyone had to have a 50/50 ratio of fanart and their personal art. Most had about 70/30, while others had between 90/10 and 100% fanart. Some had these huge banners with only fanart on them.

Anyway, this is just my personal opinion, but I think the way the floor was setup wasn’t very efficient. On the first day (Saturday) the flow of people to the artists alley was pretty low during the first few hours. When the VIPs came in (a half hour before the general public), they went straight for the toys and comic books booths, which were directly in front of the entrance. Artists Alley, however, was all the way around. Since most of the VIPs came straight to buy stuff to resell, they didn’t pay much attention to the artists and what they were selling, unless it was something from a known artist that they can resell later on. I know I’m kind of dragging on this, but hear me out.

I overheard many artists complaining about not having been able to sell much during the whole weekend, and I think I know why. Most visitors concentrated on the first half of the floor, which was directly in front of the entrance. It took a little over 3 hours for people to start moving into the other half of the floor, where most of the artists were crammed in. I took walks around the place many times, and the half in front of the main entrance was packed, it was really hard to walk around those aisles. This is what the floor map looked like:

All the gray sections with the “A” are the artists sections. My brother’s table was located in the gray zone, #228. As I said before, there was hardly any flow of traffic in that direction for a few hours on both days. That didn’t make sense to me when the lines outsides were ridiculously long, believe me, the place was packed…but around the collectibles aisles. Don’t take me wrong, I love toys, figurines, and other souvenirs as much as the next geek, but I just feel the setup was wrong. I remember somebody mentioned NYCC is organized differently, so there’s a lot of traffic flowing into the artists alley. But enough about that, let me go back to the costumes.

One thing I can tell you right away is people are assholes, especially the guys from TV stations and other websites covering the event. They don’t care if you are trying to snap a picture, they will walk up, bump into you, or stand right in front, like you’re invisible or something. Others simply don’t know how to walk. They would just zig-zag around the alleys without any sense of direction, bump into everything and get in front of anything.

Many of my pictures were ruined by assholes who got right in front of me. I was trying to snap a picture of these two dudes wearing a Darth Vader and a black Stormtrooper costume, when this dad suddenly started moving all over the place and suddenly stood right in between me and those guys, the picture I ended up with was of his butt. It took me 5 tries before I could get a decent picture.

Also, some cosplayers didn’t make it any easier either. Some wouldn’t make up their minds about their pose and move constantly, or start walking away faster than most cameras would be done with the picture. Anyway, these are some of the pictures I manage to salvage, I ended up editing most of them so they don’t look too blurry.

Many of the blurry pictures were also my fault. I didn’t familiarize with my phones camera as much as I should have, so I ended up using the wrong modes, unnecessary flash, or didn’t take advantage of other options it has available (I have a GS4). When I took the picture of the Lantern Corps I checked if everything was alright and I noticed one of the pictures had everyone around perfectly clear, but not the guys in the middle.

Then this kind of funny thing happened; the guys in front thought I was taking pictures of the girl’s butt. Don’t take me wrong, she had a gorgeous behind, and the costume was pretty much a bathing suit, but I was actually taking pictures of random things to see what mode I should be using. They didn’t tell me anything directly, but the guys on the next table, including my brother, told me about it. So, if those guys ever find this post and see their picture here, I apologize if I looked like a creep, but it wasn’t intentional, I was simply having technical problems.

All in all it was a good experience, I might drop by the next comic convention in the area, I think it’s in DC.