While much of geekdom is full of plans this weekend to attend Comic-Con International in San Diego, my minions and I are attending ConnectiCon in Hartford, Connecticut.
It’s a con I highly recommend for a number of reasons:
- I would say at least half the con attendees cosplay. Such wonderful eye candy.
- On a similar front, at least half, if not more, of those attendees are female and they’re young, high school, and college age. This is the future of fandom! I wish I could drag the powers that be at DC Comics over to this con and show them what their audience could be like. These are the people plugged into the ‘net, the ones who watch TV online, the ones who download books online. They’re the crowd who would snarf up digital offerings not geared to the 18-45 year old males who are supposed to be the only ones really reading superhero comics.
- The crowd is at a nice level, so that there’s a good amount of people in the panels but allowing access to everyone who needs it. Marina Sirtis’ questions and answers sessions had room for everyone but had an enthusiastic crowd.
- It offers a good chance for one-on-one with the guest of honor. I spend some time chatting with comic artist Michael Golden without interrupting. (That is, after I recovered from my fangirl moment.) Both my sons were able to approach Doug Walker aka the Nostalgia Critic on the con floor for photos.
- Attendees can actually walk around the dealer’s room without it being wall to wall people, and the vendors were a great mix of artists, gaming and comic shops, steampunk offerings, and all sorts of crafts. I even found the shop that had special blends of tea for Doctors 9, 10, and 11.
- We’re going back for the last day tomorrow, as my son wants to attend a panel on how to make web comics.
And I almost forgot to mention the cost is reasonable, at $60 per person for the weekend.
Note: All of the cosplayers in the gallery above were asked and gave permission for the photos to be posted on blogs and other social media sites.
I saw the Saga costume! It was the only one from that series. Maybe in coming years there will be more as it grows in popularity.