My new best friend! Arrrg!

After driving for 18 hours, my sister and I were ready to stretch our legs and discover the wonders that our first ever Comic-con had to offer us. We easily navigated the public transport system to arrive bright and early outside the doors of Comic-Con International!  For day one we decided to dress as swashbuckling pirate girls. With eye patches and bandanas in place and swords in hand, we felt pretty awesome and more than ready for our adventure. We even had parrots on our shoulders!  Not even the protesters outside the convention center could bring us down (something about burning in hell because we like scifi…?).

Such a scary pirate!!!

Before we could make our way inside we were commandeered by a local news station and interviewed live for the morning news. We had people stopping and asking us if they had seen us on TV that morning! Of course we were too excited to remember which station it was…oh well.

The first panel I attended was The Witty Women of Steampunk. It was a fun, witty (go figure) panel, and best of all Gail Carriger was one of the panelists! Talk about corsets, Victorian England, and the movement of Steampunk abounded in this enjoyable and quirky panel.

The VIZ Media panel was also fun, with announcements on upcoming manga and anime releases, and discussion about Neon Alley – a channel that plays 24 hours a day of anime! Unfortunately it’s all English dubbed, so I’m not interested. I’m a serious subtitles-only kind of girl. I despise voice-overs.  But still very exciting for those of you who are a little less stuck up about it! For more info on Neon Alley I would keep an eye on VIZ’s page.

The exhibit hall was quite the experience – especially for a girl who just is not used to so many people in one place! Montana born and raised, remember? I’m pretty sure there were as many people stuffed into downtown San Diego last week as we have in all of Montana. I excitedly found my way to the Geek Girls Create booth (not quickly, considering I spent 45 minutes wandering around trying to find it and getting distracted by all the other booths at Comic-Con), and found myself surrounded by the sweetest group of girls you could ask for! I took my picture with them, got their autographs, and promised I would attend the panel The Most Dangerous Women at Comic-Con, which a few of the Geek Girls Create ladies were panelists in.

Me and Helena Santos Levy at the Geek Girls Create booth!

The Most Dangerous Women at Comic-Con panel was hilarious, and furthered my respect for those women who have made it in the world of geek. And the Raptor Jesus cosplay (‘I went extinct for your sins’) was a pretty awesome highlight.  The woman standing behind the panelists in Skyrim cosplay looking really intense and waving her sword around added to atmosphere, and by the end I couldn’t count the number of times I laughed out loud!

The Most Dangerous Women at Comic-Con

At the end of the day I realized one very important thing: I had found my people, and my calling! One day I want to be sitting up there inspiring young women to follow their interests and their imagination, no matter how odd they may seem to the outside world. I want to spend my days talking about cosplay, anime, science fiction and fantasy! I also realized I was exhausted. I fell asleep about five seconds after my head hit the pillow, ready to face tomorrow! Day 1: success!