Wizard World Comic Con: a newcomer’s first experience

I don’t really know what I was expecting when I bought tickets to the Cleveland Comic Con. I had never been to a con before, but I had heard the horror stories, mostly involving sweaty people wearing that golden Leia bikini, standing in lines, and buying expensive food and merchandise.

I went with fellow geeks, Paul Esposito and Brooke Kozar, who cosplayed (meaning dressed up as) Dean Winchester from Supernatural and Jerome from Gotham, respectively. I went as Eleven from Stranger Things since Millie Bobby Brown, the actor who plays Eleven, would be signing autographs at the con.

Speaking of autographs, Paul, Brooke, and I bought an autograph from Anthony Mackie, a.k.a. Marvel’s Falcon, who was also in attendance.

After waiting in line for our wristbands that allowed us entrance we stepped into the Huntington Convention Center, where booths were set up, all of them advertising merchandise from everything nerdy: superheroes, pokemon, nintendo games, Netflix series, et cetera. And there was a lot of et cetera, it felt like I had stepped inside a world of the miscellaneous, and I couldn’t imagine the wonders that awaited me. There was even one booth that sold drawings and sketches of characters hugging, which is just as adorable as it sounds.

After waiting in line for about 45 minutes, we all got to meet Anthony Mackie, who did not appreciate my joke (“So, you’re the Black Panther, right?”). Although, he said he was recently mistaken for Denzel Washington. We got a caricature done of myself and Brooke, which ended up amazing.

We then stopped for lunch, and I had known beforehand that food was going to be expensive, since there was a real monopoly created by the food court. But I was still dismayed when I was forced to purchase a sandwich for $8. I will, however, admit that it was delicious.

The entire experience was made in the people watching. You c

ould see how passionate people were about what they loved, and, despite it being a little taboo and maybe even a little odd, I thought it was a beautiful thing -- all of these people coming together in shameless adoration to discuss and mingle with those who like the same things they do. Plus, seeing father-daughter cosplays may be the most adorable thing I have ever seen. If you had seen the middle aged dad dressed up as the Wolverine and his daughter, clinging to his claw, cosplaying as the girl from Logan, both of them with the same look of wonderment in their eyes, you’d understand why I thought it was so cute.

Despite the difficulties we had finding parking, and despite the expensiveness of lunch and merchandise, nothing beats being able to go into a room where, no matter how odd you may be, you don’t have to be ashamed of what you love. You’ll find someone who’s just like you. It’s an extremely accepting and encouraging environment, and I know that next year there is no way I won’t be buying tickets to the Cleveland Comic Con.