This last February I ventured to Pensacola, Florida with my family to cover Pensacon, the city’s premiere comic con. Overall I had mixed emotions through the event, and I’m not entirely sure if the experience was worth the headache. However, all of the celebrities that I personally met where excellent people, and it was the volunteers that caused hysteria among the masses. Keeping that in mind, let me tell you some of the stories I took away from this weekend!
Glenn Fabry
I started off my morning browsing through the vendor floor and bothering the poor artists, one of which being Preacher and Hellblazer illustrator Glenn Fabry. Unlike the other artists who I talked to for a bit and let be until the convention opened, Fabry’s eccentric personality immediately captivated me. Although I wasn’t exactly familiar with his work, I knew that he did the cover art for two of my all time favorite comic books, and he is just an all around interesting person. He told me stories of how he thinks everything Kevin Smith and Ben Affleck do is utter “rubbish” because the Daredevil movie cancelled a comic book that was supposed to generate hundreds of thousands of dollars for him, as well as his bizarre accounts with Dominic Cooper and Neil Gaiman. I spent about 30 minutes just chatting with the man, who you would never have known had such intriguing stories, and I enjoyed giving him the satisfaction of having an avid listener actually care about the life he’s lived.
Ross Marquand, Cooper Andrews and other guests
Once the convention opened I went on my way to bother some celebrities, the highlight of my weekend. As with every year, the quality of guests was beyond what was necessary to make people eager to get through the doors, and I tried to meet as many people as possible. Everyone there was absolutely delightful, especially Ross Marquand (Aaron, The Walking Dead), who actually went out of his way on the second day of the convention to wish me a happy birthday (I had previously told him I was turning 18 that weekend). The other guests I got various pictures and autographs from include Cooper Andrews (Jerry, The Walking Dead), Ian McElhinney (Ser Barristan, Game of Thrones) and Pom Klementieff (Mantis, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2), and I will always cherish the time I spent with all of these celebrity idols.
Controversie
I’m not going to lie, I did have an excellent time at this convention, but I have to give my honest opinion about the event that ensued the weekend. One of the headliners pictured here, who I will not mention by name, managed to disappoint a lot of people. He/she in question arrived to the convention at least two hours after all of the other guests, which I can obviously excuse, considering how hectic it was flying in and getting in and out of the hotel rooms. That’s not my problem. My problem is that when they arrived, they were ushered by security (something none of the other stars, including much bigger names didn’t deem necessary) to some undisclosed location, and made convention staff text them the number of people waiting in their line to see if it was enough to grant their presence. So in turn, there were at least 5-10 people who waited another two hours just standing in line for this person to literally just walk to their table. This kind of behavior really erks me, especially considering how delightful every other guest was, and I can say with confidence that I would never want to meet this person after such antics.
John Barrowman Q&A
I don’t know if you’ve ever been to a John Barrowman Q&A, but the Doctor Who and Arrow star knows how to put on a show. Probably one of the most energetic and delightful personalities you’ll see on TV, Barrowman came prancing out in a Tardis dress, did several ballet-type twirls, and managed to hype up the crowd without saying a word. He was about 30 minutes late, and he apologized for this by saying it’s his policy not to start his show (and that’s what it was, practically a whole evening of entertainment) until everyone is in the door. This is the kind of attitude that everyone in his position should have. Barrowman opened with what was basically an off-the-cuff stand-up comedy bit, and had people rolling before he even started taking questions. It’s almost impossible to cover all of the topics discussed during the Q&A, but here is a link to a video in which my photographer asks Barrowman what it was like to work with legendary Doctor Who companion Elisabeth Sladen: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YllxShletZY
Conclusion
To sum it all up, the moments I enjoyed at my time here outweighed the moments that were frustrating. However, those moments in question were extremely frustrating. Every volunteer working the convention did absolutely nothing to help the fans or guests, not knowing where anything in the convention was, yet still acting like they’re some sort of trained professional, talking down to people and treating them like cattle. It’s a problem that the heads of the convention definitely need to fix before next year, perhaps giving some kind of extra training or screening process to the would-be volunteers. Perhaps I’m cynical to the matter considering how many times a volunteer was rude or unnecessarily authoritative with me, but I’m willing to bet that there are other people who experienced the same mishaps. The guests are always great, the flow of the convention keeps improving, and if the volunteer situation can be sorted out, this could easily be the most prestigious comic-con in the South.
