Salt Lake City: COMIC CON 2015

I don’t get many opportunities to go and do something epic.  When I do, I take hold and throttle it.  It’s that weird ‘seize the day’ thing.  That is Comic Con in a nutshell.  However, instead of just me doing the throttling, it’s THOUSANDS of day seizing folks all crammed into one convention center.  It’s the sort of geek outing, comic book crazies, star wars fans gathering, and Science Fiction underground of the likes I’ve never quite seen before.  Which is probably why it took me nearly an entire month to recover from it and write a post about it.

Yeah, I know.  Epic, right?

(Our booth before everything got crazy and everything turned into a massive mess!)

First of all, I have to say that you meet a lot of cool peeps there.  For example, who knew that The Michael Vey booth would be a scant six booths away from mine and the illustrious Richard Paul Evans would walk past a half dozen times?  You just can’t plan that stuff.  I couldn’t plan rugby tackling him either, fan-girling embarrassingly so, and then getting a selfie with the dude.  He took it with fantastic grace and charm.  He was a good sport.

(Richard Paul Evans and me!  He was VERY nice)

Then there were my booth mates.  Ryan Hancock took the grand prize for bringing the crazy and making it work to everyone’s advantage.  He donned a wig, Hogwarts robes (Slytherin House) and adopted a British accent.  If anyone could pull that off, Ryan can and did. 

I also found a fellow soul sister in Adrienne Quintana.  We are both from large families with unusual backgrounds.  She also is excellent at the dreaded snerk-laugh.  She showed up in Star Wars Leah buns and floor length white Leah garb.  Her tag line was to “Buy my book and I’ll let you touch my buns”.  To which a few males took her a little too literally. 

(Adrienne and her Leah Buns on the left, me (center) and a surly looking Ryan/Slytherin on the right)

I got to hang out with the oh-so-lovely and graceful Emily Wheeler.  I actually feel more educated when she is around.  She could wipe the floor with me when it comes to tact and social sweetness.

There were other booth mates as well, but I didn’t get to spend much time with them as we were all taking shifts at different times. Tony, even at his matured age, kept us all laughing and the rest I merely got to high five as we passed each other.

Then came the actual people.  I took pictures with a select few because their costumes were particularly fantastic.  Whether it be craftsmanship or sheer ingenuity, I found ways to snag them out of the crowd and ask for a photo.

(Me and a VERY convincing Robert Downy Jr.)

(Ian hanging out with this fairly dangerous looking SHIELD agent who was very sweet)

(Ever seen a Steampunk Fox before?  She nailed it!)

(This guy hand crafted his pirate suit.  The camera on my phone didn't do it justice)

(This guy was sporting six inch stilettos as a dude-Maleficent.  I was certain he'd lost a bet, but nope!  He mastered his look amazingly well!)

(You couldn't go anywhere at Comic Con without running into the Book Bot.  At just over 7 feet tall he was hard to miss)

In the end, I had a fabulous time and I will definitely do Comic Con again.  Many who purchased my book were recipients of my Super Secret GOLDEN TICKET that is cleverly hidden between the sacred pages of IAN QUICKSILVER awesomeness.  Prizes were given in abundance and are being mailed out this week.  I am delighted that I get to give back to my readers, even if it is in a small, fairly insignificant way.  I love my readers.  They light a fire under me that will shine through the pages of many books to come!

-Alyson

PS. Many more GOLDEN TICKETS have been secretly stashed away in my books.  If you want a chance at snagging one, stop on by my Events Page to see where I will be next.  Buy a Book, find a ticket and win awesome things like a leather bound Warrior Log book, an author signed sword and more!