LONG BEACH COMIC CON IS BACK!!!

 

Welcome to October CRAZIES!!!  Yet another tradition returned in 2022 after a three year hiatus, but we'll get to that in a moment.  First, take a look at my poor pumpkin patch...

It started off with a lot of promise, big healthy vines, flowers and leaves everywhere and an abundance of little pumpkin bulbs.  But within a month, they all shriveled up, leaving me with a handful of piddly pumpkins. Needless to say, I was disappointed and decided to cut my losses and pull up the dead/dying vines.  But then I walked out into my backyard and saw this strange occurrence...

Hot damn!  They'll put those things up in ANY open space, won't they?  It wouldn't be so bad if the patrons actually bought something!  It's the least they can do for hogging up all the parking on my street!  Perhaps next year, my pumpkins will be more successful.  One can only hope...

Now, back to the return of a yearly tradition.  Long Beach Comic Con has returned from the pandemic-induced hiatus!  In recent years prior, they'd cut back a lot in size and festivities.  Would they come back strong and blow things up like they used to?  Afraid to say no.  They didn't. In fact, they downsized even further.  I'd go on, but there are pictures waiting, so let's just get right to it.  Enjoy...

Here we have the winner for most creative use of a pool noodle in a cosplay prop!

Next up, the winner for most creative use of a frilly shirt!  So many frills!

The R2 Builders Club were one of the few Fan Clubs that returned to this year's show and as always, they were a hit!  They even brought Rex, the original pilot of the beloved Star Tours attraction at Disneyland!

Not a whole lotta booths this year, but some of the ones that did go had some nice displays.

There were many poor unfortunate souls in Long Beach that weekend, where a record high of 108F hit the city on the last day of the con!  Ursula took it in stride though!

Hook Deadpool and Tinkerbell!  I've seen a lot of Tinkerbell cosplay over the years, but this is the first time I've seen anyone do the version of her from Hook!

Catwoman enjoys her some lemonade!

Rambo knows it's important to mask up still!

An R2 unit went to fetch some pizza and chicken strips for its maker!

Would this be considered a Doggo-gorgon?

Party on Michael!

Johnny 5 came to chill with the astro droids!

Judging by the color of the flames, those were some particularly sweet donuts that Ghostrider was eating!

The Hyatt Regency Long Beach!  It's a very nice hotel and the adjacent Rainbow Harbor Lagoon is so much fun to walk around!  You can see numerous fish and birds hanging around the water, even several species of sharks and rays!  It's a pity they took away the bridges to the islands in the middle of the lagoon.  Still a fun site to visit.

The are many great access points and walkways around the Long Beach Convention Center, which is one of the things that makes it so sad that their comic convention has downsized so much in the last five years.  Hopefully that'll change with coming shows.

The only other fan group that came this year: The Trekkies!  Live long and prosper friends.

The Cars of the Stars were back in their usual spot, though they too downsized from the amount of cars that they usually bring.  And I should note that they brought more than just these two Jurassic Park Jeeps!  The rest were behind me!

Another amazing cosplay!  Even in a downsized year, LBCC still brought out some incredible cosplayers to the show!

Looks like the Riddler was able to score a few hard-to-find back issues!

And that was Long Beach Comic Con 2022.  It wasn't a good show.  It wasn't horrible, but it wasn't good.  This show used to be my favorite one to go to, more than SDCC even.  How it fell this hard this fast is beyond me. One could point to the pandemic as a cause to the cutbacks, and it's a valid excuse for sure, but this was happening long before COVID was ever heard of.  I hope they turn it around, I honestly do.  Long Beach is a fun place and I love visiting there.  They deserve to have a top notch Comic Con.  Next year though, I think I'm gonna go to Mid-Summer Scream instead.  That show looks awesome!

And that's it for this first week of October.  Be sure to drop in next Wednesday for some monstrous art kicking off a monstrous month!  Until then, take care, stay safe and I'll catch y'all later!