Geek.Kon 2012: The Dr. Jack Breakdown

I had been at at the Marriott in Middleton, Wisc., for about five minutes before it heard it for the first time, floating on the wind like a specter.

ACen...

The farther into the weekend I got, however, the more unavoidable it became.

ACen...

And finally, I found myself saying it. As in, "Boy, this was fun, but it was no ACen."

It's not really fair. Geek.Kon 2012 never pretended to be another Anime Central. Still, it was that gathering in April 2012 that got me to the University of Wisconsin's annual anime gathering, and it was through the prism of my first and to that point only convention that it would be judged.

With that said, in honor of my great love Bill Simmons (and of course its namesake), here's the Dr. Jack breakdown: ACen 2012 vs. Geek.Kon 2012. Fight!

ENVIRONMENT

On first impressions, Geek.Kon gets a firm thumbs up versus ACen. Not only did I not need to pay for parking, there was less confusion finding it, and less walking overall. The Marriott, by virtue of being one hotel rather than ACen's four, was better kept and easier to navigate. It also looked less like an airplane hangar than the cavernous interior of the Donald E. Stephens Convention Center. From the shorter badge line to a greater selection of nearby restaurants, Geek.Kon's intangibles were noticeably superior to its grandpapi's.

Also Gandalf, who served as gatekeeper at Geek.Kon's many multi-door rooms. GANDALF.

Advantage: Geek.Kon

EXHIBIT HALL/ARTIST'S ALLEY

One of my first stops inside the con, though, showed me definitively that I wasn't in Rosemont anymore. While I did still spend a little, Geek.Kon's selection of merchants and artisans was piddling compared to the forest of booths at ACen, and those associated with the fringes of anime - TV, movies, video games, a.k.a. all the parts I'm interested in - didn't make the trip. Disappointing.

Advantage: ACen

COSPLAY

One of my favorite moments of the con: these girls spent several minutes trying to keep all their cosplay gear on the hotel cart en route to their room. Less favorite: the girl on the far left, who mistook my Game Boy-inspired iPhone case for BMO from Adventure Time.

Two areas at ACen took my breath away with their quality: Exhibit Hall and cosplay. One let me down at Geek.Kon; the other did not.

The weekend got off to a fine start with my friends Alex and Melissa cosplaying Professor Layton and his assistant Emmy, and my buddy Jack joined in by finally executing on his long-promised Gendo Ikari costume, complete with delightfully rub-able beard.

By far the most common cosplays were Avengers - we saw five Loki's, by far the greatest of any single costume, including one that was part of a full set of crossplaying Avengers - and Doctor Who's, including a stunningly similar Tennant and a functioning life-size Dalek.

Other favorites at the con included Slenderman, Missing No., a pair of Klingons, two Ghostbusters with electric proton packs, a very leggy Mrs. Pac-Man and Castlevania-style Alucard.

This well-dressed fellow caused no end of confusion for my anime-Alucard-loving chums.

(Additional Avengers wardrobe note: Rodgers/Stark 2012 shirts were EVERYWHERE at this con. How did I miss this?)

As much as I enjoyed Geek.Kon's cosplay, however, it just couldn't measure up to the scope and variety of ACen's. Also, ACen had Marty McFly. Game over.

Advantage: ACen

GAME ROOMS

Missing No. takes a well-deserved game break.

Here, in the nerdiest of categories, Geek.Kon not only stood up to ACen but sent it home crying to its mama. 

ACen's video game room was no slouch; you may remember Jack and I enjoying a fabulous, flailing round of Dance Central and my awe at the Smash Bros. players Tim tangled with for hours on end. Geek.Kon, however, had me at "Rock Band 3 stage" and didn't let go for most of the weekend.

Assorted highlights: Trying to explain Typing of the Dead to Megan; losing personally but seeing Jack wipe the floor with his opponents on a sit-down Mario Kart arcade; and, as ever, watching Tim own fools at Melee. Over the course of the weekend, finding Jack, Megan, Melissa and Alex was a challenge, but if Tim wasn't with me it was better than even money he had a GameCube controller in his hands, waiting to drive Captain Falcon's electrified knee into some poor third-rate Nintendo mascot.

Jack, in full Gendo garb, kicks some futuristic ass in F-Zero GX.

As for Geek.Kon's tabletop room, we didn't spend much time there, but it had the selection of ACen's with a crowd to match this time. I was pumped to get a farewell game of Ticket to Ride in with Jack, Tim and Megan Sunday when I saw the room's organizer packing it away into a plastic tub. Next year, perhaps. (We did get to break in Jack's shiny new Settlers of Catan set at Tim's afterward, with the Packers losing to San Francisco as wonderful background music. The victor? Do you have to ask, really?)

An unexpected highlight was Kon.Quest, which offered a variety of games and a scavenger hunt in a side room. I didn't complete very much of it, but it was a grand concept, and gave me one of my favorite memories of the con.

"I love how they ask you to find Adam in the (sparkly orange) vest without mentioning that he's the chairman."

One of the biggest disappointments of the con for me was the LAN room. Perhaps it picked up Sunday, but when I dropped by Saturday two guys were browsing the web and ready to tell me Steam's servers weren't cooperating. So much for my four-player in-person Left 4 Dead co-op.

(Side note: This room, along with Kon.Quest and half of tabletop, was closed Saturday for a wedding. No one loves weddings more than I do - seriously, it's unhealthy - but what the hell, Marriott? A 2000-attendee convention isn't enough business for you the weekend after Labor Day?)

Advantage: Geek.Kon

PANELS

Our lovely model poses with the somewhat-less-lovely Geek.Kon panel schedule.

ACen had by far the greater selection of panels - pages upon pages, across four hotels and dozens of rooms - but my panel-going experience at Geek.Kon had the potential to outdo it in the most important of con categories.

The biggest advantage of attending a con with 2,000 attendees instead of 27,000, I discovered, was never needing to wait in line. While Forsuk and I waited a half hour for a murder mystery panel we didn't get into, Geek.Kon's rooms were always welcoming, and I took the chance to improve on the meager six panels I visited during ACen.

Of the variety of panels I attended at Geek.Kon, however, nothing measured up to ACen's Assassin's Creed wedding or Video Game Orchestra concert, and a lot of crap was in the mix as well. When I found a good panel at Geek.Kon, I was thrilled: two discussions even made me go into full reporter mode, with pen, notepad, audio recorder and iPhone camera in hand. Here's a full rundown of my favorite, and a lede for the other:

MIDDLETON - DaishoCon personality Nick Izumi traced the history both of and influenced by an American icon through his presentation, "Stars and Pulp Forever: How Captain America Became the American Dream" Friday evening at Geek.Kon.

"There's more historical value to this than, 'America! America!'" he said. "Captain America was meant to assert America's heroic dominance abroad and would both influence and reflect how Americans understood foreign policy in the 1940's." 

Izumi traced the character from his creation at predominantly Jewish New York comic book publisher Timely Comics as a way for war hogs Joe Simon and Jack Kirby to get Americans interested in World War II a year before Pearl Harbor. The first book's cover - a now-infamous image of Captain America punching Adolf Hitler, which Izumi said never happens in the issue - showed the book's intent to encourage "immediate and decisive action" for democracy, Izumi said.

"You don't have to open the book," he said. "There's so much symbolism on the cover it's overwhelming."

That message proved to be very successful, Izumi said, so much so that many now assume Captain America was created as government-sponsored propaganda. While that's not so - it was dramatized as such in Captain America: The First Avenger - Timely's creation rang so true that when Nazi sympathizers Fifth Column attempted to stage a protest at Timely, Mayor Fiorello Henry LaGuardia shut it down personally.

After the United States entered World War II, Izumi said, Captain America became a rallying point for soldiers and citizens. Captain America's best friend Bucky posed as president of a real-life fan club called the "Sentinels of Liberty" that got children interested in the war effort, and mid-1940's issues included ads for war bonds.

Izumi said the end of World War II was the end of Captain America's first run, and put a damper on the latter part of that run. Because Timely wrote stories several months before publication, the impending end of the war in 1944 led to the end of Nazis in the book. In 1945 Captain America was removed, and in 1946 the book ceased publication.

Izumi said Captain America represented several firsts: it pioneered the two-page spread image, now common in comics; erased a rebooted Captain America, named "Captain America: Commie Smasher," later claiming the character to be an impostor and using him as villain in later issues; and even dramatized an event similar to Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor a full year before Dec. 7, 1941. Captain America was also the first character created of what would become The Avengers, which Captain America joined in 1966 for issue #4. 

Izumi developed the presentation from a paper he wrote on Captain America as part of a senior history seminar at a University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point. As a long-time fan of Marvel Comics and Captain America in particular, he said, reading the entire 1940's run of the character was "the most fun I've had researching any paper I've ever done."

"The reason Cap does the things that he does isn't just because he thinks America's great and he's going to do whatever they tell him is right. At the end of the day, what Cap is always about... is bullying. It could be as simple as beating someone up or international bullying," Izumi said. "There's something about Cap that still resonates today. Someone standing up for people who need defending is still being used today."

MIDDLETON - Technology may be the future of publishing, but five industry veterans showed that analog entertainment can be very fine at a "Digital vs. Traditional Publishing" panel Saturday afternoon.

(In all honesty, I'm not sure how I would approach a full article on the publishing panel; I asked what I felt, in eternal humility, were the best questions of the panel: should digital media carry resale ability, and what's possible in print that's not digitally? [Is my bias showing?])

The publishing panel gave me what I really wanted and seldom found at Geek.Kon: actual knowledge on a subject I care about, from the mouths of experts no less. 

Two other panels I attended were enjoyable if forgettable. Eric Stuart, a voice actor for Pokemon, Yu-Gi-Oh and others (bacon number: 3), did nothing but field questions from the audience for an hour. Cool for his fans, but not an experience I'll be looking to repeat. The same for an exhaustive/ing look at every iteration of Yu-Gi-Oh over ninety minutes on Saturday morning.

As for the rest... well, both cons had panel mishaps, but Geek.Kon's were infinitely more common and annoying. While Tim and I wasted a half hour waiting for VGO on Friday at ACen only for their concert to be delayed, the men behind Funtime Pro Wrestling Arcade and Panel! at Geek.Kon never showed up. And while Samurai Dan didn't blow me away the first time in Rosemont, he was certainly professional, which the girls behind Geek.Kon's History of Assassin's Creed couldn't claim after their promised 90-minute research lesson turned into a twenty-minute gameplay rehash and assorted fan art. The Fanfiction Contest results were every bit as dull as you might expect, and Sunday's Geek Show degenerated from tolerable to tragic in a hurry. Tell me, have you by chance heard "Popular" from Wicked sung karaoke? You have? You're kidding!

Advantage and victory, 3-2: ACen

For a certain class of person - one diametrically opposed to waiting in lines, with a thirst for participation and a Wisconsin address - Geek.Kon might be a better fit than ACen. For me, however, it was an enjoyable but not mind-blowing weekend that made me yearn for ACen more than revel in its own charms.

Geek.Kon did serve an important role in the road back to ACen, though: on Sunday, Jack, Megan, Tim and I bought in for Anime Milwaukee next February, where ACen staff will be selling discounted badges to their 2013 extravaganza in May. I can already hear its call in the air...

Anime Central 2012, Day Four+: What's Next?

A little over a week after my first convention, I can't stop thinking about my second.

While I made it clear in my Day Three post that I'll be returning for Anime Central 2013, I'm rapidly beginning to think that's not good enough. I went into ACen expecting it to be Penny Arcade Expo practice and my only convention of 2012. The former remains in the distance - I can't afford to go to Seattle this fall, and all the badges sold out in 48 hours anyway - but the latter has become almost unthinkable. ACen 2013 is still over a year away! Derek want more dork time!

Should I take the plunge on another convention close to home, there are three obvious options:

Geek.Kon 2012, a convention in Madison that Tim and I were pitched at ACen Friday and may still go to Sep. 7-9 even though it drew a record attendance last year of 1,625;

Chicago Comic-Con, an Aug. 8-11 gala at my now-familiar stomping grounds in Rosemont that appears larger (70,000 by the Tribune's count in 2010) and more mainstream than ACen but, comparing its site to ACen's, seems to come with a sickly corporate culture;

and Gen Con, an Indianapolis institution running Aug. 16-19 that would be the leader in the clubhouse if I didn't have to persuade my friends to come to Indiana.

(Mercifully, I've already missed C2E2 and, as mentioned above, both PAX's. An insane part of me wants to visit the granddaddy of them all, San Diego Comic-Con, but it's also sold out.)

Regardless, I'll carry to my second and all future conventions the hard-won lessons of ACen 2012. I made several great calls and some awful ones throughout the weekend, and they show exactly how I can improve my performance and avoid a sophomore slump.

GOOD IDEA: Buying a badge in advance

Simply dedicating myself to going to ACen early and throwing down the money for a badge saved me at least two hours in line Friday and $10. I ended up waiting in line with other people anyway, but jumping early and grabbing the best deal and peace of mind was my first great call of the weekend.

BAD IDEA: Agonizing over my weekend schedule

The most laughable part of my ACen experience was the gigantic amount of panels I penciled in to my schedule after I ordered my badge and needed more things to plan. Aside from the Exhibit Hall and other distractions I wouldn't think of missing next time, I forgot that going to panels requires waiting in line and being in the right place at the right time. Next year I'll pick about four panels each day to consider attending and leave it at that.

GOOD IDEA: Bringing an iOS device

The Guidebook app was a lifesaver not only in customizing my panel schedule - right - but also in helping me find particular booths in the Exhibit Hall and telling me operating hours for each section of the convention. Frequent updates throughout the weekend kept me up to date as those who relied on the physical book got a steadily more hilarious array of printed inserts each morning.

BAD IDEA: Not reading the physical guide first thing anyway

Despite the immense amount of information in the Guidebook, the physical guide featured more detailed schedules, including the exact timing of Friday's Assassin's Creed wedding. On the other hand, that goof allowed Tim and me to get acquainted with some fellow congoers, adjust to the Hyatt and produce this deleted scene:

GOOD IDEA: Spending a lot of time at the Exhibit Hall

I very much enjoyed the panels I did get to, whether they blew my mind or not, but around those isolated moments of awesome were cosplayers, artists and exhibitors that served as vital connecting tissue. Exhibit Hall isn't the headline of ACen, but it's the backbone, and it's the single part I'm looking forward to most for 2013.

BAD IDEA: Walking like crazy

The unfortunate result of my Exhibit Hall fixation was absolutely murdering my legs; I was limping right along with Forsuk Sunday, so next year will require less travelling on foot or a much healthier, fitter me. Stay tuned.

GOOD IDEA: Tormenting my friends until they agreed to come too

I'm not proud of my methods, but two solid months of teleharassment resulted in a varied, omnipresent cast of friends - one of whom had never attended a convention and another who hadn't visited ACen - making my weekend one not only to remember but to reminisce about as well. With any luck they'll invite their friends and pack the convention even more full of awesome next spring.

BAD IDEA: Refusing go to panels alone or wait in long lines

This was partially because I hosted that revolving door of friends, with whom I waited in line and did about five total circuits of the Exhibit Hall, but of the plethora of panels that interested me at ACen I made it to only six. I missed Oregon Trail, Anime Hell, the Masquerade (which was cancelled anyway), Soap Bubble and a variety of topic panels including Halo, Ren Faire and Pokemon. I'm sure I still would have missed some, but flatly saying "I will not go alone or wait in line longer than 30 minutes" instantly ruled out a lot of things that might have been worth the effort.

GOOD IDEA: Making time for the little things

While I fell well short of my panel projections, it was more than worth it to test Dance Central 2, discover Wits and Wagers and generally soak up the atmosphere at my first convention. I didn't even mention playing Metal Slug with Jack or watching a friendly Wii player rock the first level of Resident Evil 4. I'll come back to ACen sharper, more focused and ready to accomplish concrete goals, but taking a laid-back approach paid major dividends this year.

BAD IDEA: Showing up early

As much as I wanted to squeeze every last moment out of ACen, the action didn't ramp up until about noon each day, and on Sunday in particular I wasted a lot of time waiting for things to happen. Since I still managed to be exhausted around midnight each day despite my iron will, a noon to 2 a.m. schedule is closer to ideal.

GOOD IDEA: Staying at a hotel

As tired as I was by the end of the weekend, it would have been ten times worse had I cheaped out and driven to and from my dad's in Peotone each day rather than bunking at the DoubleTree in Schaumburg. I may stay at an on-site hotel next year, but if they're booked early or too expensive, Schaumburg is a fantastic Plan B.

BAD IDEA: Eating spoiled food

You'd really think, at 23, I'd know this by now. Let's just move on.

Finally, I should credit a few folks not mentioned in my posts who made ACen amazing: my coworkers, Matt Troutman and Mishele Wright, who picked up the reporting load Friday while I took a vacation day; a few friendly cosplayers whom I saw repeatedly all weekend and came to refer to as "frequent fliers," including a very shapely Lara Croft, a woman with Toad on her head, a Naked Snake with a box over his torso, both varieties of Yuna and a pretty poor Capt. Falcon (other entertaining cosplays included Adam West Batman, Domo Kun, Jesus, several Links, Missing No., Undertaker and crossplaying Yuna); and my former Chronicle-Tribune compatriot Melissa Vogt, from whom I shamelessly ripped off the title of my aforementioned Day Three post.

Feel free to send me any questions you have about ACen either in the comments here, at facebook.com/derek.beigh or on Twitter @zorak9379. I'd love to convert another couple friends to attend future conventions.

With that said, good night from Anime Central 2012. I can't wait to continue this series in 2013.

Anime Central 2012, Day Three: Dazed and Enthused

Between his knee injury, my food poisoning and a 7 a.m. wakeup call to get Megan to Union Station for her return train to Champaign, Forsuk and I were weary voyagers when we returned to the Hyatt in Rosemont Sunday morning. We soldiered on, however, for we knew one critical fact:

Anime Central waits for no man.

What Anime Central does wait for, however, is 10 a.m., which is how we found ourselves at 9 wandering around aimlessly, eating day-old Giordano's and wandering by screening rooms showing bizarre and occasionally frightening anime. I double-checked the Guidebook app and discovered that one part was already open: card and role-playing games at the Hilton. Given my long-gestating curiosity about Magic: The Gathering, it was one of the few ACen goals I hadn't yet fulfilled.

After voyaging to the second floor of the hotel, however, I was reminded powerfully of why I wanted to go to the Penny Arcade Expo rather than ACen in the first place. Rather than a thriving meeting space, ACen's card gaming room was a couple lonely guys trying in vain to get a single game of Magic: The Gathering together, and a nearby room was searching wanly for participants to play an RPG I'd never head of. Perhaps I shouldn't pass judgment on a gathering for lacking tabletop and card players on a separate floor of a side hotel at 9 a.m. Sunday, but that moment more than any other kept my PAX fire burning.

We returned to the Hyatt to camp out for "Who Wants to be a Voice Actor?" next to a virtual reality game named Battletech that looked moderately cool but extremely intimidating - think Steel Battalion on steroids, and you're halfway there - and watched giant mechs kill each other for a half hour until the panel began. In between we nearly followed one of the panelists into the room, started a line on our own and waited, also in vain, for a couple volunteers to show up and check badges. Way to have your shit together, ACen.

The panel, like most of Sunday, was subdued; only about 30 people came to a room that would have comfortably seated 1,000, although we filled it with noise as one of two panelists led us in vocal and role-playing exercises that ranged from chattering excitedly about a party to recoiling in horror at a giant monster invading our fair imaginary city. I miss improv.

Despite the quality of the voice acting panel, we left about a half hour into the voice acting panel to line up for the simply-named Video Game Orchestra, Sunday's main event and the biggest reason I didn't take off Sunday morning and take Megan back to Champaign myself. There was no line yet, so we sat in on the majority of Samurai Dan's noon panel, which was way more entertaining than Friday - maybe I was just more in the mood for moderately suggestive schtick and rambling convention anecdotes - and left me wanting to see more of him next year.

When Samurai Dan was finished, we returned to the lobby and the VGO line already in progress. We weren't waiting long before we were ushered in and took our seats for the most memorable of my six ACen programs.

While the concert began in baffling fashion with the opener, IMERAUT, playing three songs and leaving without any explanation, VGO's performance was sublime. I screamed my head off during the unbelievable "Big Blue" guitar/bass battle below.

(Note: These videos are from PAX East 2012 April 9 in Boston, but apparently VGO played the same set at both conventions.)



I felt familiar Freeman-esque feelings of home when VGO played a Metal Gear Solid 2 theme tag after "Snake Eater" that made me tear up with joy.

The closer was, somewhat predictably, everybody's favorite insane-robot theme song, which nonetheless turned into a rollicking clap-and-singalong that left me smiling from ear to ear.

VGO was quick to note their CD was available only at the convention for $10, and I was ready to pony up the dough until I spied the line for their booth. It seemed longer than the line for the concert. Maybe the Internet actually does serve a purpose, VGO.

With family waiting in Illinois, real life calling in Indiana and a major sense of post-coital fatigue overtaking me, Sunday didn't last long after VGO. Forsuk and I accompanied a couple of his friends back to the still-buzzing exhibit hall, where I ordered Megan's birthday present - now I'll know if she actually reads these posts! - and passed on buying a badge for ACen 2013 because of the line at registration. After waiting with Tim, Jack and Megan, that line and I were more than well-acquainted.

After two and a half days trekking around geek heaven, my friends had gone home, my legs ached, my stomach growled and my soul was sated. It was time to head home and leave my next Anime Central antics for May 17-19, 2013.

So long, Bryn Mawr and River Road. I'll see you again next year.

Anime Central 2012, Day Two: Rad Bromance

Despite the smashing success of my first day at Anime Central 2012, returning to the convention Saturday morning was a challenge.

After a minor food poisoning incident (my fault; don't ask), I spent about an hour overnight in the fetal position on the floor of the hotel bathroom hoping to fall asleep, or vomit, or die, anything to placate my stomach. I eventually got about five hours of sleep, rallied and drove Jack from Schaumburg back to Rosemont for more cosplay, panels and games.

Our first stop was the Exhibit Hall, which I covered thoroughly Friday but Jack had yet to see. While many of Saturday's cosplays weren't as inspired or personally resonant to me as the day before - I heard tell of a Freakazoid but never found him - we still found a couple more than worth photoing as soon as we came through the door.

The Happy Mask Salesman

Big Daddy, complete with rotating, bloody drill

After a brief circuit, we decided to wait on dropping any cash - a poster of Pokemon playing poker was tempting, but it could wait - and adjourned to the video game freeplay at the Hilton, which was far less crowded at 11 a.m. Saturday than the previous afternoon. A healthy amount of fighting gamers were already hunkered down for the day, but Jack and I had the run of an Xbox 360 with Kinect, and we threw caution (and shame) to the wind for three rounds of Dance Central 2.

Not really, but trust me: You're better off not seeing this.

Despite some initial sluggishness - we had no idea what the game wanted and started out too close together and doing very subdued motions - Jack and I got loose, had fun and, dare I say, busted a move. I enjoyed it so much, in fact, I'm considering actually buying a Kinect. (I promise this desire has almost nothing to do with a stunningly erotic performance of "Venus" that Jack and I watched after we gave up the dance floor. Seriously, almost nothing.)

The most interesting dance for Jack and me was our final routine, a bafflingly strange choreography to "Bad Romance," which I watched back and realized only true bros are willing to looking that stupid together in public.

It bears mentioning that theatre gave us a large head start looking like idiots in public.

After that bonding experience, we had lunch at the Expoteria - yay $11 burgers and fries! - and returned to the attached Exhibit Hall to do our consumerly duty and spend. On the way we spied the line for Saturday badges, which we were able to avoid but Megan would have to go through when she arrived that afternoon.

At the hall we ran briefly into the amazing Katy, cosplaying something I don't remember but didn't understand at the time, before we returned to the booths. Jack picked up the first issue of a comic called "Flipside" and a couple shirts, while I bought an "I don't blame you" Portal 2 button for Megan and a "Link to the Future" t-shirt for myself. I also picked up a Serenity poster and GameCube controller for Tim, who may or may not have a clinically diagnosable obsession with Super Smash Bros. by now.

On the way to our booths of choice, we saw more cosplay and the single strangest sight of my weekend.

Another Kiki, Sonic, Chihiro and Ghostface. See, I do know some Japanese things!

I wanted badly to get video of this man, who had a bra with dog-toy squeakers in each breast and was merrily squeezing away. Oh, ACen.

After that sight, we returned to the car to reorient ourselves with the outside world and drop our purchases in my trunk.We'd just wandered over to the Hyatt when I got a text from Megan that said she'd be in Rosemont momentarily, so Jack waited with me while I jumpstarted her effort to get through a mercifully-shorter registration line.

Catbus at the Hyatt

While we were in line, I interviewed Jack about the weekend. If it's true your career should be what you'd do anyway, this seems to show journalism was a good call.

Once Megan arrived I cut the interview short and bade a brief goodbye to Jack as he headed to a Persona 4 panel while I slung Megan's backpack onto my shoulder and we waited for a grand total of 2.5 hours for her badge. Given the 5 I was quoted that morning, I could live with that, especially with a group of clowns streaming hits like "Time Warp" and "You Give Love a Bad Name" through an iPhone and bullhorn.

After a bout of freedom-induced energy, I realized the backpack and morning were weighing on me, so I sat down on one side of the hall while Jack and Megan roamed. I felt my heart plummet as my friend Jason called and told me Derrick Rose tore his ACL, but the sight of my favorite cosplayers of the weekend reminded me why I came to ACen in the first place.

Nice work, Chiefs, but not quite.

That's more like it.

I reunited with Jack and Megan shortly after, and we decided it was time for dinner. Our only stop on the trip to Giordano's (my second of the weekend, but first for both of them) was to hear a pitch from a very excited Aperture Science recruiter.

One of his prior subjects was on hand to give testimonials.

We were accompanied for the walk by an excitable gentleman cosplaying another Japanese character I didn't recognize - shocking, I know - who couldn't wait to share his plans to get a degree and teach English in Japan. I still don't know your name, but good luck, wayward traveler.

I also took photos of Megan and Jack for my contacts, which oddly became the most-liked pictures from my ACen album on Facebook. 

She's really cute, yeah, I get that...

But this guy, Facebook? Do I need to show you Darth Vader puttin' on the Ritz again?

We were seated and eating when I got my second odd call of the day. It was Forsuk, our long-lost fourth traveler, who was in a panel at the Hyatt when he believed a panicked staff member pulled the fire alarm because the room was over capacity. There's some debate over the exact circumstances, but the building was evacuated immediately. 

Since we were at dinner I didn't really miss anything, but I found out the next week the Masquerade, in which the best cosplays are honored, was cancelled as a result, while Soap Bubble, a booty-bumping rave, still went on later in the same room. WTF, ACen?

That scare inspired the three of us, after leaving the leftover pizza in my trunk, to return to video game freeplay at the Hilton. I was excited to see Megan try Dance Central 2 (in more ways than one), but the room had filled substantially, and it was not to be. Maybe best to do that sort of thing in private anyway.

We trekked to the reopened Hyatt to bust out Wits and Wagers in the tabletop room, but we quickly ran up against the steampunk panel at the DoubleTree that Megan was set on attending. We made a few minutes for Megan and Katy to catch up, which totally made sense since they live a whole 1000 feet apart on campus.

It also gave me a chance to get a photo of Jack's favorite cosplay of the weekend.

Bug Catcher with Caterpie

After the steampunk panel, a mixed bag that featured a lot of cool pictures, some interesting discussion and an off-putting amount of self-congratulation, we decided to head back to the hotel. We stopped to pick up Forsuk at McDonald's and drop his ex-girlfriend Amber back at the Hyatt, which was cool because I finally got to see her again but sad because she's moving across the country. The Lord giveth...

Back in Schaumburg we said goodbye to Jack, who hopped on the highway to Lockport and ended our bromantic day together. With Megan scheduled for an 8:15 train at Union Station, Sunday would be all about Forsuk and I finally banding together to wring the last drops of awesome out of a weekend full to bursting with it.

Concluded in Anime Central 2012, Day Three: Dazed and Enthused

Anime Central 2012, Day One: Follow Freeman

In the weeks leading up to my first convention, I got progressively more psyched. In the back of my head, however, niggling questions lingered. Anime isn't my thing; I'm decently off financially, but not amazingly; and it's almost impossible for anything to measure up to the years of built-up hype I have for PAX. Would a whole weekend in Rosemont, hotel and travel prove worth it?

That all vanished when I saw Gordon Freeman.

The significance of this moment has almost nothing to do with the event itself; yes, I'm a big Half-Life 2 fan, and yes, it's a rad Freeman cosplay, but neither of those things surprised me. I was stunned by how happy I was to see him, how ready to be transported out of my daily routine and into a place of nerdy communion.

Ultimately, that instant hit on two perfect metaphors: like Half-Life 2, Anime Central 2012 would prove to be awesome, but it would be nothing like what I expected. And I enjoyed it most when I forgot my carefully planned schedule, ignored the dwindling contents of my wallet, checked my expectations and let myself be free. I needed to follow inner Freeman.

Of course, meeting Gordon wasn't literally my first stop at ACen. It followed driving around the convention center area four times trying to decide if a cement mixer was really blocking the only parking garage - it was, although I discovered Saturday it has multiple entrances - waiting in the registration line with Tim, my Friday buddy and cameraman for Freeman and several other cosplays, and staring at a map to find my most-anticipated event of the weekend: an honest-to-God wedding with costumes lifted directly out of Assassin's Creed.

While Tim and I waited for the nuptials to commence - the guidebook app for iPhone listed the wedding beginning at 10, while the program guide accurately said the ceremony began at 11, the first of many scheduling snafus over the weekend - we set over/unders for the number of five particular cosplays we would see that day. Take your best guess, then highlight to see how many we counted.

4.5 Knights 5

9.5 Master Chiefs 7

14.5 Cloud Strifes 7

32.5 Assassins 18

49.5 Pikachus 51

At 11, the waiting paid off handsomely. We clapped, hollered and got a little misty as a man and a woman joined in holy matrimony flanked by their friends and family in the pointed, flowing robes of the assassin.





Given how long he'd waited, I couldn't even blame Tim for inadvertently photo-bombing these lovely courtesans while refilling his water bottle.

Who's that random guy next to the water cooler ruining sexy lady time?

After the wedding we returned to the Exhibit Hall, where we found more cosplayers waiting. The most elaborate costumes were still a day away, but for originality the hardcore Friday crowd could not be beat.

Megan was the first person I showed the photo of this sweet Yu-Gi-Oh card cosplay.

Who knew there would be a human being at ACen?

Around noon we returned to the Hyatt to find the friend who convinced me to attend ACen, the inimitable Forsuk. Tim and I weren't enamored of his panel of choice, "Samurai Dan Presents the History of Sharp, Shiny, Pointy Things," so we retired to the nearby arcade and watched some seriously good Dance Dance Revolution players. Afterward we met up with Forsuk, compared plans and agreed he and Tim would later meet in the video game freeplay room for the Super Smash Bros. Jackass bout of the century. (I kid. Mostly.)

Tim and I returned to the hall to buy things - I picked a glass with a Half-Life logo on it from 8bit Classics, and he two replica Nintendo 64 controllers from VideoGamesNewYork - and of course saw more cosplay.

Team Fortress 2

Megan: "I hope I am still nerdy when I'm old."

At the Hyatt we randomly ran into Kelley, who with her boyfriend Eric cosplayed Kiki's Delivery Service.

All together, now: "Awwwwwww"

The four of us waited in line for a Video Game Orchestra concert for an interminably long half hour, during which Tim and I found comfort in each other's warm embrace, before we found out it had been delayed by from 2 to 4:30. ACen scheduling screw-up number two.

What, no "Awwwwwww"?

Upon reuniting with Forsuk, we decided it was time for gaming. Forsuk and I weren't thrilled with the selection, so we left Tim behind playing Super Smash Bros. 64 for 90 minutes while we checked out the hall. We also ran into John, a classmate of mine in at least two University of Illinois English classes who I didn't recognize because he lost so much weight. If you're reading this, John, good on you, and I'm sorry we didn't meet again in Rosemont.

Of course, there was more cosplay:

For the life of me, I cannot identify either of these costumes.

I accuse you of half-assing your L cosplay!

After Forsuk and I tried and failed to line up in time for a 5 p.m. Murder Mystery at the Hyatt, we rejoined Tim to share a pepperoni stuffed crust pizza at Giordano's. As we were walking back to the convention center, Forsuk split, and Tim and I received a call from our good buddy Jack, off work and ready for ACen.  

Because he arrived just after 7, Jack had to wait until Saturday to see the hall, but he did see a bit of cosplay at the Hyatt on our way to the tabletop gaming area.

Edward Scissorhands

There we played Wits and Wagers - a totally awesome, addictive game, just as the Totally Rad Show warned me - with another con-goer who only identified himself by his cosplay, Neku. From what? Couldn't tell you. Such is the magic of ACen.

Halfway through our second game, we paused just long enough for me to freak out and get a picture with the best cosplay of the day.

Me and Marty McFly. I can now die happy.

After Forsuk rejoined us just long enough to explain that he hurt his knee, lead us to the DoubleTree and shout for a Dr. House cosplayer to give him his cane, Jack, Tim and I attended our final event of the day: Scott Pilgrim Vs. Anime Central, in which a lonely panelist whose friends bailed on him led an illuminating discussion of the manga, movie and video game. He also interviewed several Scott and Ramona cosplayers.

Around 12:30 we three ACen warriors retired to my room at the DoubleTree - not the one in Rosemont, the one in Schaumburg that's 20 minutes away and half the cost during the convention - to grab a few precious hours of sleep. While Tim would depart Saturday morning to see Florence and the Machine in Wisconsin that evening, Jack and I were just getting started in Rosemont.

Continued in Anime Central 2012, Day Two: Rad Bromance

Anime Central 2012, Day Zero: How Did I Get Here?

Notice to my co-workers: I'm likely to be obnoxiously happy April 30.

On that Monday morning, I will have just returned from Anime Central 2012 (ACen), the first convention of my life and the opening stop on my road to the Penny Arcade Expo (PAX).

To understand exactly what that means, we need to hop in the wayback machine and travel to summer 2009, a particularly hot and boring season I spent with my dad in Peotone working at Jewel, hanging out with community college friends and waiting to return to Champaign-Urbana and finish my creative writing degree (and my pursuit of a certain sophomore co-ed I awkwardly proclaimed my love to that spring).

I quickly fell into the weirdest rhythm of my life: wake up at 3 p.m., go to work from 4 to midnight, hang out or talk online until 3, play video games until 7 and repeat. I had fun - very few things beat wasting time with old friends and chatting up a new flame - but soon I was the definition of stir-crazy.

I resumed an old hobby, creating bizarre road trips I never actually take, but determined I would finally break the streak but taking what savings I had left, borrowing my way through my senior year and going to Seattle to congregate with gamers for three days. I spent untold hours creating spreadsheets (another fetish), gleaning any information I could from the PAX forums and plotting my trip on Google Maps and Orbitz.

Ultimately I decided not to travel across the country during one of the worst financial times of my life (I ran out of money the next February anyway). The desire to go to PAX. however, refused to die over the three intervening years. (Mitch Krpata's series on PAX 2010 had a lot to do with this.)

This spring, with my finances in the best shape since I graduated, I arrived at a new plan: hit local conventions, learn what I can, make sure it's for me and craft the ultimate PAX plan to execute when I'm out of debt. Step One: travel to Chicago for ACen.

The more research I did for ACen, though, the more I started to anticipate it for its own sake as opposed to PAX practice. Even as a lapsed anime fan, I can't wait to kick off the festivities with an Assassin's Creed themed wedding Friday - an actual wedding! - followed by a murder mystery, a Halo panel and a screening of Scott Pilgrim vs. the World. That's just Friday.

I may look back, after I've gone to PAX East 2014 and beyond, and see ACen as just a means to an end. It now seems equally likely, though, that I'll remember it as a fantastic three days immersed in geek culture with some of those old community college friends and that (now nearly-graduated) coed.

Maybe I'll just start smiling now.