This Memorial Day weekend, the Phoenix Convention Center is home to the Phoenix Comicon; a seemingly insurmountable heaven for geeks and nerds alike.
The State Press will be highlighting the four-day-event with coverage ranging from guest speakers, to exhibits, special announcements, and competitions.
Thursday: Who’s scruffy looking?
As dusk loomed over Phoenix’s towering urban landscape, Comi-Con attendees appeared from the shadows in troves. They encompassed the block in a living sea of brightly costumed anime, comic book, manga, movie, and video game characters; it was as if part of downtown Phoenix was digitized into 4Chan.
The cosplayer’s portrayed nearly every major character from popular fiction one could imagine. Dozens of different interpretations from: “Bleach,” “Cowboy Beebop,” “Death Note,” “Full Metal Alchemist,” “Naruto,” “One Piece,” “Spider-Man,” “Star Trek,” “Star Wars,” “X-Men,” and countless others roamed the convention center.
Someone even successfully pulled off the big-breasted nurse from “High School of the Dead.”
Thursday evening was a sight to behold as the convention began to be taken over by fans for the beginning of a four-day fantasy-inspired extravaganza.
Festivities officially began at 6 p.m. with an open tabletop game lounge, a console-based video game section, and an adult only division for the live action role playing game, “Vampire: The Requiem.”
While some partook in the gaming, a large portion of the crowd explored the convention’s hundreds of vendors who were putting the finishing touches on their booths.
Some of the items for sale included: vintage comic books, action figures, posters, original artwork, swords, and replica Lightsabers.
One of the exhibitors had created a working R2-D2 replica and chased a couple of children around with it.
Others tried to get people to join a specific geek-themed organization.
Throughout the evening multiple events took place around the center. A few of the more popular were a comic book trivia competition, a seminar on the do’s and don’ts of Comi-Con, and a brain eating contest.
One of the most entertaining events of the evening was the Phoenix Geek Ultimate Smackdown, which began at 8:10 p.m. and pitted eight geeks against each other in an assigned stance argument.
Seven rounds commenced with two geeks dueling in a single elimination match. The final four fought for pride, a batch of prizes from McFarlane Toys, and a trophy depicting Geordi mounting Chewbacca, who is grasping golden reigns draped around a lion he is riding, which is eating C-3PO’s head. Each battle consisted of two geeks arguing one side allocated to them on a topic chosen by the host prior to the game.
The crowd’s cheers decided the victor.
The seven topics in order were, who or what is better: slow zombies or fast zombies, Autobots or Decepticons, team Edward or team Jacob, River or Buffy, Alliance or Horde, Han Solo or Malcolm Reynolds, and the final round was Marvel or DC.
The crowd was sometimes more involved in the debate than the actual contestants. Frequently nerd-only one-liners such as “it takes a real man to play a Dwarf,” and “he’s hotter than diamonds and that’s why he sparkles,” were proclaimed during the competition and met with roars of laughter.
The winner, Chris Calilung, said he decided to enter the contest “because I heard about it and I’m kind of nerdy, a little weird, so why not sit and talk amongst my peers.”
Calilung’s victorious argument was based on the “infallibility” of DC superheroes, and how Marvel heroes are more relatable.
His closing rhetoric was, “all of the Robins Batman goes through; okay that’s kind of weird right? Calilung said. “This dude is like 50, and I mean it’s cool, but come on under the surface that’s kind of weird.”
As for winning, Calilung said, “I’m totally surprised; I really was not joking when I thought I was going to vomit on that stage,” referring to his introductory line.
He plans to glue the trophy onto the dashboard of his car so he can see it every day, he said.
The evening closed with convention attendees preforming selected Rock Band tracks in front of a crowd of about 40, and an anime themed rave.
Reach the reporter at tdmcknig@asu.edu
