Grave Considerations: C2E2 2018

Two weeks ago the 2018 edition of the Chicago Comic and Entertainment Expo, or C2E2, too place, and we made our annual pilgrimage to MacCormick Place, a building we drive past everyday on the way to work. This year my wife and I were approved for Professional passes, so we got two days of entry for basically the price of one. At least we went for two days: we had three day passes, but we have yet to go for all three. Something comes up for Saturday night/Sunday, or we’re just too worn out from Friday and Saturday to go on Sunday.

Anyway, while C2E2 is always something we look forward to, this years’ version was a real welcome escape from our personal challenges of moving and working. It came two weeks after the day we moved, so we were primed for a good time and some entertainment, having at that time still been in the unpacking phase. We’re still unpacking some things, but at that point we still had a room full of boxes.

Immediately upon arrival we hit up the Bluefin booth and made our first purchase of the Tamashii Nations Star Wars figures. If you’re not familiar with those, they are hyper stylized versions of OT Star Wars Imperial characters in a feudal Japanese style. They look great, but are sooooo stylized that they simply can’t go with anything else. This is not a MAFEX type situation, where the MAFEX figures might be a tiny bit taller or a hairs’ breadth slimmer, but they still work next to Black Series figures; no, these Tamashii figures do not look right with anything other than Tamashii figures. My wife had been encouraging me to take a chance on these for probably a year by the time of C2E2, and a couple months back I made it my show goal to buy one. I figures, there was a Darth Vader, so even if I bought Vader and wasn’t thrilled with the figure, at least I’d have another Vader for my collection. We completed our purchase, walked out of the Bluefin booth, opened the box so we could see the figure with our own eyes, and knew that we’d buy another one before the weekend was over. We ended up buying four in total, and two more that very same day. I cannot wait to get some time freed up to photograph and talk about these figures, as they are totally awesome.

We bought some other figures over the course of the two days, my wife adding the S.H. Figuarts from Card Captor Sakura to her collection, and I a few Black Series and Marvel Legends figures. I found a Legends Thanos (the comic book Walmart one) and a Black Series General Hux for $50 each, but then bought them from different vendors for $30 apiece. The vendor I bought Thanos from changed the price on the remaining ones to $50 after she overheard me telling my wife excitedly that I’d found Thanos for much cheaper than what pretty much all other sellers had him for. So, sorry everyone who didn’t get their Thanos for $35 from that older lady by the food court before 3pm on Friday. I ruined it for you.

But this year, our big shopping focus was art, as my wife wants to deck our new place out in cool art. We spent a lot of time strolling around the Artist’s Alley, and bought a couple of prints. I met Jason Aaron and Jonathan Glapion, and got both of them to sign some books, and got to tell them that I really appreciate their work, which felt cool. I’m not that guy that talks to an artist for half an hour and tells them how much I love their stuff, but I do think it’s cool to just tell them you appreciate what they’re doing. I think the Artist’s Alley is always a great place to see what’s happening in comics outside of the mainstream. And while I know that’s a pretty no-shit level statement, I’m always pretty happy to see that there are artists and publishers that really are working to embrace more inclusivity in the medium. Sure, girl Thor and lesbian Batwoman and Black characters and a Latinx Green Lantern and all of that are great, and they get the attention because they appear in legacy titles or are published by the major companies, but there are a whole range of inclusive works out there that are put out by smaller companies or even self-published, that focus on LGBT+ or minority characters, and that is awesome. Comic Culture like all groups does need to open up its tent a bit wider, regardless of what the current social and political climates are, because Comic Culture should be something that is available to everybody. One of the things that I always love seeing at conventions is people letting their freak flags fly, because it is safe (or it should be safe) to do so here.

Oh, and some neckbeard m’lady’d at my wife when I was distracted by action figures. She came home with me, so I guess I was a preferable alternative to at least one dude at the show.

This years’ C2E2 wasn’t the uproarious affair that it has been in the past, but honestly I’m willing to chalk that up to our move and fatigue. Normally, driving past the convention center five days a week gets me counting down the days in my head, when March comes along and I’m hip-deep in a semester, and really dying for a carefree, fun and rejuvenating weekend. The kind that leaves you totally exhausted, but it’s the good kind of exhausted. This year, with our lives being consumed with moving and then resettling, and the seemingly endless crap weather that Chicago has had this “spring,” it never really felt like C2E2 season was coming, since that’s usually when the weather gets at least sunnier and slightly warmer, and when the feeling that the semester’s end is nearing begins to surface. There are three weeks left in this semester, but due in large part to the weather, it doesn’t feel like it’s much later than late February or early March. C2E2 is usually the unofficial kick-off party for our summer break, between Spring semester and summer classes, and this year it was not accompanied by that sense of straight up jubilation that it otherwise is. But I think that’s more an issue of the life matters we’ve had surrounding the convention this year, and not an issue with the convention itself, because it was still an awesome time. This year we didn’t run into anyone we knew, unlike last year, so I got to spend both days just hanging out with my wife, which is always my favorite part of any activity.

Next years’ C2E2 will be real early, as the dates have been announced for the last weekend of March 2019. Not sure if it’s too early to start getting excited, but I am.