Grave Considerations: C2E2 2019

This past weekend marked the tenth anniversary of C2E2, which bills itself as “the funnest weekend of the year.” That claim is never too far off, as the yearly sign of Spring’s arrival is met in our household with great anticipation and excitement. We only attended Friday this year, because Star Wars Celebration will grace our fair city in the next three weeks, and in the interest of finances for that far rarer and far more personally important convention, we made the unhappy but totally correct decision to limit our C2E2 temptations to a single day.

Being that we were only going for one day, we didn’t try to plan anything out in terms of getting things signed or anything, but instead just went to walk around and have a good time. We did. My wife and I both picked up some things from the Artist Alley, most notably a signed print of the cover art from Cannibal Corpses’ Butchered At Birth album, directly from artist Vince Locke himself. Oh, that was cool. Having spent the last 20-something years staring at the covers of Corpse albums, meeting the man and buying a limited print was a super great experience. I didn’t even know he was going to be there. We didn’t do much in the way of preparation before the show, knowing only a few of the larger names in attendance and then being surprised when, for instance, we stumbled across a table for Chris Claremont. We never saw him, but knowing we were in the same location with the person who is responsible for essentially everything we know about the X-Men is a pretty amazing feeling. The last few conventions we have been able to meet artists and get some things signed, but that usually is a time consuming thing, and with our not having a lot of time this time, we quietly decided to skip the signature hunting.

Our buying was also pretty restrained, again a byproduct of Celebration being mere weeks away, but we always do buy something. The big ticket purchases this time around were a pair of custom lightsabers from Ultrasabers. They were my wife’s idea: we’re going in costume for Celebration, and she wanted to make sure our outfits were complete with lightsabers, and while I may have been content with buying some off the shelf versions from Target or something, my wife wanted quality. The sabers are really excellent, with actual metal handles and durable light-up blades. My wife got a purple one, and it should not be a surprise to learn that I bought a red one. We may eventually feature these lightsabers on the Coffin, I don’t really know just yet, but they are gorgeous. And a lot more affordable than I would ever have thought. We bought relatively basic models for about $70 each, which is a lot less than I had always thought such an accessory would end up costing.

We picked up a few other figures, but nothing real major. We saw some cool things, but nothing really major. I think that because we were trying to resist temptations, we didn’t look at booths and sellers as closely as we normally do, treating things instead as display pieces instead of samples of things we could buy. I was on the lookout for some older Black Series figures, as I’ve started thinking that Celebration may see inflated prices because they are things being sold at Celebration, so I thought I could maybe find a few things for cheaper at C2E2. But I was wrong, not about the prices, but about the availability, which has been a thing of concern to me both prior to and now after my shopping excursion. Maybe I need to just put all of my hopes into the Archive line at this point.

I may be short on words for this years’ installment, but C2E2 once again proved to be an outstandingly fun time, and a really, really needed break from work and stress, granting a few hours of just plain fun. While we never really do spend enough time there, and always feel a little sad putting it behind us, it’s always something that we anticipate with great enthusiasm, and one day of attendance is so much vastly better than none. The 2020 installment was just announced to be even earlier than this years, taking place at the end of February, which means the wait time is already shorter than last year. So now, we set our sights on Celebration. . . .