The Wonder of WonderCon

As I’m sure you know, this past Sunday was Easter. My husband and I are both pretty active in our church and rarely miss a Sunday. I help teach Sunday School and he works the sound board two Sundays a month. So you would expect us to be in church on Easter morning, right? Not this year! WonderCon was in Anaheim this weekend. For those of you non-geeks, WonderCon is an annual comic book convention held in the spring. It’s usually held in San Francisco, but due to construction and scheduling conflicts it has been in Anaheim for the past two years. Now, I was a little annoyed they planned it for Easter weekend, and even more annoyed that the one thing I really, really wanted to go to was a panel at 11am on Sunday. But since WonderCon may move back to Northern California, this was even more of a one time opportunity and we decided to play hooky from church and go get our geek on.

The 2013 eggs

My husband Sam got the afternoon off work on Friday to go. I decided not to go as dragging Eddie out of the house on an extended trip with lots of unpredictability can be stressful. He’s an easy going kid so I probably normally over worry about things like that. Plus a lot of walking around while pregnant, not exactly the most fun thing. I did use the opportunity to get the Easter Eggs dyed, however. I love hard boiled eggs and dying eggs is just plain old fun. I usually seem to get around to it about two weeks after Easter. Sam had a great time at the convention. He got a page and a sketch from a favorite artist. He also met up with some friends to go to a panel and dinner afterwards.

Panel for Much Ado

We got up early Sunday morning to get ready to go. We didn’t have to pay for Eddie but we did need to stop by registration and get him a child badge. We then got in line for the Much Ado About Nothing panel. In case you don’t know, Joss Whedon filmed Much Ado last year with a pretty amazing cast. It is due to come out in June of this year. And if you don’t know who Joss Whedon is, shame on you. Nathan Fillion was slated to be on the panel but couldn’t make it. That was a bummer, but I still wanted to go to the panel as I tend to like Whedon and I love Much Ado About Nothing. Eddie was getting pretty fussy as the panel went on. It was near his lunch time and he was also getting pretty tired by then. I fed him as much as I could while sitting in our seats. Eventually we got out of our seats and put him in the stroller and then went off to the side to try and get him to sleep, which he did.

Convention floor

After that we wandered around the convention floor. It was a lot bigger and a lot more crowded than I thought it would be. Lots of neat stuff for sale. I could have spent a fortune if I had let myself. We ended up buying a really cute Batman kid’s cup since clueless mom forgot to pack the sippy cup. After a few hours, Sam met up with a friend and went to another panel. I took Eddie outside to eat some more and then and wandered around some more. I made it over to Artist’s Alley. I really could have spent a small fortune here, or maybe even a large fortune. I did pick up the card of one artist that had some amazing dragon paintings. I would love to get some prints for the kid’s room. We also headed over to the large T-shirt seller to get some shirts for Eddie. Ended up with a cool X-Men shirt and a Hot Wheels shirt. We then headed up to the panel Sam went to, Spotlight on Amanda Conner and Jimmy Palmiotti. It was a little strange that almost all the lights were off, and the darkest part of the room was right over Amanda and Jimmy. As a result, I didn't get a very good picture of the panel. Eddie got a little fussy near the end of this panel too, but not as bad. Remember how I said he is always an easy going kid and I was probably worrying too much? Yeah, not really. At least if he is in the stroller and we are moving, he is quiet and seems to be happy. Eddie loves Batman, it was one of his early words, so one thing we came home with is a Mr. Potato Head Batman. Too much awesomeness. We convinced ourselves we were “buying it for Eddie”. After a half hour more of wandering the floor, I was ready to drop so we headed back to the car.

Eddie as Batman

Convention floor eating area

The Anaheim Convention Center bathrooms definitely do not get Joanna’s Parent Seal of Approval. The one I was in was pretty big. There was a large area right as you enter that was pretty much useless. There was a mirror all along one wall with a narrow ledge. The other wall had absolutely nothing on it. As you got to the back of the room there was about 6 stalls and 3 sinks. No handicapped restroom, no baby changing table, and dinky little stalls. I had to leave Eddie in the stroller outside the stall because there was no way the two of us could fit in there with or without the stroller. I had to change him on the narrow ledge and was afraid he was going to squirm and fall to the tile floor. Thank goodness he must have been tired enough to just sit there. There is so much wasted, non-useful space in this restroom with no amenities. It was ridiculous. There is also a general lack of places to sit around the lobby of the convention center that are not the floor. I think twice before sitting on the floor since it’s much harder to get up when you’re six months pregnant. There was seating in the convention floor near the refreshment stand, but not enough to accommodate the crowd. I took a picture of the only empty seats I saw all day. The elevators were not well marked and there was only one of them. Escalators are great... if you don’t have a stroller. 

Other than the lack of parent friendly facilities, the convention was a lot of fun. It’s always comforting to attend an event geared toward us geeks. There is always someone that is even weirder than you at a comic book convention. Always.