Gen Con Report

Hello everybody; I'm back. As you all know I spent most of last week and weekend in Indianapolis at this year's Gen Con. Gen Con's primarily a gaming convention, but there was enough comic goodness going on to warrant a post here.

For starters, my very presence there was thanks to a comic connection. I wasn't supposed to go at all; I was in Japan when pre-registration went on, and I didn't know anyone who was going (or so I thought).

But fate has a way of intervening in these things. And it seems that I was meant to attend Gen Con '08. I got a message from a college friend who works for Devil's Due Publishing. He needed someone to help him at DDP's Gen Con booth and I needed something constructive to do with myself. And all were pleased with the results.

This wasn't my first Gen Con by any means. Before I moved to Japan I used to go often. I attended every Gen Con from 1999 to 2003. That was when the convention was still in Milwaukee. So this was my first time attending the con in Indianapolis. It wasn't that different -- the convention center is a lot bigger, that's all.

We arrived in Indianapolis on Wednesday and went right to the exhibit hall to set up. Devil's Due publishes a lot of good stuff, but we'd brought mostly comic adaptations of the work's of fantasy author R. A. Salvatore. This year is the twentieth anniversary of Drizzt, so you can imagine how big that all was.

Or maybe you can't. You may know as little about Drizzt Do'Urden as my friend does. Which was one of the ways I was able to contribute at the booth. I'm a comic fan and a gaming fan. I'm pretty much half and half. So I got to do a lot of "translating" back and forth from gamer speak. The average gamer doesn't know what a trade paperback is and the average comic fan doesn't know who Artemis Entreri is. So I was useful for something.

I didn't spend my entire time at the con at the booth, though. I took some time off to go around the exhibit hall. One of the first places I hit up was the Wizkids booth. I'd seen huge pyramidal stacks of a certain convention exclusive Heroclix figure. Before long it was mine:

MWAHAHA! It's a pretty sweet figure, and there was an unexpected bonus... Something I'd completely forgotten. Since I spent over $50 at the Wizkids booth I received a second con exclusive figure: Azrael! As Batman!

Watch me dance a happy jig. I'd been told that it was a con exclusive this year, but It had slipped my mind entirely. It was a very welcome surprise.

With such luck on the Heroclix front, I decided to browse the various booths selling Heroclix singles to see if I could find a specific figure. As I'm sure you've already guessed, I was looking for Doctor Polaris. Unfortunately, I didn't find him. Not a single booth at the show had him. And I checked them all. Twice.

But that's the way the ball rolls, sometimes. I wasn't too disappointed, all things considered. I'll find one of them eventually.

Back at the booth, I had the exceptional luck of being able to meet James Lowder, the author of one of my favorite D&D novels. That was a great treat. Mr. Lowder is a amazingly cool guy, and it was great having a chance to talk with him for a bit. He edits some of DDP's collected editions, so he came by the booth a few times. It was awesome.

I also had the chance to meet a fellow comic blogger, Tom Foss. It was great meeting Tom, who is also an amazingly cool guy. I feel like I know so many comic bloggers simply from posting and commenting and reading their blogs... It was nice to be able to meet one of those people in person.

So that's basically the rundown of my Gen Con experience. Most of my time was spent at the booth, so I don't have any awesome gaming related stories to tell. At least not this year. Next year I hope to actually play some Heroclix...