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FAN EXPO Portland was February 17-19. It was forming called Wizard World Comic Con, but they renamed it. The last con I went to before the pandemic was Wizard World Portland 2020, where I got to meet many Smallville cast members. I think this event was supposed to take place under its new name in 2022, but was canceled or delayed.

My attitude about cons has changed. I don’t have to go every day and I don’t have to remain at the con all day. This con I only attended the 1st 2 days. I did what I intended to do and left. I didn’t attempt to take many pics of cosplayers. I didn’t go to all the panels I considered. Most of this was because I was just tired. I haven’t been sleeping well lately.

The con was fun overall. There were a lot of little things that I think could be improved. I noted them all in the survey they sent out after the event ended. One thing was scheduling a lot of the better guests (either for panels, photo ops, or autograph sessions) at the same time on Saturday. It made for some hard decisions. There was a lot of Star Trek representation, which I liked. William Shatner, Jonathan Frakes, Brent Spiner, Gates McFadden, Anson Mount, and Ethan Peck. I saw them all except Shatner. Nothing against Shatner, but maybe I’ve had my fill of him for now. And he comes to Portland often.

On Friday the only thing I really did was get my picture taken with Ethan Peck and Anson Mount.

On Saturday I went to the TNG/Picard panel with Frakes, McFadden, and Spiner. Because of the weird location of the main stage, they entered through the audience. Frakes and McFadden walked right past me. I saw a panel with Katee Sackhoff, before getting my photo taken with Jonathan Frakes, seeing a Leah Thompson panel, and ending the day with a Strange New Worlds panel featuring Anson Mount and Ethan Peck.

Overall, a very chill but fun con experience. Looking forward to next year.

Three weekends ago (the weekend after PAX). I went to Rose City Comic Con. I went back to work after a week long vacation after then and was swamped, so I didn’t have time to write about it.

I won’t do a blow-by-blow as usual, but I will say that this convention, unlike PAX, was more about panels.  There was some cool stuff on the exhibit floor (such as a Dragonball Z exhibit), but I spent most of my time there taking pictures of cosplayers.  I did some artwork from local artists like I normally do.

I went to panels featuring Kristen Bauer, Michael Biehn and Jennifer Blanc-Biehn, Star Trek: The Next Generation cast members (Marina Sirtis, Gates McFadden, and Michael Dorn), David Tennant, Felicia Day, Overwatch voice actresses Lucy Pohl and Charlet Chung, John Barrowman, Catherine Tate, Karl Urban, Smallville stars Tom Welling and Michael Rosenbaum, Michael Rooker,  and Evangeline Lilly.

I didn’t get any autographs this year, but I did get photo ops with Tenant and the TNG cast members.

They had a board game section which I didn’t check out because I didn’t see anything being played that I was interested in.  Maybe next year.

I ran into my friend Daniel on the second day, but we didn’t hang out long before we got separated.  Again, I kinda like doing my own thing at cons.

I really enjoyed being at RCCC again this year.  It was a exhausting having cons 2 weekends in a row, but I don’t regret it.  I think RCCC is later in the month next year, so that won’t be a problem. I’m so glad to have an event like this right in my back yard.