What is Chicago Comic Con?
It is a large multi-day Comic/Science Fiction/pop-culture convention held at the Donald E. Stephens convention center in Rosemont, Illinois. It consists of an extremely large dealers room, a vast number of artists showing and selling their work, a large number of famous people, various scheduled events, and a lot more. This year I felt that they stepped things up to another level with a nice flow to the convention layout. I found that navigating the main convention was much easier than in 2011 because they moved some of the large booths like the Delorean car, Batmobile, and Ghost Busters vehicle to a nice bright location in the convention center’s entrance hall. A wise decision that made the convention even more exciting to explore because it used more floor space.
You can learn more about Wizard World Chicago Comic Con here:
Why I attended this convention?
I was there to cover what I call hallway cosplay, which are costumers that attend the convention as characters of popular comics, TV shows, movies, video games, and a multitude of other pop-culture topics. These costumers often spend days, weeks, or months working to make elaborate and amazing works of living art in costume form. There are others who buy their costumes or assemble them from store-bought parts, but their love for the character and reasons for cosplaying are no less than the ones who make their own from scratch. Both forms are worthy expression and worth my time as I ask for a photo. I’ve dabbled in cosplay myself and would like to do more in the future. It’s fun, a great outlet to meet new and interesting people, and a way to pay homage to the creators of media that you enjoy. It’s just one piece to the convention puzzle, but one I find fascinating and fun to be a part of. I attended Chicago Comic Con on Friday and Saturday and saw a lot of cosplay this year. If you like seeing characters come to life from your favorite comic book, this is a great convention to attend. Most cosplayers love taking photos with you!
Here are a few highlight images from the convention:
It was a great convention this year and I plan on attending in 2013. I hope to see you there!
