How To Survive Boston Comic Con

The 9th Doctor, Moon Knight, Poison Ivy, a Baby Dalek, and Batgirl.  

I haven't had much chance to write lately, between being sick and getting costumes ready for Boston Comic Con.  My costume was a little difficult--I went as Poison Ivy on the second day, which meant lots of ivy, glue, and Spanish moss.  I lost most of it carrying Rose around!  But the really tough costume was Punkgirl's Cassandra Cain/Batgirl.  For those of you who don't know, Cassandra Cain was mute when she first became Batgirl, so she sewed a costume piece over her mouth.  I accomplished this with some yellow thread on a morphsuit (a morphsuit is a thin stretchy suit that covers your whole body but you can see through it.) Then I used craft sticky paper to make a Batgirl symbol, and bought a cheap kids' Batman belt.

The effect was pretty cool.

Happyboy went as Moon Knight, which was pretty easy--a silver moon on a a black morphsuit with a white cape.  The little one, Rose, had a pretty tough costume--she was a Dr. Who Dalek!  

Pretty intimidating kids.

We went without Rose the first day, so that we could see the Jon Barrowman/Eve Myles Torchwood Reunion panel--which we barely made it into.  It was fairly awesome.  They were funny, charming, and just a little bit risqué! It was great!  But the staff hadn't planned for the 600 people who showed up for a room that seats 350.  We were packed in like sardines waiting for them to let us come in, and the reality was that we might not get in.  Luckily, we had had the foresight to eat lunch before we came, to spend time on the floor seeing what we wanted to see so that we could get in line an hour early, and to bring our own water so that when we were packed in like said sardines we wouldn't die of dehydration. Luckily for us--we made it in.  But there were at least 200 who didn't.

 The panel was the highlight of our day, though this was pretty cool:

A life-size Tardis!

The second day, we went as a family.  It was a little tougher to keep track of Rose, but such a fun time! We again ate before we went, and I packed a couple of gluten free snacks in my bag.  We did the kids' costume contest first!  Then we went straight downstairs and took a family picture.  When Rose got a little  fussy, I took her for a snack and then let her run around in the back area for a little while, while Coffeeguy and PG went for a walk around the Comic Con floor.  We all met up a little later.  We even got a picture with JB:

JB looks a little weirded out.

And Coffeeguy took this:

Proof that my teenager still loves her mama.

While waiting for our photo to be developed, the kids--even Rose--and I decided to help the volunteers out by removing the tape from the autograph room floor.  The two solo volunteers assigned to that project were extremely grateful, as we finished an all-night project in just about 45 minutes.

All in all, though it was pretty crowded and there were a few glitches (not enough seating for Jon Barrowman, for one, and a very crowded venue for another), it was a super fun experience! And we got to make this:  

Batgirl fighting Poison Ivy.  Or, as I like to call it, the physical interpretation of a regular day with a teen.