Taking the Boy to the LB Nerd Fest

In my continuing attempts to get the Boy out of the house so Corrie can grow her business in peace and quite, I attended the 2017 Long Beach Comic Convention.

Back in 2012 I attended the same convention. (And by finding that link I was reminded of a blog that I had completely forgotten about.) And again, in 2016, I attended the Convention in DTLA, only this one was big enough to have it's own name, Wondercon.

This experience was unlike the others. Here I had a 14-month old boy instead of a flask and some gummies a thirst to get twisted and have a good time. This time I was introducing my son to all the sights and sounds that accompany attending a festival for comic books and other detritus from the world of the nerd.

Having a little flirty boy in tow meant that I pretty much couldn't go and pay attention to any of the panels, or wait in line for anything, or really browse things at a leisurely pace.

In reality only a few panels ever really pique my interest, and browsing always had a very serious limit called "the budget". 

Turns out: looking after, chasing after, and paying near full attention to my kid proved way more fun than I anticipated, or would have guessed. It was a total blast. Not even for one measly second did I miss anything that beforehand I was anxious about not getting to do because of having the Boy with me.

Being there with him, settling in a corner, chilling in a loosely populated hallway, chasing after him as he chased after the next Harley Quinn iteration, or Poison Ivy, or some other scantily clad and very bold young lady, was absolutely the most fun it could have ever been.

Anyway, like 2012, there were some cool cars parked outside, and I snapped a picture of the machine-gun-adorned Joker/Cop car:

Because of the stroller we got to skip the line and go in the handicap ramp lane. That was both unexpected and appreciated. Inside, looking around at some of the other guests in costume, Cass shot me a look of mild curiosity:

We went down to the main floor (elevator), walked around, stopped to eat, chased after cosplaying girls, laughed... Cassius whined occasionally as I perused boxes for what he deemed to be too long.

At one point, for a laugh, and because it wasn't crowded, I took the stroller up an escalator to the upper floor. There was surprisingly little going on up there, but Cass got some good views of the entrance foyer:

At a different point in the hallway, the Boy waved as I was trying to film him. This is right after he ran up onto a Wonder Woman and Poison Ivy pair, two girls checking their phones at a table by the large bank of windows to the left. Once there, they Awwed and he turned bashful. I can't tell you how much I love this little boy...

On top of all this, all this fun-time-with-Cass, I was walking around the main floor and noticed a comic prominently placed and for sale (for far more than I was willing to pay, had I been that interested). What was cool was that this was not a Marvel or DC book, as those two companies accounted for a far higher percentage of the content here than at Wondercon 2016. This prominently displayed comic was a Valiant book, one of the OG ones from the early '90s.

It was the only shown-off book from the Valiant brand I'd seen the entire time, and the folks noticed me noticing it, started asking me about my reading preferences, and invited me and the stroller around back to peruse the box of old Valiant books.

I knew that I wasn't really in a position to make any real purchases, nor did I particularly want to, but I humored them because of their graciousness and our shared love and respect for this publisher. They had some awesome stuff.

I mention all this because it was during my time looking through their Valiant box and talking with the guy, than none other than Dinesh Shamdasani arrived.

Dinesh is the current CEO and Chief Creative Officer of Valiant Entertainment; he's one of the two men who bought and fought for the rights to resurrect the company and stable of characters, and remains the driving force behind the quality and commitment to both The Story and diversity of content. This company usually doesn't produce more than eight or nine titles at any given time, and they range across sci-fi, action, espionage, super-hero, horror, teams, humor, and philosophical topics, all in a shared and cohesive universe.

It's astounding, and here's their Stan Lee, talking to the dude I was just chatting with. I could hear the guy saying, "This guy right here like's Valiant..." and he turned to me, "Hey man, do you want to meet Dinesh Shamdasani?"

I smiled and said, "That sounds pretty cool."

We talked for maybe ten minutes about various topics---comics, education, the power of pictures and words, upcoming projects. It was all very surreal.

Later in the day, after walking all over the Long Beach convention center, I found a different vendor that was selling really nice prints of a Valiant character I really dig, a black Soviet cosmonaut who in the 1960s was sent off into deep space and returned with powers over spacetime (known as Divinity, but usually just referred to by his actual name, Abram):

The colorist, David Baron, was there to sign and number them, and the price was ridiculously inexpensive. I got number 2 of 200. Baron was very cool and appreciative, even mentioning, "Yeah, man, number 2. Dinesh right there got number 1, so that's pretty cool trivia..."

I looked over and saw Dinesh again, this time talking to another fan.

Eventually Cassius fell asleep in the stroller and I did laps in the convention center for a half an hour, maybe more, until he roused and we headed out for a late lunch, off to meet Corrie and her French friend who was visiting from deep in Orange County.