Comic convention venue

From Candypedia
Comic convention venue
First appearanceGuest of Honor, page 9
July 3, 2015
Related charactersDaisy, Paulo, Mike, Sue, Abbey, Stacy, Amaya, Alec McCain

The Comic convention venue is a large convention center in the downtown area of an unnamed city, seen hosting the 2008 comic and anime convention in Guest of Honor.[1] Daisy brings Paulo there for a book signing, unaware that half of their friend group has picked the same day to attend Sue’s afternoon panel.[2]

Description

The Meat Shack food truck window, menu board and condiment tray on full display before Paulo’s sticker shock.[3]

The building sits among glass-and-concrete high-rises, with trees flanking the approach to the doors. Its entrance wall is red-brown brick with exposed blue structural framework, a mounted “REGISTRATION” sign, and a banner with mascot art naming the event overhead. On the day of the con, the badge pick-up line stretches out the front door.[1] A bus stop sits within walking distance of the entrance.[4]

The yellow-walled convention hallway, where lanyard-wearing congoers sit on a padded green bench and play handhelds.[5]

Inside, a staffed admission table and a yellow-walled hallway with a padded bench lead on to the halls proper.[6] The building has at least two floors, joined by banks of parallel escalators under high open ceilings, with green tiled concourses giving way to grey carpet in the dealer hall.[7][8] The dealer hall itself is rows upon rows of red- and blue-skirted vendor tables under round white ceiling lights, and it even fits a food truck, The Meat Shack, whose taped-up paper menu offers a seven-dollar “Anime Burger”.[9][10] The whole place is packed to the point that Paulo is, at one moment, physically carried off by the crowd.[11]

The convention banner stretches above a crowd of eager congoers, city skyline peeking through the trees behind Daisy and Paulo.[12]

The Grand Annex is the only section anyone names on panel, and it contains the author’s signing booth and the voice actors’ autograph table with its metal queue railings.[8][13] An amenities corridor has paired restrooms and a branch of Burger-Tron under a red-and-white striped awning. Both restrooms have lines out their doors, and another forms in front of the restaurant.[7] There is also a panel room, with a speakers’ table on a low stage, tabletop microphones, and rows of dark padded audience seats.[14]

History

The convention’s escalators, packed shoulder-to-shoulder with congoers just trying to get somewhere.[15]

The comic shows the venue on a single day of the convention. Daisy and Paulo arrive together in the morning, with Daisy covering Paulo’s ticket as thanks for coming along.[1] Her Claret cosplay is a hit as soon as she is inside, earning a compliment from the ticket vendor and a photo request in the entrance hallway.[6]

They spend the morning in the dealer hall. Paulo recoils from the Meat Shack’s prices and gets swept away by the crowd, while Daisy buys herself a charm bracelet and keeps getting pulled aside by cosplayers wanting pictures.[10][11] When two congoers jeer at her as “Fat Claret”, Paulo silently backs them down and sends them running.[9] By lunchtime he has diagnosed the venue’s real problem, “Lines for EVERYTHING”, though his Burger-Tron employee discount at least makes one of those lines worth standing in.[7]

The afternoon is spent in the Grand Annex, where Daisy stalls outside her favorite author’s booth for so long that Paulo has to drag her over by the wrist. She gets her heavily-tabbed book signed, shakes the author’s cheese-dusted hand, and declares it “the greatest day of my LIFE.”[16] Daisy has a surprise for Paulo as well. The Hyper Space Cadets voice actors are signing at a nearby table, and she has brought a tape recorder so he can take a message home.[17] Afterwards, a delighted Paulo slips back to the author’s booth alone to make a purchase of his own.[17]

On the way back, Paulo walks straight into Sue, Stacy, Amaya, Mike and Abbey, all in SwordsVale cosplay for Sue’s panel. Neither group knew the other was coming.[2] Daisy and Abbey catch each other in the same “SAT work” cover story and laugh it off.[2]

Abbey follows Paulo into the men’s restroom, elbows him into a stall door, puts him in a chokehold, and warns him to stay away from Daisy.[18][19] Paulo is left shaking on the floor.[20] When Mike finds him there, he lies that a “punk kid” beat him up.[21] Nobody learns the truth until Paulo tells Daisy in Love Again, which ends her relationship with Abbey.[22]

Paulo spends the rest of the afternoon rattled. He flinches at Daisy’s touch, begs off Sue’s 4:00 panel, and fades into the crowd, while Mike keeps a suspicious eye on Abbey.[23] The panel goes ahead without him, with the host scolding Sue for running late and Alec McCain seated at the table beside her.[14] At the bus stop outside, Daisy finds Paulo among some superhero-debating congoers and offers him a ride home.[4]

Trivia

  • The venue was drawn from reference photos Oliver took at the Hynes Convention Center in Boston, “against the wishes of a million animus” according to the chapter’s commentary.[8]
  • The Meat Shack’s “Anime Burger” was inspired by a real “Anime Hot Dog” stand the authors saw at Anime Boston. Per the commentary, “And yes, it was just a regular hot dog.”[10]
  • The convention’s name appears only on the entrance banner and is never spoken in dialogue. A tree covers the front of the banner, leaving only “RCON 2008” legible. Whatever the full name is, it ends in “-rcon”. The “2008” matches the story’s in-universe year, as seen in Class of 2008.[1]
  • The chapter ran during the authors’ own convention season, and several of its page commentaries were written on the road from Anime Expo, ConnectiCon and Otakon.[24][1][10][7]

See also

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 Chapter 89: Guest of Honor, page 9
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 Chapter 89: Guest of Honor, page 31
  3. ↑ Chapter 89: Guest of Honor, page 11
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 Chapter 89: Guest of Honor, page 45
  5. ↑ Chapter 89: Guest of Honor, page 10
  6. ↑ 6.0 6.1 Chapter 89: Guest of Honor, page 10
  7. ↑ 7.0 7.1 7.2 7.3 Chapter 89: Guest of Honor, page 16
  8. ↑ 8.0 8.1 8.2 Chapter 89: Guest of Honor, page 21
  9. ↑ 9.0 9.1 Chapter 89: Guest of Honor, page 15
  10. ↑ 10.0 10.1 10.2 10.3 Chapter 89: Guest of Honor, page 11
  11. ↑ 11.0 11.1 Chapter 89: Guest of Honor, page 12
  12. ↑ Chapter 89: Guest of Honor, page 9
  13. ↑ Chapter 89: Guest of Honor, page 27
  14. ↑ 14.0 14.1 Chapter 89: Guest of Honor, page 44
  15. ↑ Chapter 89: Guest of Honor, page 16
  16. ↑ Chapter 89: Guest of Honor, page 25
  17. ↑ 17.0 17.1 Chapter 89: Guest of Honor, page 29
  18. ↑ Chapter 89: Guest of Honor, page 35
  19. ↑ Chapter 89: Guest of Honor, page 37
  20. ↑ Chapter 89: Guest of Honor, page 38
  21. ↑ Chapter 89: Guest of Honor, page 40
  22. ↑ Chapter 95: Love Again, page 16
  23. ↑ Chapter 89: Guest of Honor, page 43
  24. ↑ Chapter 89: Guest of Honor, page 8
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