San Jose-based comic con unveils a broader scope, fun for locals
Eduardo Hilario
El Observador
As many of you will remember, last year was the first opening weekend of the Silicon Valley Comic Con, or SVCC for short, and it was absolutely fantastic, though there wasn’t much else to the Con other than the main event at the convention center. This year, however, things were much more expansive and there was more to do and a lot more to see. Here I will describe my experience and give you a list of all the new things and cool stuff I managed to see at this wonderful convention.
My SVCC experience started with seeing a cacophony of cosplayers, people dressed up as their favorite sci-fi/comic book/video game characters. As usual, there were a couple of people dressed up as the fourth wall breaking “merc with a mouth”, Deadpool. There were also a lot of people dressed up as Jedi from the Star Wars series, most notably, Rey from “The Force Awakens”. The art of cosplaying was feverishly on display this year with all the well designed and sophisticated cosplays, and a few simple ones that were still unique and very creative.
I managed to catch one of the many guest panels that were going on and what better one to catch than listening to Buzz Aldrin, one of the few remaining people to have landed and walked on the surface of our moon. In an iconic moment for humanity, he and Neil Armstrong were the first to touch base on our orbiting satellite when they lead the Apollo 11 mission in 1969.
During the panel the marvel of experience explained where his love of space began and how he has laid the groundwork to land us on Mars. It was quite an inspirational speech he gave as he mentioned how he wants the next generation to strive for greatness and reach Mars and beyond the furthest stars in the future.
One of the newest editions to the convention was the free group of events at the beer garden, which took over portions of Market Street and the whole of Cesar Chavez Park. It was here where anyone without a SVCC pass to the main convention could go and have good time. We managed to catch the main proprietor of the event, Steve Wozniak, the Co-founder of Apple Inc., strolling around on a Segway waving hi at people that caught his attention. He was possibly checking out the many food vendors, entertainment opportunities and live bands that were available in the area, Including a Ska band and a local band called, “Nu Ethnic”, to whose whole set I stayed for (which was fantastic).
One of the improved areas of the con was the gaming area which contained all the classics like “Q’bert”, “Pac-Man”, “Super Mario Brothers”, etc. as well as all the fighting games you could ask for, while the gaming tribute band, “Super Soul Brothers” played soulful and jazzy version of favorite game and film/TV themes. I was playing some “Galaga” while in the background I heard a jazzy version of the theme song from “Game of Thrones”, improving the whole experience tenfold.
All in all, the convention was a lot bigger and more accessible this year with a lot more variety in terms of things to do and to see. Hopefully, next year is even bigger then this year and an equal to the titan that is the San Diego Comic-Con, with more things to see and maybe some exclusive previews of all the wonderful things happening in the world of comics, film, television and video games, or as some people call it, “nerd culture”.