Motor City Comic Con

Motor City Comic Con has become the single largest event of the year on the Great Lakes Base calendar; and there is a reason why.

How my day started should have been a clue this year’s Motor City Comic Con was going to be an adventure -- oversleeping my alarm, and setting a new speed record for shower/dressed and out the door for the “hyperspace jump” along the Ohio Turnpike up to Michigan.  After a smooth ride all the way up to Novi (just outside Detroit) the next big surprise was the line of people already waiting to get inside; a line that wrapped all the way around the convention center! 

One of the reasons for the huge crowds (event my MCCC standards) was some of the names of the guests: including Stan Lee, founder of MARVEL Comics.  The line for Stan Lee took up it’s own section of the MCCC floor.  One of the things, which have made Motor City Comic Con the biggest and the best comic convention, is their lineup of media guests. This year’s Motor City Comic Con autograph row featured an astounding 59 media guest!

Another thing that makes Motor City Comic Con a fan favorite is their ability to bring guests with a Star Wars connection; and as such we always try to make those guest feel particularly welcomed.  This year featured Stacy Haiduk (voice actor from Star Wars: The Old Republic game) and Joe Viskocil (production team on "Star Wars" and "Empire Strike Back").  Lumpy went ahead and organized to have both made official Rebel Legion “Friends of the Rebellion” -- and we sent a welcoming committee of members over to each of their tables to make the presentation; complete with their own GLB t-shirts and award plaque.

Then there are the non-Star Wars guests that we just couldn’t ignore a photo op with.  As some of you may know: both Sam Witwer and Sam Huntington from “Being Human” were inducted as Honorary Members of the Rebel Legion, by Great Lakes Base members at DragonCon; back in 2011.  What you may NOT know is that both guys had fun teasing their co-star Meaghan Rath about the fact that she wasn’t eligible for a Honorary Memberhip or “Friend of the Rebellion” -- because she’s never worked on anything Star Wars related.  So when it was announced that Meaghan was coming to Motor City, as both Witwer and Huntington had done before her -- we decided to (unofficially) adopt her as an “honorary jedi ghost” and presented her with her own GLB t-shirt and one of our exclusive GLB Challenge Coins! (my last one, in fact).  Something she can take back to the set and show off to her co-stars… who’s laughing now boys? ;)

In addition to being the busiest day of the convention weekend, day two of MCCC was also designated “Shadow Squadron Saturday” – marking the first time we had nearly the entire squadron assembled at one place for an event.  Having marched together in the Star Wars character parade through the convention floor, the Shadows went on a recon photo-op over by “the Admiral” -- as in Edward James Olmos (Admiral Adama) and his son Bodi Olmos (“Hotdog”) from "Battlestar Galactica."  The Admiral was kind enough to give our squadron an inspection and joined us for some photos.

May the Force be with you... SO SAY WE ALL!

 All this excitement made for a very busy time over at the Star Wars section; where Great Lakes Base, Great Lakes Garrison, R2-Builders and Mando Mercs all had information tables, displays and costumed members available for photos; and OMG did we take a lot of photos!  At times, it was all we could do just to huddle together in small groups to give people a chance to get a picture taken… before they’d shuffle over to the next line waiting for the next photo-op with Star Wars characters.  This was FoogyOne’s first-ever Motor City Comic Con -- and really first comic convention as a costumer -- and my padawan got a “baptism by fire” in the world of comic book conventions.

There is so much more I could tell you, and all this is just from Saturday at Motor City Comic Con.  Hopefully, this give you a better idea why MCCC has become the signature convention of the year for Great Lakes Base -- and why I am already looking forward to Motor City Comic Con 2014.