Salt Lake Comic Con 2013 Recap (3 Days Of Stan Lee, Q & Cosplay Galore)

Expect The Unexpected The best moment of the con for me was a completely unexpected one. I have been a Transformers fan since the '80's and loved the new movies. My favorite military character was General Morshower, played by Glenn Morshower from 24. He is a man who can pull off serious acting like nobody's business, but is droll and dry and a joy to watch. When I found out that he was going to be there, I made it a goal to meet him. And then I lost my job. Or rather I put in my two weeks' notice to say that I was going to be accepting a new job on September 9 and my company decided to accept my voluntary termination 12 days early. All of a sudden, I didn't have the certainty that I was going to be able to pay off my bills and rent and buy groceries and have anything left over until my new job handed me my first paycheck. I came to the con knowing that I couldn't afford to get signed pictures or photo ops with my favorite guests. I did, however, want to see if I could just meet someone and let them know that I admired their work. When temporarily separated from my friends, I parked myself in one of the lines where no one was telling me to have my money ready and to stay behind a certain spot marked on the floor. This was for Glenn Morshower and everyone kept mentioning in line that he liked to talk, so I eagerly eavesdropped on a couple of the conversations that he had with paying customers. He had just wrapped up a photo op when he turned to look around at the rest of the line. I smiled at him and he came over to say, "Hello, darling, are you having a good day?" I responded, "Yes, sir, how about you?" and shook his hand. We talked about his NEST t-shirt--a gift from someone in Florida. He laughed at my Decepticon glitter tattoo and said we could still be friends even if I rooted for the other team. I was too terrified to ask for a photo or autograph and admit that I couldn't pay for it. After a few minutes, he did get back to the line and I quietly went back to wandering the vendor's hall with my mission fulfilled. So that's how General Morshower made my day. And I was not the only person caught off guard. I follow the Facebook pages of some other guests and Kevin J. Anderson (Dune continuer, the Jedi Academy trilogy and Young Jedi Knights author, etc.) posted a fun experience. He said that they were doing a panel on 75 years of Superman when all of a sudden, Dean Cain from Lois and Clark walked in and weighed in on the panel. Leading up to this con, every few hours at times, I would see a new post on the Salt Lake Comic Con page. My roommate complained that they shouldn't be adding guests at the last minute and I guessed that they were just revealing more names to build excitement. As it turns out, she was closer to the idea. Here's what the con organizers had to say about the matter: "There were some glitches, without a doubt. We will make sure that next year, things will be better in every way. When Stan Lee tells you at the last minute he's willing to come to Salt Lake City for your first Comic Con, do you say, 'Sorry Stan, we don't have enough time to plan for your participation.' When Adam West and William Shatner tell you in the last week that they will agree for the first time in history to be on stage together, do you say, 'Sorry Gods of Geeks, we don't have enough time to plan for this.' We did the best we could. And we hope that you, our fans, sponsors, vendors, volunteers, guests will look at the best that we did, rather than the worst. You'll find whatever you're looking for." They had Darth Vader and Chewie. They had Power Rangers and Glorificus. They had Q and Bifur. I'm not sure if Nicholas Brendan or Manu Bennett were as last-minute as Stan Lee, since their announcements were also later than I had expected, but as I have mentioned before, the guest list was phenomenal.