Review of Salt Lake Comic Con 2015 Day Two

Salt Lake Comic Con 2015

Day 2, Friday September 25^th 2015

Salt Lake City, Utah

Review By: John Fragglepuss Evans

Salt Lake Comic Con (SLCC) is in full swing! Day two opened up in the morning to provide a full day of nerdy action. I attended a panel in the grand ballroom for the first time on day two, which has been transformed from previous conventions. Before SLCC 2015 the main ballroom had been split into two rooms that were both huge. The current convention has combined those two rooms to make the “Grand Ballroom”, which has over 4,500 seats! It seems beneficial that they now have a massive room to accommodate the largest celebrity panels.

Animaniacs Live! was a panel that brought in the entire Animaniacs crew: Tress MacNeille, Rob Paulsen, Jess Harnell, and Maurice LaMarche. Between these four voice actors, the voices of Yacko, Wacko, Dot, Pinky, and the Brain were present. The voice actors also provide the voice talent for countless other characters in dozens of series, but the Animaniacs were the main topic of conversation for the panel. All of the panelists were good sports for the panel, giving the crowd what they wanted by saying famous lines and popping in and out of their character voices throughout the panel. Jess sang a good portion of the “Capitols” song and Tress sang a bit of the “I’m Cute” song.

Felicia Day was in the grand ballroom for a panel on day two. She came to Salt Lake for the Salt Lake FanX convention in January 2015 and mentioned that she usually waits a few years between coming to an area for a convention, but she enjoyed FanX so much that she came back for SLCC less than a year later. Felicia was a lot of fun. She brought a lot of energy and spunk to the panel, jumping right into the attendee questions without the help of a moderator. She answers were fun and honest, and she seemed genuine through and through. She definitely confirmed her geek status with her various stories of games, shows, and comics. Everyone really loves the part she played on Supernatural.

Bob’s Burgers: A Feminist Masterpiece was fully loaded with panelists: Taylor Hunsaker, Amber Dahl, Charity O’Haodagain, Lola Binkerd, Michelle Witte, Ryan Templeman, and Kristall Starr. Most of the panelists were cosplaying as Bob’s Burgers characters, which added a nice touch. It was mentioned how the majority of character voices in the show are male. In the Belcher family, only Louise is voiced by a female. My favorite take home message of the panel was noting that Bob’s Burgers is different than a lot of animated shows focused on a family because Bob’s family, the Belchers, act as a family to overcome the difficulties and problems presented in each episode. The show is not focused on a single character, but rather the family as a whole.

Day two of SLCC was busier than day one, but there was still breathing room. The areas were crowded but manageable. The floor plan has changed every year at SLCC, and each year has improved crowd flow. The celebrity autograph area has been moved further toward the back end of the vendor area, away from the main entrance, which seems to have helped with foot traffic. The photo op area is also at the back of the vendor area, which has also helped lighten crowds. The photo op area was well managed when I went to get a photo with John Barrowman. The area was crowded, but as promised, 15 minutes before the scheduled time they lined us up and got the line moving. John Barrowman was even better than I had heard in his photo. He loved the crowd and was kind when we took our photo with him.

The cosplay is getting better by the day. There were the usual cosplay: Deadpool, Harley Quinn, Link, Captain America, etc. It’s always fun to see the different spin that the Deadpools put on their cosplay. Today I even saw a Deadpool with a huge sombrero. Some other good cosplays I saw today were: Cruella Deville, robots, the Yup-Yups, Waldos, lots of Jedi, and Ernest goes to Comic Con.