I slept in on Saturday, and allowed myself to leisurely get ready for the con. After all, the hardest part of the costume, the makeup, I was going to be doing at the con--there was no WAY I was going to ride the New York City subways in full clown makeup. Even I'm not THAT crazy. But I did make changing easier on myself--I wore Harley's jumpsuit under a pair of overalls. Easy as pie.

Steph was unfortunately unable to cosplay, as she was going to a number of meetings, interviews, and panels, as well as covering the convention for her website, GamingAngels.com. But the good news was that because she had a press pass, we were able to store our stuff for free in a staff room, rather than pay the really high coat-check prices provided by the Jacob Javits Center. (Though I really shouldn't complain--just having a coat check is a nice little courtesy, and you're free to use it or not.)

From there, we headed out into the con proper. Steph and Anthony really wanted to get into the Robot Chicken panel, so we wandered around for a while, trying to find that. Eventually we realized we were more or less going in circles (very slow circles, as The Monarch kept getting stopped for photographs, which was hilarious) so we asked a very nice staff member to point us the way.

Eventually we found the room the panel was going to be held in, and started waiting on line. Even though the line was slow moving (as they weren't really letting people in yet), waiting on it was no problem as it's as good a place to people- and cosplayer-watch as anywhere else. My memory isn't the greatest, but I believe there were a lot more cosplayers there this year than in the two years I had attended previously, both of comic book costumes and anime and video game. As well as miscellaneous--I wasn't surprised to see a few Dr. Horrible's running around.

The line eventually started moving in earnest, and as I overheard that only a certain amount of people were going to be allowed into the panel, I decided to step off of the line, as I was really only there to hang out with Anthony and Steph, I'm not really a Robot Chicken fan. (Don't flame me--I don't have cable. I haven't seen much of it yet.) Also, I wasn't sure I trusted myself to be in the same room as Seth Green--Louis has been making me watch "Buffy" lately, and I have had some VERY disturbing dreams. I don't want to have a crush on Oz, dammit! I like Giles! GILES, YOU HEAR ME?

After breaking from them, I decided to go check out the Dealer's Room/Exhibition Hall, because I had barely seen it the day before. To tell you the truth, I feel like I barely saw it on Saturday--for one thing, my Harley mask is too tight, and while it doesn't physically restrict my vision, having my eyes pulled a little out of shape messed with their focus. I eventually adjusted (which meant my eyes had to RE-adjust after I took the mask off) but let's just say it wasn't the most comfortable I had ever been. And, besides that, the con was now CROWDED--like holy hell packed in like sardines crowded. I didn't mind TOO much, the good news is Harley's not exactly the bulkiest costume in the world, but I can understand why some people would be a little uncomfortable.

Before I got there, however, I ran into two more of my friends, Holly and Chris. Chris was cosplaying as Peter Parker from Spiderman, and Holly wasn't cosplaying but was dressed up as adorably as she always is. While talking with them, I got a call from Louis.

"Hi mooshy!" I said.

"Hello," he croaked. He sounded like death warmed over. Ah, shite. Yes, even though he had only spent a few hours at the Comic Con the day before, when it was virtually empty, he managed to catch himself a dose of the Con Plague, and could barely get out of bed.

I felt bad, but considering he had had a few hours to browse and shop the day before, while I was at work, I asked him if he minded if I stayed at the con a little longer. I figured the absolute latest I would be there would be around 7ish, because that's when the Dealer's Room closed, and I knew I would probably want to get out of there a little earlier. It's not so much that I mind going to a con without Louis, I've done it before, but for one thing I always have more fun when he's there, and for another thing, I knew I was going to worry about him, being home sick all by his lonesome. At any rate, he said he didn't mind and told me to have fun. I said goodbye to Holly and Chris and continued on my way to the Dealer's Room.

I had only browsed about an aisle or two of the toys when I got a call from David Ng, saying he was on his way in. I remembered the futility of trying to eventually run into people while going up and down the aisles, so I left my row and headed back towards the entrance to wait for him, and take a few more pictures of my own.

Dave and I stepped out of the Dealer's Room to go off to the side, where it wasn't so crowded and noisy, to talk about a few things--mainly catching up on real-life stuff, what we had missed talking about online, but we also hammered out a few details for upcoming photoshoots we want to do together, so keep an eye on this website in the future to see what we have in store. :) After talking, we ducked back in, and almost immediately got separated, as he had a lot of photos he wanted to take, and I had a few people I really wanted to find--two in particular.

I didn't have to wait long--Pat Gavin as seriously the best Rorschach there was pretty darn easy to spot, as was Lauren as a simply elegant Poison Ivy. Lauren had originally planned on not cosplaying, and I'm 98% certain she changed her mind, and chose the costume that she did, because she knew I'd want her to match my Harley Quinn. Thanks, lovey. <3 And if I do say so myself, I think we looked really amazing together.

As a matter of fact, Lauren really ended up making someone's day. There was a lady there, Cindy, with her family, including her twin sons, Eric and Aaron. Both kids are special needs, but Eric's needs are more obvious to the casual observer because he's in a wheelchair. But that's not the important part. The important part is this--Eric's favorite character of all time is Ariel from The Little Mermaid, and, well, with Poison Ivy's red hair and beautiful green dress, you can see why he thought Lauren was Ariel, can't you?

From Cindy's blog:

"The highlight of the weekend for Eric was meeting “Ariel” from Disney’s Little Mermaid. Ariel is his favorite Disney character, but actually the person he met was dressed up as “Poison Ivy”. However, she did look like Ariel and she was kind enough to pretend to be Ariel for Eric."

Lauren posed for a beautiful picture with Eric, and I posed for a picture with Aaron (who was dressed as Dollman), and really, I think that was the highlight of both my and Lauren's con weekend. Sometimes it just takes a minute to really brighten someone's day--thank you, Cindy, Eric, and Aaron.

I stole Lauren for bit (Pat came too, playing up his guardian role up to the hilt) because PopeCerebus and I had talked through LiveJournal about doing a photoshoot together--we've taken pictures together before, but they've always been catch-as-catch-can quick shots in hallways at cons, never a formal (though casual) shoot we had blocked time out for. It took me a little while to find him (again, being in that mask can be a little disorienting) but we eventually met up and went off to a less crowded area of the con to take pictures. You can see the entire shoot on the Photoshoots page, labeled "Gotham Girls". I had done a shoot with Lauren before, at Katsucon last year, but this was the first time it was just the two of us, and we had SO much fun. The dynamic of Ivy and Harley's relationship is pretty hilarious to begin with, and we just went nuts. And PopeCerebus was very patient with our girlish giggles, and had a lot of suggestions for poses and composition and whatnot--all in all, I'm really, really pleased with how the shoot came out. Thank you so much, Lauren for posing, PopeCerebus for shooting, and Pat for waiting. I had so much fun.

After we were done with the photoshoot, back into the Dealer's Room we went. Lauren really wanted to find the Archie booth, because she's pretty much the biggest Archie fan of all time, and as for me, I've mentioned before just watching people do/discuss whatever they're most passionate about, so I had a lot of fun just going with her, listening to her talk to the people behind the booth, and glancing at the stuff they had on display there. I think we ended up going our separate ways soon after that, but running around the con with her and Pat in general was a lot of fun.

My next batch of people I wanted to meet up with was MadMisterSmiley again, and all of his friends from Pete's Basement. Let me tell you, I have NO idea how people EVER found each other at any con of any kind before cell phones were invented, because even WITH cell phones, it was damn near impossible. "Where are you?" "At the DC booth!" "Where in the DC booth?" "Near the Wonder Woman poster!" "I don't see you!" "Are you on the inside of the poster or the outside?" And meanwhile twenty million people are filing past you, trying to look at statues and action figures and freebies and comics, and you're trying to keep your bookbag from getting knocked off of your shoulder shouting into a cell phone. Good times. We did find each other, though.

With him was our friend, Hot Bartender Jess, who by the way would be the MOST AWESOME HARLEY QUINN EVER, and she says she's done the costume before, but I've never seen it, and you know what they say--pics or it didn't happen. Granted, Jess looks sexier in a tank top and a pair of jeans than I do in skin-tight spandex, so it's not like she NEEDS to cosplay, but that's like saying, I don't NEED a million dollars. You know what the underlying answer is--I WANT it. So, Jess, cosplay Harley Quinn. Seriously. (She also makes a kickass Zatanna and Catwoman. The girl is just born for sexy comic book goddesses, trust me.)

So, we all walked around the con together as a pack for a while, browsing, making our way over to Artist's Alley, which is COMPLETELY different from the Artist Alleys at anime conventions in that they are all professional artists doing sketches promoting their licensed characters; there isn't a fanartist among them. Jess really wanted someone (I don't remember who)'s autograph, so we moved as a group over to that guy's booth, and then went our separate ways again.

I had only taken a few steps away from them, when who should I see but The Monarch surrounded by a crowd of photographers--it was Anthony again! We met up, he introduced me to a few of his friends, and I decided that I hadn't seen my friend Hal, who I was 95% certain would be working the Midtown Comics booth (I say booth--it had to be at least the size of my living room squared), so we decided to go back the way I came to see if we could see him. On the way, we were stopped ninety more times so that people could take The Monarch's picture. Anthony was dumb-founded--here was a cute girl in a skin-tight costume, and people wanted HIS photograph? I told him, that's just the way cosplay works--I was one of at least twenty generic Harley Quinn's. He was the only Monarch, and he was truly awesome at it.

I was only able to say a quick "Hi!" and "Bye!" to Hal (and ask him if he needed water--but Midtown Comics takes good care of their staff!) as their booth was absolutely SWAMPED--busiest area of the con, if you ask me. By this time I had been at the con and in full costume for five hours, in the jumpsuit for at least seven, and I hadn't eaten in more than eight hours, and I kept thinking about poor Louis home sick, so I figured I had had enough. I found Stephanie so I could get my stuff out of the press's room, ran into Linwood on my way out (just my luck! I wish we could've hung out a bit more), and left the con. I had missed a lot of things that I wanted to do, that I fully intended on doing the next day--at the very least, Skye and I were thinking of wearing matching cute My Little Pony inspired outfits, but I was so tired that night, and I woke up the next day with a touch of the con plague myself, that this was the end of my Comic Con '09 experience. Overall, I felt immensely unprepared for it, which I plan to fix next year, but getting to see the people I did get to see made it all worthwhile.