I went to Ottawa ComicCon over the past weekend. I had a very short To-Do list, which included shooting a few interviews with vendors, snapping some pics with the crowd and finally, requesting an interview with Wil Wheaton. I accomplished only one of those goals over the weekend and as you will see from the photos I have attached, the interviews did not go so well.

I guess I should point out a few things before I get into my ComicCon experience. I am a closet nerd; or at least to myself I am. I suspect that others never thought I was as cool as I think I portray myself to be. I love superheroes, Star Wars and card collecting, and couldn’t wait to dive in to everything there was to offer. My goal of interviewing Wil Wheaton had nothing to do with some dream of being the next Bloggess, either. It’s awesome what Mr. Wheaton did for Jenny Lawson but my interest in him had nothing to do with Star Trek or collating paper, and had everything to do with getting his take on fatherhood; something he openly discusses on his blog and the thing I like most about him; other than Toy Soldiers, which was the bomb!

While my original interview request had been denied due to his busy weekend schedule, I had other tricks up my sleeve. One of them included getting in line for a photo opp with him and casually passing him the questions folded up with my card attached to a witty cover letter. It also included me saying something profound to entice him to want to answer said questions. What happened instead was me standing in line, confident with questions in hand, until it was my turn, when I decided to scrap the plan, throw out a “How’s it going?” and turn in this beauty of a crazy-eyed, deer in the healdights fan boy pic.

Yeah… I know. I didn’t even suggest the pose I wanted, which was going to be the classic DX pose from WWE Wrestling. I would have been Shawn Michaels in the front, by the way. Unless Wil had wanted to be Shawn, of course, than I would have been Triple H. Side note: In thinking about this, Felicia Day would have made for a cool, Lita, and Nathan Fillion could have bumped me down to X-Pac, but now we’re talking about some serious $$$.

Where was I?? Oh yeah, my interview with Wil never panned out and the vendor interviews we shot got drowned out by the noise of the 30,000 attendees, but I learned a lot and will be far better prepared the next time. I have to admit that all of this news got me a little down and I almost forgot why I was there in the first place, so I did the thing that always makes me feel better. I told my kids to pick out some costumes and packed them up for ComicCon’s Sunday festivities.

Watching their excited faces as they saw and yelled out the names of all of their favourite superhero characters, was exactly the thing I needed to snap me back to reality. Their innocence reminded me that I am still clinging on to a little bit of my own, especially when it comes to superheroes and celebrities.

In reminiscing about the weekend that was ComicCon, I have to say that other than the crummy cell reception, the entire thing was a huge success and I will definitely be back. I’d also like to add that one of the interviews that didn’t pan out was with the Ottawa Public Library. I thought it was awesome that they purchased a table to showcase that they had a ton of cool things for kids at their branches. As we get further into the technological age, it’s important to encourage our children that reading can be fun, so I appreciated and fully support their presence and message.

Did you make it out to Ottawa ComicCon this year? If so, what was your favourite part? Also, for more pictures of our ComicCon adventure, check out my Google+ album.

PS – Wil, still hoping for that interview.