Long Beach Suits Up for Comic Con

Surrounded by comic books, Luke Skywalker, Chewbacca, Princess Leia and Darth Maul debated whether they should play laser tag at the Long Beach Convention Center.

The Long Beach Comic Con returned on Sept. 27 and 28. The event allowed attendees to bring to life their inner geek and granted them access to a variety of panels.

Cal State Long Beach sophomore film student Arielle Mananquil was decked out in a burgundy Heavy Assault Class cosplay from “Planetside 2.” She said she was happy to show off her costume, which took over a year to make.

Mananquil also said this was her first time attending the con, and she said she was especially excited to attend a panel of the now classic animated series Gargoyles.

“I just came out of the Gargoyles panel – I absolutely love Gargoyles,” Mananquil said. “When I was five, I didn’t know what was happening, but I thought it was the coolest thing ever.”

The panel included words from the creator Greg Weisman, and other people who made the series possible like voice actor Thom Adcox and art director Dave Schwartz, who is responsible for creating designs for the trio of characters Brooklyn, Lexicon and Broadway.

“You just kind of create a file cabinet, when you need something that’s what you pull from,” Schwartz said at the panel. “We are really happy, because our goal is for you to feel something… If it affected you in some way, we did our job.”

Another panel celebrated the 75th Anniversary of Batman. Fans waited in line outside half an hour to enter the discussion, which featured Mark Andreyko, Chris Burham, Babs Tarr and Ralph Garman who talked about their contributions to the Batman series.

Babs Tarr was the only female on the panel and was excited about her contributions to “Batgirl #35,” which will be out on Oct. 8.

“With Batgirl coming out, it’s the first of its kind for this comic,” Tarr said. “It’s marketed towards girls. I came into comic shops looking for that, and I couldn’t really find it… I want more girl comics.”

Tarr said she enjoys that the stigma of being a geek has been lifted because she can find cool things in mainstream places.

Outside the venue, away from the panels, music from “The Legend of Zelda” series was performed by Michael Ward, who wore a Link costume played some familiar video game tunes on his guitar.

“I have been doing this for a while now since 2010,” Ward said. “I play the main Zelda themes, ‘The Song of Time,’ ‘The Song of Storms’ and ‘The Gerudo Valley Theme.’”

Ward said people are either confused by the getup or immediately recognize the charm in his costume and performance.

Donations were dropped in a box with “will play for rupees” written in Sharpie ink on it, a reference that any fan of the series would understand.

Ward was accompanied by his girlfriend Dot McMahon, who a sophomore film student at CSULB. She was dressed like Princess Zelda.

“[This is the] first con that I’ve gone to, everyone is really awesome,” said McMahon. “It’s really awesome to have people notice who you are because we are steam punk Zelda and Link.”

Jared Williamson, a member of Southland Ghostbuster’s, which is a group of Ghostbusters cosplayers, said he attends cons like this one regularly.

The group recently went to Central Coast Comic Con in Ventura, and Williamson said he is also excited to attend Stan Lee’s Comikaze at the end of October.

“This guy is selling $1 comics,” Williamson said. “There is a lot of stuff here that you will see at that other booths [ranging from $5 to $20]. There is mostly stuff from my childhood like Ghostbusters, transformers [comics].”

Attendee Edwin Johnson was dressed in Team Rocket riot gear from the Pokémon series. He is a veteran of the Long Beach Comic Con, and has attended the previous six years.

He said nostalgia is the reason people enjoy events like this; he has been a fan of Pokémon since it’s inception in 1999.

“I was in 8th grade when Pokémon Blue came out,” Johnson said. “So I remember everything the Game Boy Color. I was there when it started – probably not going to be there when it ends – but I was there.”