Okay, so what is Comicon? Most of you know that it’s a huge “festival” of people from around the world that gather to buy comics, cosplay, check out new TV shows and/or movies via panels usually with celebrities and so on. However, it’s so much more than that. The people…my gawd, the people.

I’ve only been to smaller “Cons” to this point, though I had an idea of what New York Comicon (NYCC) might be. Well let me tell you folks, I was floored. I had heard the weekend might draw 100,000 people. Um yeah…I think it did.

Let’s just say that when walking the convention floor it was practically “nut to butt” (a saying heard often in Navy Bootcamp). So many people you couldn’t help but bump into them. I made it worse by constantly having my backpack on and walking around with a large folding fabric mesh chair. I touched and was touched by more people this weekend then likely in the rest of my life combined! (Liberally use of sanitary gel was used repeatedly over the weekend due to this, LOL)

Hmm, so wait a minute, how did this all come about anyway? Glad you asked. I’m a huge fan of Halo Mega Bloks and knew they would have a booth at NYCC so I had something to look forward to besides the rest of the usual convention type stuff. I also figured on 343 being there with Halo 4 to try out and I was right. I follow several of the 343ers on Twitter and through their posts and/or conversations I had with them found out that indeed they were going to be there with the most anticipated game of the year, Halo 4.

I happen to be honored to know one of the high-up folks at Mega Brands (parent company of Mega Bloks) and he had something special planned, a LAN party. Woot, playing LAN at Comicon! I was excited. I happened to mention the LAN, but not the specifics to one of the 343ers and bam, things really started to change. Behind closed doors both Mega and 343 hatched a plan to have a shared Halo LAN/Afterparty. Yours truly was invited by both to come to the event. That by the way is an honor I do not and will NEVER take for granted (something I think any other Halo fan should keep in mind if they have been or ever will be invited to participate in). Much more about this later though.

So I started planning on going to Comicon. I got a 4-day pass figuring I wan’t sure what I wanted to do the whole time, so this would give me more time and options available. As the days got closer to NYCC excitement grew and I was heavy with anticipation…

Stay tuned for following parts of the story to see how the whole weekend unfolded. Believe me, you are going to enjoy, laugh, be appalled, and laugh again…

-Sal