Long Beach Comic Expo took place on April 23, 2011 at the Long Beach Convention Center. We heard about this particular event through Long Beach Comic Con. Because we enjoyed the small, yet fun comic book event, Deb and I decided to visit Long Beach Comic Expo for a part of the day. This was a one day event with an exhibit hall, car show, panel rooms, and a disguise for a MMORPG convention. While the event was smaller than its parent group, Long Beach Comic Expo was well worth spending the day.

Long Comic Con Gallery can be found here.

Deb and I decided to dress up in Elegant Gothic Lolita fashion. Deb wore my Melty Chocolate dress and I wore my standard Innocent World dress. The convention center was not far away from the Scarlet Homestead, so it was only a 20 minute drive from where we were from.

The first thing we noticed at Long Beach Comic Con was the mini car show that was outside the convention center. The car show had vehicles that represented various pop icons in science fiction and comic book related genres. In addition to replicas, there were also fan created vehicles inspired by pop culture such as this Star Wars auto by ObiShawn.

Deb and I were loooking for registration. We went the main hall outside the escalators that went down to the exhibit hall. We asked a staff member where we should pick up our press badges. However, we looked around and there was no signs for Long Beach Comic Expo. It looked like we were at a MMORPG convention. It was not until we ran into my friend, Miko, that she told us that were on the set for an episode of The Guild. Long Beach Comic Expo attendees were selected for extras for this comedy web series. A staff member kindly escorted us to where we needed to be for registration.

Deb and I decided to go to the dealer's room. It was much smaller than the usual comic book convention exhibit hall. It was a dozen or so comic book dealers and a few figure dealers. Deb found a booth that had super sentai toys that interested her. We also found a few tables that sold Gothic Lolita accessories and clothing. We also wandered to the side of the dealer's hall that was used as a set for the episode of The Guild.

The first panel Deb and I went to was the voice acting panel that was hosted by no other than Crispin Freeman. Crispin Freeman has been doing anime voice over for the past ten years. I also recall meeting Freeman at Anime Expo 2002 when it was held at the Long Beach Convention Center. Deb learned that learned that voice acting in the booth is not as simple as it seems. We had an audience member be Freeman's guinea pig to record a scene from "Scrapped Princess." Freeman also talked about the differences between being an emotional and technical performer and finding how to balance both out. This was a very informative workshop. For more information on Crispin Freeman's voice acting workshops, you can visit his website. Deb and I are very much interested in checking them out!

 

The next panel we went to was the Podcasting 101 panel hosted by Pendant Audio. New media has truly come a long way in the past ten years. Pendant covered the basics behind podcasting. No one needs fancy equipment to get started. All it takes is just a microphone and a recording program such as Audacity. Pendat also covered the basics of recording podcasts and promoting them on iTunes. The podcasting group feels very strongly on uploading podcasts up on iTunes as they recieve 75% of their users on from the Apple service.

 

Pendant also covered recording audio drama. This group also adapts popular DC characters (ie: Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman, etc) and turns them into originally written radio dramas. They cast talent from around the world to be a part of the action. As mentioned in the above paragraph, all a voice talent needs is a microphone, an audio recording program, and email to be a part of the Pendant action. Auditions for their radio plays can be found on their website. Deb was surprised of how many audio dramas (over 800 episodes!) they have produced and how they coordinate a world wide rougue's gallery of talent.

To wind down the afternoon, Deb and I just browsed through the dealer's room. Deb was checking out the artist alley portion. She thought it was neat discovering Reed Gunther, a web series about a cowboy and his bear.

We got a call from Stan who wanted to meet up with us for a late lunch at Chilli's. It was nice, sunny day in Long Beach, so Deb and I just wandered around the Pike and took photos around the area in our Lolita outfits. For anyone who is into costuming and dressing up, there are plenty of nice photo ops around the area.

Overall, Deb and I had a pretty sweet time at Long Beach Comic Expo, even though it was for only a few hours. For a small one day event, it felt more like professional development for the two of us. We learned about voice acting and podcasting. Scarlet Rhapsody is planning to run a podcast in the future, so stay turned. Deb and I look forward for Long Beach Comic Expo in October.

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