The Walking Dead @ Salt Lake Comic Con

Us girls over here at Individual Rivalry LOOOOOVE us some TWD. So you can imagine our excitement about getting the chance to interview Carl Grimes(Chandler Riggs) and Shane Walsh (Jon Bernthal). Originally (as we mentioned before) Daryl (Norman Reedus) was on that list too… sad emoji face. Rumor has it that he will be here in September so we are keeping our fingers crossed!

Andrea (Lori Holden) was there as well but we did not get a chance to meet or interview her. But, we will say that she was very pretty in person.  Almost every celeb we encountered was super sweet and took the time to make us feel valued.  We are already making a game plan for next round!

So.... I (Jamie) have a tiny nerdy obsession.  Funko Pop Art makes little figurines for everything.  You name a character and they have it.  Well, I have a ton of them with Walking Dead & my goal is to get them signed by the actors.  Enter Chandler!  He was so sweet to sign my little Rick- I later found out there is a Carl-which I'm now on the hunt for! 

Chandler Riggs

 
At the Press Conference, we interviewed Chandler in all his adorableness! Seriously, he was just the sweetest.  Like, we are talking sugar rush sweet!  Chandler seemed humble as he sat and answers all of our crazy questions. He was so soft spoken and polite and didn't know what the heck to do with us girls.  

Check out our Interview:

 

Unfortunately, Chandler and Lori's panels were cancelled.  

Jon Bernthal

I have to say my (Sheena) first impression of Jon was heart melting. I was waiting in line at his booth to meet him and he was waiting to meet his next fan. The husband and kids were standing off to the side. My two boys, with their freshly painted TMNT faces, had transformed into their favorite turtles and were practicing their best versions of combat. All while laughing those big belly laughs that are contagious by nature. 
I looked over at Jon only to find him marveling at the site of my two boys. He was chuckling at them and shaking his head. 

Me: All day Everyday!

JON: Ha ha! How old are they?

ME: 6 and 3

JON: I have a 3yr old and a 1yr old. I'm just checking out what I have to look forward to.

ME: Both Boys?

JON: Yeah

ME: Oh boy! You're in for it!

JON: I know Baby, I come from a family of 5 boys

It was just in that moment I watched him as a real person. Not an actor, not a character, but a Dad. It was not only refreshing and endearing, but a nice reminder that celebrities are Human too. Sometimes when we meet celebrities we have all these ideas in our heads of what they are and are let down. In Jon's case, he exceeded my expectation. He is a legitimately cool dude.

Jon Bernthal Interview exclusive

IR QUESTION: If Shane were still alive, would he have gone to Woodbury with Andrea? Or would he have stayed at the prison with Rick and Lori?

JON: Oh Man, at the Prison for sure! 

IR: Really? Even with having to be around Rick and Lori? 

JON: Oh ya, He would be at the prison.

Jon Taking the Stage

Did you know Jon has broken his nose 14 times from boxing and professional Baseball? And he STILL looks that good!

I (Sheena) don't even know where to begin at this next part…. just imagine a dream. And then your dream being real life. And you have about 2,500 witnesses. And photographic evidence that said dream was reality. And then that dream followed you on twitter. Just saying. Happy-Freaking-Emoji-Face!

We were waiting for Jon's panel to start and I was trying to decide if I wanted to go up and ask a question. Then I thought, why is this even a question? Of course I am going to take every opportunity to talk to this man! 

You see… celebrities travel around and do interviews all the time. They get sick of answering the same questions over and over. And you want to enjoy these panels, so you need to ask an edgy, entertaining question. It makes it more fun for everyone involved. So we came up with an amazing one. 

I walked up and stood in line. I was about the 3rd person on the right side of the room. The lady asked me what I was asking and to my surprise, approved it. She also told me that he wold not be giving out hugs. (My heart broke a little. Not going to lie.)

My heart was POUNDING! I mean… I'm talking giving-a-talk-in-church-pounding! Jamie thought I was going to throw up! (Jamie-I looked over and she was 3 shades of green!)

It was time… my moment had come. 
"Hello Jon"
"Hello Sweetheart"
D E A D

And it was everything I ever could have imagined and more. 

We didn't get video of the panel (are you kidding us guys? We were too busy freaking out!)

However, If you want to know what I asked, here is full audio of his panel and you can listen to my moment I will treasure forever at the 10:24 mark.

John Bernthal's Panel @ SLCC

Be sure to Check Jon out in his up-incoming movie "Fury" with Brad Pitt. Opening 2014!

Norman Reedus

The next SLCC will hopefully include some Norman for me(Jamie).  It's all this girl wants for Christmas.  Then, I will probably make a fool out of myself & get a nice smokey hug from the other man of my dreams (sorry Tim-you know I love you too).  See you in September!

Thank you GQ for this sexy picture of Mr. Reedus!

How 2 non-nerdy girls ended up at Salt Lake City Comic Con

We are exhausted! Three full days of Salt Lake Comic Con followed by Easter. And with good reason! Over 100,000 people attended this Comic Con making it the 3rd largest Comic Con is the Country! Not too bad at all considering they just launched last fall! We are excited to share everything with you, so hold tight, and join us as we take you on our "nerd" journey.  We are already preparing for the next Comic Con Fan Xperience (September 4th-6th) and we would love to see each of you there with us!

As we so perfectly put it, "Nerd is not a derogatory term anymore, more like a term of endearment." 

A nerd is someone who appreciates a culture, a lifestyle. Or someone who is reeeeeally good at something. A nerd expert would be like, a superhero! Are we "treckies"? No. Did we have elaborate costumes? Not yet ;). Have we even read a comic book? Only if you can count the funnies in the sunday paper. But, you see, we didn't need any of those credentials. All we needed was to have once been a kid! Oh, and being The Walking Dead fans helped a little bit. Everyone is welcome at Comic Con. No discrimination there! 

So just how did we end up at Comic Con?

Back in December, I called up Sheena and asked her if she wanted to go on an adventure to find Norman Reedus with me.  I'm a huge Walking Dead Fan and so is she!  Over the last few months Jon Bernthal was added to the growing celebs coming to SLCC and that was all I needed to convince her!  Sad to say, only one of us met our crush, but boy did she meet him!  More on this later!

What Comic Con Fan Xperience has to offer

Sheena and the Back to the Future Delorean

On our first day we became honorary nerds and fell in love with the culture a little more with each passing day. What we noticed is that everyone was consistently nice and so excited to be there.  All genres of interest were covered: Disney, Superheroes, shopping, kid friendly activities (for the most part meaning some costumes are questionable at times.)

Kid Con

John Reid broke the record for largest balloon structure with "Poptimus Prime"

This year they had their first area dedicated for kids and good family fun! 

They had Power Ranger training, animals from the living aquarium, mermaids, princesses, Olaf, plinko, and every superhero any kid ever loved. 

Hudson touching a snake from Living Aquarium

Turbo

The boys had their faces painted like Ninja Turtles and I'm pretty sure they believed that they actually became them. 

Kamden and Hudson with their TMNT faces

When asked what they thought of Comic Con, it got a big thumbs up! 

The Utah Jazz Bear made an appearance on his motorcycle.  I took off after him with Ava, so we could get a good selfie of course!   I'm pretty sure she's his biggest fan!

 

The Mermaid Booth was also a neat place for the little ones!

Ava and the girls

Shopping/Booths

There was everything from A-Z as far as shopping is concerned.
Jewelry
Superhero everything
Comic Books
Clothes
Food
Memorabilia
Toys
And the list goes on…

All the names of the food were character related

 Look at those cakes by The Mad Hatter Cake Studio!

A random man in the Batmobile

Panels

If you have never been to a Comic Con,  panels are where a group or singular celebrity go in front of a room and answer questions for fans. Typically they have a mic on each side of the room and people line up to ask away. The closer you are, the better the view. This is where the VIP Pass came in handy to most. There were some panels so popular that if you were not equipped with one of those beauties, you didn't get in.

Adam Baldwin talked about his sadness from the Cancelation of "Firefly"

Sean Patrick Flanery talking about his work on "Boondock Saints"

James Marsters aka "Spike from Buffy the Vampire Slayer" talks about his favorite roles.

Gov. Gary Herbert declaring April 17th "Salt Lake Comic Con Hero's Day" 

All in all.. It doesn't matter what people classify you as. Comic Con will accept you with open arms and give you the time of your life, whether just a fan, or an avid people watcher, it is surly an experience you wont want to miss.

BTW Comic Con or any affiliates did not pay us for this review. We just loved the time we had!

Stay tuned this week for our Walking Dead post and Friday we will feature our Favsie's Friday with our top costume picks! 

PS- Don't think we didn't keep it real with our Individual Rivalry questions! Check out our You Tube channel to see interviews and other shenanigans! 

Must Haves for Surviving Salt Lake Comic Con

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Favsies Friday will be back next week!

We survived!  The apocalypse you ask?  No, well sort of.   We just wrapped up our first day at Salt Lake's Comic Con FanX and it was UH-MAZE-ING!  We are tired, but the tired you feel after a good day at Disneyland... or Lagoon.. or Halloween.  Anyway here we go!

 1. Get your hands on some nerd-camo! Hipster glasses are a must have to blend into the surroundings.  It's a Clark Kent sort of thing.

2. Bring a Partner-in-Crime, sidekick, or a squad

  

3.  Don't feed, touch, or poke the wildlife.  They bite.

4.  Remember to eat! We had some tasty food along the way.  The entire venue smells like cinnamon roasted almonds... yum!   I don't know what the official rules are, but you can bring your own drinks & food.  We didn't know that and so we stopped by the eatery in the convention. 

Sheena's food on the right was better than your local fast food joint, but not a re-return sort of thing.  I did love my burrito-it was definitely a share-with-friend size!  

5.  Wear DEODERANT & WALKING SHOES!  

Seriously, the venue is huge & with thousands of people it gets hot quick.  Come prepared... nobody wants to smell you.

 Photo Credit to Deseretnews.com

 6.  Bring Cash for the booths.  A ton of them accept cards, but its quicker to use cash!  Also shop around, the further we got into the shopping, the better the prices were.  Talk to the vendors & ask for best pricing!  Most of the vendors will give you a deal when you buy a few items from them.  

7.  Always have your camera ready!  You never know just who might pop up & will only have a sec to score the perfect photo.

8. And lastly... Talk to strangers.  Scratch that, I mean don't talk to strangers.  If you do, don't be afraid to ask who someone is or rather what someone is!  This is how we met the new Power Rangers.  And I may or may not have asked them if they were a boy band...!  Oops :)

Now we are headed for day 2!  Wish us luck... 

xoxo!