Monday, July 8, 2013

Patricia's Florida Supercon Experience 2013

Hey everyone, Patricia here and as of yesterday, I came back from Florida Supercon. Florida Supercon is an anime, sci-fi, and video game convention in Miami that occured in July 4-7. I was there on Saturday and Sunday and had done various activities, been through a few panels, and met many great people. Some of the people I met are as follows:

Veronica Taylor



She is mostly known for voicing the original Ash Ketchum from the first 8 seasons of Pokemon, April O'Neal from the 2003 TMNT series, Amelia from Slayers, and many more characters from other anime. Out of all the people that I met, she's the one that I interacted with the most. We talked for a little bit about her years voicing as Ash, her years voicing about April, and which character she relates to the most. While she said that she puts a little of herself in all of them, her years voicing as Ash was something very special. While talking, two teenage boys were shocked that Veronica was the voice of Ash. When she did the Ash voice for them, they were excited. Overall, it was a huge honor to meet her and she might be a guest in one of our podcast someday.

The next two people I met were the voices of Invader Zim characters Zim and GIR, Richard Horvitz and Rikki Simons.



Besides Zim, Richard Horvitz is also known for other characters such as Daggett from The Angry Beavers, Billy from The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy, Alpha 5 from The Mighty Morphing Power Rangers, Raz from the video game Psychonauts, and many more. He was so hysterical as he did the Zim voice the entire time. You can tell with the smile in my face. As for Rikki, I was quite surprised with his calm personality since he voices a crazy character like GIR. Nonetheless, he was so nice and meeting both of them was a real treat. It was even better when they autographed my Invader Zim DVDs.

The next person I met is one of my all time favorite voice actors Jennifer Hale. I was a bit nervous at first meeting her, but as time went on, I relaxed a lot and acted more natural. I talked about how I was a huge fan of her work and that I loved her as Commander Shepard from the Mass Effect series, how Kevin loved her as Giganta, and that James Bevan loved her as Zatanna (he told me to tell her that when I announced on Twitter that Jennifer was going to be there.) Other than that, it was amazing to have finally met her.



Other highlights at Day 1 was seeing all the amazing costumes, seeing Adventure Time fans going gaga over the arrival of Jeremy Shada, the voice of Finn, seeing people going crazy at the FSC Jeopardy game, and being eternally grateful that I bought my tickets in advanced. The line for buying tickets at the door was beyond ridiculously long. Remember kids, plan and be prepared.

Day 2 at the convention was great as well. When I walked into the hotel where the convention center was at, I saw Richard Horvitz walking in as well. Everyone were very nice to him saying good morning, including myself, and he was so gracious and said good morning back as oppose to ignoring them. The first person I met when getting to the convention was Eric Stuart.



Eric Stuart is mostly known as the original voice of Brock and James from the first 8 seasons of Pokemon, Seto Kaiba from Yu-Gi-Oh, and many other characters from anime. Nowadays, he's a singer who performed a concert on Saturday night and he's very talented. He was a very nice, sweet guy.

The next person I met was another talented voice actor: Gregg Berger.



Gregg was mostly known as the voice of Grimlock from Transformers, Odie and Orson from Garfield and Friends, the Gromble from Aaahh!!! Real Monsters, and more. I was low on cash for picture with him, but he was so nice that he allowed me to do it for free. I was beyond thankful for that.

The next person that I met was the founder of Troma Entertanment, Lloyd Kaufman. Lloyd was a bit wacky, but very nice at the same time. My cousin Dominick and I were in the picture while Lloyd and I held a Toxie head. It was surreal, but awesome! Lloyd was even nice enough to offer a tour of the Troma headquarters at Queens when I told him that Kevin was a very huge fan of him. That was so cool of him!



The next person I met was an old friend of mine, Will Nguyen from Willvolution. Willvolution is an video game tournament group that I was involved in from 2006-2009. Will and I met for a short time since he was busy with a tournament, but he was nice enough for us to catch up.



I left early because my sister needed to go to work in the morning so I didn't stick around for the Power Rangers panel and the panel where the Comic Book Men cast were there. The Comic Book Men panel with Ben Johnson, Kevin Smith, and others was very crowded. It was so crowded that there were people who sat in the floor at the front stage and standing at the back of the room. Also George Takei, known as Sulu from Star Trek, was difficult to see as well. There were very long lines to meet him.

Other than that, I had a great time at Florida Supercon and hopefully I'll go back next year.

That's all for now. Hope to see you around Old School Lane soon.

-Patricia

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