January 22nd thru 25th the Arizona Ghostbusters attended
the 2009 Phoenix ComiCon in Mesa, AZ. It was a big and busy weekend for the team. The con started with the Zombie Walk and
Zombie Beauty Pageant. We started by passing out the zombie walk information pamphlet to the crowds waiting to get in
to prep for the zombie walk itself. After the Zombie Walk started we met the zombies at the halfway point in downtown Mesa
to lead them back to the Zombie Beauty Pageant. At the Zombie Beauty Pageant we acted as “security” and as chaperones
for the finalists. Some pics of the event are on the local band Calabrese blog located here.
Friday and Saturday we helped host Zombie
Brain Eating contests in the gazebo outside. Due to the limited number of brains, raffles were held to determine who would
be in the contest. 4 whole brain jello molds were made and each cut in half to have 8 contestants. It was quite entertaining
and very messy. There are a lot of hopeful zombies out there for sure and they certainly proved there is always room for brains.
A youtube video of the 2nd brain eating contest can be found here.
Saturday and Sunday
we hosted a booth in the convention center courtyard. At our booth we gave away our new AZ GB buttons, stickers, and the preview
poster of the Arizona Ghostbusters comic John has been working on. The poster was made by John and Todd. We had coloring pages
available for kids to decorate our booth with. A TV was set up to show a slideshow if picstures from our various past events.
Twinkies and Stay-Puft Marshmallow Bags were sold for donations as well as caricature drawings from John. We also hosted hourly
raffles for GB related prizes including our AZ GB hats, t-shirts as well as the new comies, dvd sets, an Ecto-1 plate and
even a 1/6 proton pack model. Over $300 was collected to go towards the upcoming Phoenix Heart Walk we’re participating
in on February 28th. The booth was a big hit and a great way for us to get our mission out there.
Sunday we hosted
a panel titled "25 Years of Ghostbustin". Each of our team took turns covering a topic of GB history and we covered
the cartoons, comics, and all the latest game and 3rd movie news. It was a great con that has grown alot. Next year the Phoenix
ComiCon will be moving to the huge downtown convention center and able to host alot more guests and booths. We have alot of
fond memories from the weekend including meeting a really big young fan of Ghostbusters, Prescott.
A great youtube video of Zak, Matt S, and Neal playing Rock
Band with "Star Trek: The Next Generation" star Wil Wheaton can be found here.
