Rhode Island ComicCon 2022

 This past weekend was the annual Rhode Island Comic Con. This was only my second time at this show, the last time being in 2018.

I have to say, having just attended Fan Expo Boston a couple months back, the RI show was definitely better laid out. Making use of three locations really helped space out the people. I did also go on Sunday, which is usually less busy than Saturday so that probably helped too.

 

The main draw for us here was Jared Padalecki from Supernatural and Walker. There's some kind of contractual thing that prevents Jared from doing Supernatural appearances unless the con is hosted by a specific company but that's okay because we went to panels for both shows. 

 

I never watched the original Walker, Texas Ranger and if Jared wasn't in this new one I probably wouldn't have started watching it. I've been enjoying the show even if it gets a little soap opera at times.

And it doesn't hurt that Mitch Pileggi is in it also.

Immediately after the Walker panel was the one for Supernatural.

There were quite a few people that had been on the show. Mark Sheppard (far right) was really funny as he spent a good part of the panel walking among the audience.

 

Emily Swallow (center) currently plays the Armorer on The Mandalorian. You'll probably recognize DJ Qualls (left) from any number of things he's been in.

After the panels, we had a bit of time to kill until our photo op with Jared so we walked the vendor floor to see what was there. I was on the hunt for a couple of newer Marvel Legends figures but the lowest price I found was $35 and dealers only went up from there! Guess I'll stick to online ordering.

This booth had a bunch of older video games. This box was full of Atari 2600, Colecovision, and Odyssey cartridges. He had another box with Odyssey and Atari home computer games, some still in shrink!

And of course, there were plenty of people in costume.

I'm not up on the Pokemon but I think this is a Mandolorian Charizard?

 

Among the celebs in attendance were Jamie Farr and Loretta Switt and I was surprised just how many people were lining up for the photo op with them. These folks had custom face masks with the MASH 4077 logo on them.

These ladies were cosplaying as different denizens of Disney's Haunted Mansion attraction, my favorite! It's hard to see here, but the bride's dress has some really cool lights in it giving her a ghostly glow.

In one area of the convention, there are various Star Wars fan groups setup including a droid builder group. While I was watching the droids interact with people, an unexpected visitor showed up.

Where else can you get a photo like this?

KITT was also in attendance, as was William Daniels but I didn't get to see him.

 

There were videos playing on the screens on the right side and the speakers played the theme song on a loop.

We also got to meet, and get autographs from, Alaina Huffman who was the OG Black Canary on Smallville and was also on Supernatural and John Glover, who was Lionel Luther on Smallville.

We ended the day by getting in line for Jared's autograph. While that took probably close to 2 hours, we had already done just about everything else we wanted beforehand so I didn't feel like we were missing out on anything. Well, except for the Stranger Things experience that was there. I would have liked to have seen that. 

 

Between the photo op and the autograph I think we had a grand total of 2 minutes (maybe?) with Jared but he really made you feel welcome and that he was happy to see you.

 

The show was a lot of fun and didn't feel overly crowded. I did see quite a few complaints on Facebook but I guess we were lucky and had a good day! My only gripe with it is that they announced the guest list over a period of months. That makes it really hard to plan if you can only go for one day, especially if you wanted to meet more than one of the "A list" people. You can view the enormous guest list here.

Here's the full album of the photos I took.