Veronica Mars fans hit jackpot. (a post by Anna)

Five years ago, I fell in love with the television series Veronica Mars. Gah, it’s good. I sometimes downplay its brilliant plot by merely stating that “it’s a series about a high school detective,” but Veronica Mars is much, much more. First of all, Kristen Bell is the star. Secondly, Rob Thomas (creator, producer, and writer) is brilliant. These two factors contribute to making this probably one of the greatest television shows of all time to binge. That’s why I totally freaked out when I realized there was a comic book convention in Houston, and BOTH Jason Dohring (Logan!) AND Francis Capra (Weevil!) would be present.

Lee’s folks were flying in Saturday afternoon, so we had limited time to stalk our men. Lee and I discussed strategies for our scavenger hunt to find Logan and Weevil, since they were our sole reasons for attending Comicpalooza 2010. Then we headed out into the sun for what soon became a wild adventure.

Once we arrived, Lee studied the program and became perplexed as she learned several things: A) apparently Comic Palooza charged $30 just to get into the convention center, B) the Texas Gun and Knife Convention were down the corridor from the comic book convention, and C) Jason Dohring’s flight was delayed about 6 hours and he would be cutting it close to make it there before we left. We had made it so close to meeting the man, myth, and legend, so how could we leave before seeing him (especially after paying $30 bucks just to get in!).

Lee, perplexed.

Lee and I passed the time by people watching and photo taking. Boba Fett proposed to Lee.

She said yes to Boba Fett!

Next, I found another Veronica Mars fan.

Logan + Veronica DOES = Love

As we wandered, colored strobe lights and near deafening techno music coming from the “Local Performances” room caught our attention. We couldn’t resist the temptation to peep in and found this scene: a high school kid dancing with neon lights attached to ropes, surrounded by strobe lights. To his right sat what appeared to be his mother and 4 year old sister rocking out. We didn’t last long in there, but it was memorable.

The one man glow stick dance performance.

Finally we returned to the table where Jason and Francis would soon be stationed.

Other celebs nearby included Nicholas Brendon and Peter Mayhew. We waited patiently for a few minutes until lo and behold, Francis Capra appeared before our very eyes!

Francis turned out to be the nicest man alive. As we expressed our adoration, he spoke about how much it meant to have VM fans. He was awesome. He even talked about “Kristen” and “Rob” and “Enrico.” Gosh, Francis really won me over.

FRANCIS CAPRA!!!!!!!!!!

Soon after, we continued wasting time in hopes of Jason’s arrival. You should also know this Comicpalooza was strangely smaller than others I’ve attended, so we were getting rather bored slash irritable after the first hour of waiting. Still, how can you leave when you know Jason Dohring will probably arrive the minute you exit?! The wait continued, and we’d been staring at the red door where the celebs come in for a full three hours. At some point we were going to have to leave since Lee’s parents were on their way. I decided to call it. “We’re giving him 5 more minutes, then we have to bail.” I kid you not 10 seconds later the red door opened, our hearts drop… then walked through Peter Mayhew, someone we’d seen all day. We moaned, “Oh man, it’s only Chewbacca.” BUT immediately following Chewbacca came the one and only Jason Dohring! All our irritability from the long wait disappeared.

Our convo with Jason was a little less smooth than the one with Francis. I think he’d gotten off the plane 20 minutes prior and couldn’t hear a word we said. There was a lot of “What?” and “Pardon?” going on, which made it mildly awkward. He was super friendly and nice, yet all three parties found ourselves repeating words and smiling a lot. Even so, we got a picture.

JASON DOHRING!!!!!!!!!!!

After attending this event, I had a dream where my life was exactly the same, only Lee was replaced with Kristen Bell. Funniest dream ever. Comicpalooza 2010, thanks for everything!