(AfroGamers.com) I’ve written several articles now talking about why I absolutely love coming to comic conventions because they have a special type of feel to it for me when it comes to seeing the amazing cosplayers, art drawings, comic books, and especially playing old school and current video games including the competitiveness of video game tournaments such as Dragon Ball Fighterz and Super Smash Bros. Ultimate.
A day prior to the event, I had learned through my youngest brother who’s also a blerd aka black nerd that one of the special guests named Monica Rial who voices Bulma in Dragon Ball Z/Super that was supposed to sign autographs and take pictures with fans unfortunately had fallen ill prior to the event and had to cancel her appearance for the event, but like the old saying, “the show must go on.”
I caught a city bus and decided to get off at another street so that it will take me 10 minutes to get there by walking rather than waiting on another bus to take me there. Once I arrived there, there was already an extremely long line of people waiting to get in and in fact, I personally hate long lines because it takes too long to get things done in a timely and swift manner.
Note: I preordered my general admission ticket online a week before the event.
Once I got my preorder wrist band for the event along with a free comic book, I walked over to see a brotha with his two sons playing a classic NES game called Super C and they didn’t do so well as they used up all their lives and got the dreaded “Game Over” message on the screen.
And then I decided to try my luck with my brother playing one of the classic RPGs on The NES called Final Fantasy where we would take turns battling monsters and gaining experience points to level up and getting stronger and learning new spells. While we were playing the game, this guy comes over and tells us that he joked with a fellow organizer about this game and that he wasn’t into RPGs like Final Fantasy like me and my brother are.
And then right next to us, there were two little white boys playing Soul Calibur III for the classic PlayStation 2 console for a one-on-one match in the versus mode of the game. And then we saw a fellow brotha and sista playing Super Smash Bros. Ultimate for The Nintendo Switch.
Note: Me and my brother noticed several white cosplayers were dancing to a rap song and even though my brother doesn’t fully understand it, but I told him a truthful statement that “white people don’t understand black music like we do” because to them, it’s just music, but to us as black people, it’s part of our culture that doesn’t always portray us in a positive light.
After seeing a young black boy and black girl playing the classic SNES game of Super Mario All-Stars + Super Mario World and my youngest brother decided to first try his hand at playing our favorite Mario game in Super Mario Bros. 3 where he died at least three times in World 1 and decided to use the hidden flute to teleport to World 2. I told him the read why he heavily struggled in World 1 is because he has what I like to call “game rust” where he hasn’t played the game in so long that he forgot the basics of getting power ups and surviving levels in the game.
Then we decided after over an hour of playing classic NES and SNES games, me and my brother then decided to briefly check out the people playing classic arcade games like Galaga and Pac-Man. Then we proceeded to go upstairs and while my brother went to the panel room, I chose to go back to the first floor where I proceeded to take many pictures of souvenirs, classic home gaming consoles and games on sale like NES and SNES and then I took pics of classic comic book issues and even managed to take a picture of Batman memorabilia because I’m a long time fan of Batman.
I even managed to take a picture of David Yost, the guy who played the original blue ranger in Billy Cranston in The Original Power Rangers series. Note: The role of Billy Cranston wasn’t initially offered to Yost, but instead to Walter Jones who turned down that role due to the negative stigma of being a nerd in the black community at that time, so he personally chose to play my favorite Power Ranger in Zach Taylor aka The Original Black Power Ranger while Yost was given the role of The Original Blue Power Ranger aka Billy Cranston. This is actually the fourth Original Power Ranger that I’ve personally seen in the last two years.
And then I decided to go upstairs again and managed to check out some of the beautiful LEGO art that was shown on display that was made by very talented LEGO builders and I was very impressed with how good they looked. I absolutely loved it so much that I took a few pictures of it.
And then after a while of killing time by sightseeing, I decided to call it a day by leaving.
The Conclusion – The 2019 River Region Comic Con was such an amazing experience that I personally enjoyed today especially seeing fellow black nerds and beautiful black cosplayers at the event as well as playing the old classic NES and SNES games like Mario and arcade classics like Galaga and Pac-Man.
Staff Writer; Kwame Shakir (aka Joe D.)