Wanda and Cosmo, the Fairly OddParents! Stars of one of the last Nickelodeon shows my son ever watched before he aged out of it. Other than SpongeBob, I have no idea who their popular mascots are today.
This weekend Indy PopCon returned to the Indiana Convention Center for their the third annual gala of YouTube, gaming, podcasting, comics, voice actors, animation, and various other manifestations of pop and geek culture in general. My wife and I still regard 2014’s inaugural Indy PopCon as one of the best convention experiences we’ve ever had, but got a little lost when 2015’s event shifted focus toward luring in droves of younger fans. This time we were in the house Saturday for just a half-day with a short itinerary and muted expectations, but were happy to find ourselves another round of wacky fun.
As always we took photos for You, the Viewers at Home, over half of which were costumes. From the start Indy PopCon has attracted quite a creative crowd of cosplayers at every level, from the monetized pro circuit to the costume-contest hopefuls to the sincerest fans of varying means to literally a guy wearing an outfit made of Amazon boxes. At the crossroads of imagination, resourcefulness, determination, and fandom lies…Indy PopCon.
Before we get too far into this, let’s get the obvious part over with: Mandatory Deadpool! Wherever we go to hang out with or near geeks, from the smallest towns to the largest metropolitan extravaganzas, there shall always be a Deadpool. I promise we’re not just walking up to cosplayers in random costumes, handing them a Deadpool mask and red gloves, and creating our own variants to satisfy some mad obsession. That would be unsanitary and also cheating, both of which are qualities right up Deadpool’s alley but not ours.
Scotspool only eats chimichangas stuffed with haggis.
Hugpool giving out free hugs. Obviously a trap.
Baseballpool, brave enough to bring bats to a gunfight.
Waldopool, sick of hiding in crowds like a CHUMP.
It’s hard out here for a Pimppool.
But wait! There’s more! Granted, as with any convention experience, our Indy PopCon photo gallery represents a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of the total cosplay experience onsite, but we did what we could in the time allotted with the encounters at hand. It’s just this thing we like to do.
Blinky and Inky were ahead of us in the opening line to the exhibit hall, armed with a radio playing Pac-Man music on an endless loop.
Finn ain’t afraid of no ghosts!
Maleficent is a friend of my wife’s who was at last year’s Indy PopCon, but this time she brought her husband as Captain Hook.
This year Indy PopCon’s old home at the north end of the Convention Center was reserved by The Gospel Coalition for a women’s conference. Preacher antihero Jesse Custer ain’t here for that.
More antiheroes: DC’s Deathstroke and the Red Hood. Or is Deathstroke back to being a villain in New 52 continuity? Or is he both? Neither? Dead?
Red Hood also available in adult sizes.
Jawa!
The next three photos represent our usual game of “Stump the Fans” — costumes that caught our eye even though we old folks have no idea who they are. Exhibit A: giant stuffed thing. Is it from one of those things we don’t get, like Skylanders or Overwatch or latter-day Pokemon? We wouldn’t know.
Exhibit B: probably MMO fantasy characters. My son’s sometimes an authority on these, but this time he drew a blank.
Exhibit C: another armored warrior, hanging out with the Surfing Joker we met at Awesome Con Indy. If you know any of these smart-looking strangers, won’t you please help the quasi-elderly in their ignorance? Thank you.
This steampunk ferret may be one of the best, tiniest animatronics we’ve ever seen on a convention show floor. At least I think it was animatronic.
The Punisher, soon to be star of his own Netflix series.
Harley Quinn by Savannah Marie, a rare instance of a cosplayer with business cards.
Edward Scissorhands hopes you aren’t leaving too soon and apologizes for any damage done.
To be concluded! Tomorrow: who we met and what we did!
Midlife Crisis Crossover! 
They had Pacman music going? Genius.
I worried with the movie there would be an oversaturation of Deadpool, but then I realize that is the kind of thing he would like…more of him to look at.
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Fun secret: we get lots of Deadpool variant shots because Anne will now track them all down and not let go till she gets a shot. She skips characters she doesn’t recognize, which includes 105% of all anime ever, but she knows Deadpool!
The Pac-Man music was fun for the first few minutes, but we had to stand by them for over 20 minutes and listen to the same loop over and over and over and over again. We were proud of ourselves for maintaining some decorum and not threatening to stomp on their music machine.
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