Tampa Comic Con Report — Sunday – Planet Pellegrino

Guest post by Ally Beard

It’s officially the last day of the con! Sunday, August 25 th ! Soon I have to say goodbye to all my
friends from this past weekend, except for the hyper one…sadly. I kid…maybe…I don’t know
yet. I’ll have to ask myself again at a future date! Let’s just get started with today, shall we?
Today, I went to the coffee bar, and they weren’t serving Frappuccinos, thank God considering
how badly they screwed up yesterdays along with my name! They put Alex instead of Allison.
How? They don’t even sound the same! I opted for a Dark Mocha Hot Latte. Best one I’ve had
in a while from the same-chain Starbucks-like store. Mostly I just get my hot drinks from locals,
but obviously that wasn’t an option. Anyways, I pass the comedic photo op sign that tells
everyone where to go while hearing N’SYNC’s: Bye, Bye, Bye for the 100 th time this weekend
because of all the Deadpool cosplayers blasting it to get to celebrity row. Good news about that,
nobody was moved! Thank God. I didn’t want to play the “where’s Mark?” game again.

No, the first thing I didn’t do was go to Mark’s table, and no, I didn’t jump straight to him! I got
into the VIP line, which was funny, because the staff were asking if I was in line. I promise I am
not there to solely cause y’all grief, at least not till after the event being over. That will always be
the best time to cause trouble! Maybe. Anyways, a fan bought Mark an Americano, and I
thought that was sweet of them. I left his table after getting a selfie and an autograph to only
come back at a way later time to talk about something, and I showed him my The Walking Dead
poster. We talked about Tom Payne who did all the martial arts in the show as Jesus. Neither
one of us knew if Tom did that for a living, and speaking of characters, he still doesn’t remember
the characters Tom Welling and Michael Rosenbaum played in Smallville. He was saying he’s
terrible with putting faces to characters. He also wasn’t too happy about Gabriel being on the
Supernatural poster instead of him. I must agree with him. I did talk to Jason Palmer who drew the
art piece, and said he recently started getting into the show and was just drawing to draw. I think
this is all mood, because I wanted him to preach more about being left out of the artwork! He did
poke me for pronouncing Vincent D’Onofrio’s name like Donfrino. I’m SORRY! I am terrible with
remembering his last name. See? We’re both bad at something!

PS: I’m so proud of Mark’s handwriting this time around! I can read “love ya” and my name!
Double the points! Also, this photo makes him look like he’s about to go play in the Wimbledon.
It gave off tennis vibes.

The first thing I did was go to Emmanuelle Vauiger’s table! I didn’t know she was Madison in
Season 2 of Supernatural until yesterday, and she does have a tarot card, she’s the 3 of blades,
that needs to be signed! I didn’t bring it with me! Funny part to that was she told me she had
never seen the show, just her episode.

I had some time before I went to Mark’s Photo Op at 2, so I got as many autographs and selfies
as I could. Luckily for me my photos on my iPhone have the time stamp of each one, so I can
refer to that! The first one I went to was Sarah Natochenny, voice actress for Ash from the

Pokémon tv show (2006 – 2024). She was awesome! She even said: I choose you! to me and
signed a common Pikachu Pokémon card.

Dan Fogler who played Luke in The Walking Dead was after her! He had a cool drawing of a
dinosaur on the table, and I wish I had a better picture of it! He was surprised how long it took
me to get through the show. I don’t think he had met many people that can binge nearly 200
episodes in a span of 11 days.

Paul Williams was a spur of the moment autograph and selfie! I didn’t realize he was this short!
More short people! Yay! I am glad to have met The Penguin from Batman: The Animated
Series!

Ross Marquand, Aaron from The Walking Dead, was my favorite guy to take pictures and talk to
on Sunday! He was press for time and kept apologizing to me that he had to cut our talk short. I
told him it was understandable, and to go do his photo op. He was so relieved for me to hear
that. I guess people don’t understand the commitments that others must obliged anymore. He
told me to come back later, and we would talk. I never got a chance to, and I am OK with that! I
had a really good time with our meeting! It was funny though when my husband asked him what
happened during the photo ops on Friday, and he basically just said he got lost.

I cut my autographs and selfies short here, because it was time to go do Mark’s photo op! Man,
I was sad after this, because that just means it would be another couple of years before I am
able to do this again and see everyone again! The photo op itself was fun! I couldn’t really wear
the 3-D glasses over my eyes as they hurt. I tried in front of my glasses and under my glasses,
but nothing stuck. I decided on an open mouth and head up concept while holding the popcorn
bucket! Honestly, I am thankful the staff for patience! Too bad someone stole an extra copy of
the picture from one of my friends! Don’t steal other people’s pictures!

Since this was my last photo op of the day, I had to say good-bye to never return! Unless next
year I decide to go…but we’ll see who gets announced. Everyone went to Mark’s table besides
my husband and I; we went to other people’s tables to get selfies and autographs we had miss!
The first up was Michael Rosenbaum. We talked about Creation Atlanta, and he remembered
Mark Sheppard making fun of him and his lack of hair, saying did he smother himself in the
pillow yet because of it. I remember telling Mark Pellegrino at his table that Michael crashed the
J2 panel to ask if he could take the Impala.

PS: The picture is from Justice League Unlimited, and it says: “Rock On”.

Funny part about this last one I did, I was in line previously waiting for Vincent D’Onofrio, known
for Law & Order: Criminal Intent and as Kingpin on Daredevil, to come out, but I had to tap out to go do Mark’s photo op. I came back to see he had just left for a break, so I waited again.
When he did come out, I was the first one to get a selfie with him. My husband tried to tell him a
Full metal Jacket quote, but I don’t think he heard him. My husband did tell Mark after me
butchering his last name, and he got it at least. It was also interesting how Vincent switches
voices, and the best example I could give is his Kingpin from Daredevil sounded like a rugged
Castiel while his normal voice is just everything else.

Afterwards I went back to Mark’s table, because it was getting late; and we all needed to head
back to the Airbnb. We all said our good-bye’s and left for the evening. Thank God I don’t have
to ride in the very back of that car anymore after today. The pilot was an amazing driver, but I
never missed a seatbelt more times in my life than after this weekend! All in all, I did have a
great weekend, and I enjoyed getting to meet everyone, some for the first time and some again,
have a lot of new memories with friends, and shelve this con into the vault of good times. Now, I
am ending this story on a happy note, and shutting the book.

PS: The pictures below are what the con gave us for being VIP and some of my other
purchases that didn’t make it above.