Over 800 attend for cosplay, costumes and card games

Julia Root sat at the entrance to the ninth annual Verde Valley Comic Expo on March 28 and passed out blue wristbands to add to all the cosplayers’ looks.

“There’s a lot of creative people that have come in,” she said. “Definitely, lots of anime stuff.”

Including vendors, over 800 people attended this year, playing card and role-playing games, showing off their cosplay, shopping from vendors and sitting at panels including all things pop culture, like how to build Star Wars droids or draw comic strips.

There were 72 vendors.

Peighton Bessey, a 27-year-old Cottonwood resident, cosplayed Alastor, the Radio Demon, from animated Amazon Prime show “Hazbin Hotel.”

“I wish I had my monocle, but because I have to wear prescription glasses,” she said. “I’m like, ‘OK, I’m just going to wear this.’ These are actually my human Alistor’s antique glasses.”

While it was her first time at the Comic Expo, cosplay is a longtime hobby for Bessey. She wore full face makeup, a wig and ears like Alistor has in the show, a coat and vest, gloves, long plastic finger tips and a staff.

“I go by Eve most of the time,” she said, which she gets from her online account. “Evileye989 is my TikTok and YouTube name, which is where you can find a lot of my cosplays.”

Not everyone goes all out like Bessey, but they still enjoy it enough to come back every year.

“It’s been too many times for me to remember,” said 14-year-old Payton Maldonado, who was dressed as Harry Potter, with robe and tie. “We’ve been ever since I could think.”

The 501st

Star Wars fans worldwide participate in local events through the 501st Legion cosplay group, in local chapters, like Arizona’s Dune Sea Garrison.

“The 501st, it’s quite impressive,” Root said. “Most detailed costumes that we’ve seen so far.”

Local members also join smaller, more specified groups, like the Arizona Droid Builders Club.

An admin for the group, Thomas Arroyo, brought along a life sized, pink R2-D2 droid unit that he controls with an RC car controller.

“She’s built out of pretty much metal for the most part,” he said during a panel on droid-building. “There’s only one or two pieces on there that is either 3D printed or resin. There’s nothing that says you have to stick to that type of model. There’s plenty of plans that we have online that you can use, flat sheets of styrene, cut them out, glue them together, and make your own R2.”

On its website, azdroids.club, the organization has many links to Facebook pages and other sites related to building all sorts of droids from Star Wars’ Mouse Droids and BB-8 to Disney’s Wall-E.

Lynelle Phillips said the club doesn’t do robot fighting, because that can be expensive and dangerous, but sometimes it will host Mouse Droid races.

“The first mouse race was anybody’s mouse,” she said, “and somebody made one out of Lego blocks. Mine was so slow, I hit the back end of it. Those Lego blocks went everywhere and I crossed the finish line in fifth.”

Gaming

In the Expo’s entrance, through a side door in the Cottonwood Recreation Center, were several booths for card and role-playing games.

“I’m doing some free painting demos,” said Marci Sutter, of Cottonwood’s Game On. “I built up some Space Marines, and then I provided a bunch of paints.

Anyone who showed up at around 1:30 [p.m.] or 11:30 [a.m.] for the two painting classes — they’re more demos — would be able to grab a miniature and just paint them up however they want with the paints we provide, and they get to take the miniature home.”

They said this was their second time running the painting demos, which they really enjoy because they can give those who doubt their artistic ability a way to try it out.

“I point out everything that’s good about it, and it gives them a little bit of, ‘oh, well, maybe I don’t have to feel so bad about not having experience,’” they said.

Other demonstrations going on included Magic: The Gathering and Key Forge card games.

Joe Janicki, with Magic cards stacked in front of him, and Moon Jeongwoo, with KeyForge boxes stacked in front of him, sat at one table inviting people to sit and learn their games.

Both games are made by the same designer, Richard Garfield, but they’re fundamentally different.

“Magic is going to be your typical trading card game, you buy booster packs and build decks, depending on what format you play,” Jeongwoo said. “It’s basically a duel trying to reduce your opponent’s life to zero. Head-to-head battle.

“KeyForge is actually a very unique take on the trading card genre, where you’re not building decks, you’re buying decks, and whatever deck you buy is the deck you get. And instead of it being like a head on head duel, it’s more of a race to whoever can forge the most keys, hence the name KeyForge.”

Janicki said it seemed like Magic was more familiar, which people tended to gravitate toward. Magic was created in 1993 and KeyForge was made in 2018.

“It’s cool that they have this here in Cottonwood, a small town,” Jeongwoo said. “I walked into the gymnasium, and I was like, ‘Hey, I feel like I’m in Phoenix right now.’ It’s a full blown out Comic Con. So that’s really cool.”