Comic Con is one of the biggest pop culture events, but what if it was in a pandemic? I got to go see. The first thing that had to happen was everyone had to be vaccinated, or have a negative COVID-19 PCR test less than seventy-two hours before the event. If you couldn’t do that, you could get a negative rapid test less than six hours before the event.

When you got to the place you had to show your proof of vaccination or proof of a negative covid test. After that, you get a green band, and you got to go into the Javits Center, where the event was taking place.

I went to Comic Con with my dad’s friend, Joe, who has a podcast so he gets a free press pass, so I get to go with him. We walked around for a little while. There were a lot of people, but it was a little bit less than the last Comic Con. One of the COVID-19 guidelines was, you can’t come to Comic Con unless you have gone before. This was to make the place less crowded. It didn’t really work well. 

During Comic Con, there were many cosplays because the coronavirus can’t stop us from cosplaying! 

Below is an image of me in the Loki costume my mom made me, in a section of Comic Con called Cosplay Central, where people had tips on cosplays, where people fixed cosplays, and where there were some backgrounds to take pictures of your cosplays.

Joe had some friends that I decided to interview. Since Joe has a podcast he helped me with my interviews. The first person I interviewed was Joe’s friend Jimmy. I asked him if COVID-19 affected his time at Comic Con. He said that he would not go into places that are too crowded. The next thing I asked him was if he agreed with the COVID-19 guidelines. He said that he agreed with the guidelines.

Next, I wanted to interview one of his friends who was selling something to see if COVID-19 affected their business, so Joe took me to his friends, Comfort Love and Adam Withers. What they do is make Comics. They are most known for the comics The Uniques and Rainbow In The Dark. I asked them if COVID-19 affected their business. They said that it did not really affect their business because people were really excited to see people and be back together, but there were definitely fewer people. I asked them if they were concerned about covid. They said that they were lucky to be at a show that makes sure everyone is vaccinated and wearing a mask. They said that they were not concerned because the people who run Comic Con are very good at keeping people safe.

After the interview they gave me a free signed print of their work. It is a very beautiful drawing of Kakashi Sensei (see below).

Even though we are in a pandemic, Comic-Con was safe and fun.

This article originally appeared in The Hamilton Times.