Close to Lake Michigan in the state of the same, there-in lies the 2nd largest city in Michigan – Grand Rapids, or aptly nicknamed Furniture City or River City. Around 1700 A.D., people of the Three Fires – the Ottawa (Odawa), Chippewa (Ojibwa) and Potawatomi Indians – built villages in the Grand Rapids area; in 1880 it installed the country’s first hydro-electric generator; currently Fifth Third Riverbank Run (America’s largest 25K road race) is held here and Gerald Ford, the 38th President called it home.
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This great town, aka ‘Best Town for Mountain Biking,’ is famous with foodies as well. In 2012, it scooped up the wins starting with America’s Best Burger (Stella’s Lounge), America’s Best Tea (Madcap Coffee), “101 most crazy-awesome new deserts” listing for their Cornmeal Financier Cake (Grove – which was just named one of the 100 top restaurants in 2015 for foodies), World’s 2nd Best Brewery (Founders Brewing Company) and 3rd Best Beer Bar on the Planet (Hopcat).
Equally well known for their art and gallery life, Grand Rapids has La Grande Vitesse, (first public art work funded in part by the NEA), the Frederik Meijer Gardens & Sculpture Park (one of the world’s 100 most-visited art museums) and hosts ArtPrize (the world’s richest, most radically open art competition).
With all this creativity and talent in one place, it’s no wonder why Grand Rapids Comic Con gathered all of the local and nearby comic lovers to their fantastic convention – perhaps it’s a plan to become one of the top visited comic cons in the country? By the looks of it on saturday, 17 October, the con is on it’s way! The venue was held in DeVos Place, a change from last year due to huge growth.
GREAT CON!!! 4.5 thumbs up on this convention; massive cosplay, great vendors, friendly security, volunteers and staff, well run and willing to take suggestions and make it even better for attendees. Cosplayers in a three, four, maybe even 5 state area had a pre-Halloween con to trick and try out their end of the month costumes at. Amazing showing for all attendees with high levels of creativity, lots of anime and Pokemon, above the average number of group and duo cosplays, unique and self-made costumes with brilliant detail and wonderfully crafted armor, weaponry and headgear. Tons of cosplay variety from steampunk, anime, gaming, sci-fi, comics, TV and movies.
There were so many fantastic convention floor cosplays it was hard to choose only 28, but the Grand Rapids cosplay gallery has some impressively awesome pictures. Next year the convention is scheduled for 21-23 October, 2016 and it is strongly suggested cosplayers consider attending this convention. It has great location (only 3 hours from Chicago), great attendance that is growing every year, excellent food and city entertainment topped off with the perfect cosplay venue for any and all genre you desire!
The best part of the convention was meeting the Golden Age classic comic artist, Allen Bellman and his stylish wife (dressed as Wonder Woman), they were SO enchanting and entertaining to the crowd. Thank you Grand Rapids Comic Con for not forgetting the originators of comics who sometimes are left out of the exciting world they created!
