WonderCon Highlights Part 2: Fun Finds

I know, I know! Time runs away with you when you park your six kids with your parents and skip town for a comics convention and then come home and there’s all kinds of laundry to do, and suddenly a week has passed since you wrote your WonderCon Highlights Part 1 post and if you don’t hurry up, it’ll be time for Comic-Con again, for Pete’s sake.

So. Whew. Let me get down to it. On Sunday afternoon at WonderCon, after we enjoyed a perfectly perfect brunch with GeekMom Kristen and her family, my hubby returned to the hotel to read Saga for the third time, and I headed over to the exhibit hall for some browsing.

True confession: I love a long, solo stroll through a convention hall packed with vendors. Even at SDCC, when the crushing crowds can sap the life force from your very bones, I love it: the costumes, the toys, and above all the books. And tucked between the piles of mass-produced loot: the artistic treasures.

Here’s a look at some of my favorite discoveries at this year’s WonderCon.

Tucked behind a table at the farthest end of the hall, I met Kim Rountree of Oboro Charms, an artist whose kawaii polymer clay creations made me squeal.

And then there was this:

Little Bookwormz is run by a couple of bona fide geek moms, Janice Markham and Paula Sewell. I wanted to buy one of everything at their booth. Alas, I contented myself with the fabulous Jane Austen shirt pictured here, a gift for my oldest daughter, whom I call Jane on my blog. But I really really wanted that W is for William (Shakespeare, naturally) shirt, too, and the F is for Frida, and E is for Emily, and also E is for Edgar, and…you see what I was up against.

They even had onesies. Actually, now that I look at my photo above, I think those are the J is for Jane onesies there. Where were these when I had a baby in the house?? And the bibs with quotes on them: swoon. “The belly will not listen to advice.” (Seneca) Ha!

If I were in the market for an MP3 player, I’d have been sorely tempted by the killer cute Mugo jobbies: combo MP3 player and flash drive. I liked the tigress one.

One of my favorite finds was a sweet and simple cookbook comic by Jenn of justjennrecipes. It’s called Original Grandma and is a collection of Jenn’s Japanese-American grandmother’s favorite recipes, complete with actual grandma dialogue.

I really enjoyed getting to know O.G. through the pages of this unique little book. And I’m dying to try her Somen Salad.

And I know a certain little geekgirl who would approve of Jenn’s homemade Hello Kitty Oreos…or “Tokyo Meow-Meow” Oreos, as Kristen’s daughter would call them.

Ahh…now to read all the books I lugged home from the con. I’m particularly interested in the Bean comics by Travis Hanson. Have you read these? I haven’t had a chance to sit down with them yet, but they look like something my kids might enjoy…