January 24 marked the first annual Creek Con celebrated by CCISD, and with Creek Con comes students in cosplay, special guests and tons of workshops.

Although this is the first district wide Creek Con there was a smaller version during the previous school year.  The previous Creek Con was such a success that other school campuses in the district asked if it could be opened up to other schools in CCISD.

“I personally am not into Comic-Con type of things myself, but I was sitting here and I was watching a group of kids and seeing how excited they were getting over the manga, which are Japanese graphic novels so as I was watching them I thought, ‘Hey! We should do something for the students that like comics, and manga, and gaming and things like that since we have a lot of them here, and the idea just popped in my head.’” Ms. Gladney-Lemon said discussing the idea behind Creek Con.   

All throughout the day many vendors and exhibitors lined the hallway in front of the library stretching down to the C-pod. These vendors were selling comics, food, jewelry and more. The vendors that were present among them all were More Than Human, Twisted Lines, Bedrock City Comics, Wind Catcher Jewelry, Wayne’s Comic Closet, Double Dave’s Pizza, Remix Comix, Texas Brick Railroad, Gypsy Gems Emporium, TWINDOM Texas, Southern Grace and many more.

Throughout the entire day Creek Con was visited by many special guests such as the actress Brea Grant, the comic illustrator Jerzy Drozd, the New York Times bestselling Author Lauren Oliver, actress Pam Dougherty, voice actor J. Michael Tatum and Chris Sabat, who is a Clear Creek High School alumni and also worked as the voice of Vegeta from Dragonball Z. Many of these guests were teaching different workshops on various topics like the craft of voice acting, author presentation workshop, the art of henna, intro to podcasting and introduction to graphic art.

“In addition to big names we have lots of people doing workshops, and one that I personally thought was cool is the Macgyvering the International Space Station. Someone from NASA that works at the international space station came to talk about when something breaks at the International Space Station and how they fix it, since when they’re in space they can’t exactly go to Wal-Mart or home depot to buy a part and fix it.” Ms. G-L said. ‘Macgyvering the International Space Station’ was a panel that was held in the auxiliary cafeteria hosted by a member from NASA. Michelle Fitzgerald led the discussion and told us about the items they built from spare parts of the station. Things that were built were tools such as window box, a balky tool, a solar array, and a tethered lube brush made out of a toothbrush.

“Yes! We did, in fact, fix the International Space Station with a toothbrush!” Fitzgerald said. 

From 9:00 am, when Creek Con opened its doors, to 4:00 pm, when Creek Con ended, there were many workshops, activities and fan meet ups to participate in throughout designated areas of the school. These areas were essentially, the cafeteria, the C-pod, the auditorium, the auxiliary cafeteria and the field. There were various hourly activities including all day Wii dance and karaoke games, all day Minecraft, Pokémon DS battles along with Mario Kart DS competitions, Anime Screening from 11:30 am to 4:00 pm and a Cosplay Contest.

The Cosplay contest was held in the auditorium from 1:00 pm to 2:00 pm. The results of the Contest were told toward the last hour of the convention in the courtyard. A tremendous group of convention goers were gathered around to hear the results. The winners were divided into four subgroups of elementary school, middle school, high school and adult. The winner for the elementary category was Zhiavanna Magdeleno, Annelise Ware for middle school, Arlyssia Lemon for high school and Sophie Hyuen for the adult category.

Along with the activities were many games that you could learn how to play such as Quidditch for all the Harry Potter enthusiasts, Magic the Gathering, Superheroes Heroscape and more. As for the meet ups, they were scheduled at different times around the C-pod. The meet ups consisted of fans meeting with one another to talk about the movies and shows that they were interested in. There were meet ups for Star Wars, Harry Potter, Dragonball Z and Doctor Who.

Creek Con was a day filled with cosplay, anime, comics and more, and though it was only the first Creek Con the will definitely be more to come.