Wizard World East 2011 may now be part of the past, but few people know that, out of it, something new was born.
Whenever I travel to conventions (or pretty much anywhere), I inevitably come across pins or buttons. Sometimes they’re free, a form of promotion. Other times, they cost a very low price (I’ve seen tables offering anywhere from one to ten pins/buttons for $1). As a result, I’ve managed to get my hands on a number of these things, all of which I swear I will add to my apartment’s Pee-Wee-Herman-meets-Ernest-P.-Worrell decor. Aside from a few comic book-related pins (proudly residing in my comic book-themed bathroom) and a set of buttons displaying Bowser and his seven offspring (who knew the “Super Mario Bros.” villain was one Koopaling away from being Mushroom World’s OctoKoop?), the majority of my pointy souvenirs have collected dust on various structures in my room.
Well, I’ve decided to change all of that.
I went into a thrift store close to Wizard World’s downtown Philadelphia location and bought the following hat for $3
A close-up of its price tag:
The apparent lack of a decimal point on the store’s pricing gun initially makes this felt accessory seem a hell of a lot more expensive than it actually is. I considered leaving it on there until I realized that ACTUAL $300 hats out there probably wouldn’t be marked so with such pricing stickers. Also, they wouldn’t have the scent of discontinued brand soap permanently engrained into their fibers, a dead giveaway that the item came from a store with the word “dollar” and/or “thrift” in its name.
I’m going to attach all of my pins to this hat. The same goes for any pins I may acquire at future conventions or elsewhere.
When the entire hat is covered in pins and buttons, I will retire the “Blinky” hat, which has been a staple of my Inochiblog wear up to this point, and don this ridiculous accessory at each and every convention I cover in the future.
So far, the pins in my possession are the following:
Needless to say, they won’t do the job of completely covering the hat. With Otakon coming up in about a month and Intervention in September, my pin and button collection is certain to grow. My goal is to debut the hat at Anime USA 2011, assuming I have an appropriate (meaning embarrassing) amount of metal attached to it.
I’ve already started:
Pictured is a Link pin I acquired from Zenkaikon IV that originally joined the Blinky hat in my official Inochiblog costume. I figure it (and perhaps a soon-to-be-acquired Blinky pin) will be appropriate front-of-the-hat signage.
Wish me luck!
Inochiblog 