One of the things a lot of pros like about C2E2 is the late start on Friday. It doesn't open to the public until 1:00 pm, so creators can sleep in and recover from their trips if they want. Or, if they want to go early to set up or just walk around and visit with each other, they can do that too. It's also helpful for press jerks taking lots of pictures. Lots. Of pictures.

The first thing I noticed on the show floor - after the giant C2E2 sign welcoming me to the show - was Profiles in History's setup for their Captain America: The First Avenger auction. It's an impressive display of props and costumes from the film.

If Captain America's costumes and shields are a little out of your price range, there's of course other stuff to buy. The CS Moore Studio are mostly selling cheesecake statues, but these two are notable exceptions.

DC Collectibles always has some cool stuff and it was nice to see those Dark Knight Rises Catwoman statues in person. You can't buy any of the DC Collectibles stuff at the show, but it's a great way to build your shopping list for later.

That Darwyn Cooke Batman Black-and-White statue is also way cool.

Enough of the statues. This superhero sleepwear for women is also really cool.

And so are these bathrobes.

I'd never begrudge a Wonder Woman fan something this cool, but I admit to being disappointed when I got close enough to realize this wasn't a Shang Chi robe.

Another great thing about C2E2 is that it's located near so many awesome restaurants and other things to do in downtown Chicago. One of my favorite places to eat is Heaven on Seven, a cajun restaurant, so I snuck off there with a buddy before the show officially opened.

In addition to traditional jambalaya (and gumbo, and etouffee, and everything else), the chef also makes an awesome jambalaya with orzo pasta. I've eaten a lot of cajun food both in and out of New Orleans, and they aren't lying when they claim that Heaven on Seven is the best outside the actual city.

On the way back to the convention, we saw that someone had decorated this RedEye box appropriately for the weekend. It was the only one like it that we saw (and there's no convention logo on it), so I don't think it's an official promotion, but it was cool to see that someone was getting into the spirit.

Back at the convention, it was time to visit some people who actually make comic books. I always love stopping by the Archaia booth to see what's new. I expect I'll have more to say about them later, but I did stop and pick up the first volume of Fraggle Rock while Katie Cook was signing.

It was cool and a little surreal to see First and Valiant booths at the show. Apologies for the blurry Valiant photo.

There was also lots of cool not-comics stuff to look at, like this machine that "prints" 3D models with wire.

My favorite part of every convention is Artist Alley, so I spent most of the afternoon there, checking in with friends, catching up on upcoming projects, and meeting new (to me) creators. I used the table of LucasFilm artist (and my roomie for the show) Grant Gould as my home base and took a few breaks from the show to tablesit for him.

I'm very excited to see Archaia's edition of Cursed Pirate Girl (due out this summer), but probably not as excited as Jeremy Bastian.

It's always awesome to check in with the dapper Christopher Herndon and his dinosaur comics.

One of the best parts of any show is getting one of Katie Cook's $5 mini-paintings. This time it was a Pikachu for my Pokemon-obsessed son.

I recently finished Royden Lepp's Rust and liked it a lot, so I made sure to stop by his table and pick up another one of his books. He tells me that Rust, Volume 2 will be out this summer.

My final creator-visit of the day was with Kelly Sue DeConnick while she was signing at the Marvel booth. I'm so stoked about Captain Marvel and Ghost I can't even tell you.

Sort of halfway between exhibitor and cosplayer was this fellow from GeekChic's Mustache Emporium. I grow my own, but if I'm ever in the need for a store-bought mustache, this is where I'm going. Tiny Wonder Woman agrees.

And that's the segue to our final set of photos, because - oh yes - there were cosplayers.

Did I say that was the final set? Here's one last picture: my swag for the day. I forgot to take a picture of Phil Hester when I picked up the second volume of The Anchor from him, but not because he's not pretty. He so is.