On May 4th, the Comics, Manga and Fandoms at McHenry High school visited the DePaul Universitys pop culture conference. Students were met with different panels, books, and other items as well as a multitude of academic panels about writing, humor in movies and TV, all with a forceful Star Wars twist.
“Well, I’ve been running the pop culture conference for 11 years,” Booth says, “We do a different topic every year- because this one landed on May the fourth it was like, It’s time for Star Wars.”
The first panel students attended was run by Kathleen Turner, accompanied by her husband, and the child- which was their baby in a Grogu costume. The most interactive panel by far, we had been handed a packet with a few questions that went along with their speech.
Hypotheticals and what-ifs of if Darth Vader prevailed, if Anakin had never gone to the dark side and someone else had taken his place, yadda yadda. After long discussions about what we had thought of taking place, and in depth character analysis of whoever, we sat down to write, and had written a few paragraphs about a character we know about.
A handful of Comics, Manga, and Fandoms Club students had participated, some of them reading their stories out loud.
“My goal of the writing was to focus on what he was feeling, what he might be thinking about, and how his hatred for his best friend started,” Echo Pecararo, a Comics, Manga, and Fandoms Club member says, “I imagined that he was stuck inside his own head while he was ‘dead.’”
While Pecararo mentioned that the fanfiction writing panel was by far their favorite, they had seemed enthusiastic throughout the entirety of the event, much like all of the other students.
It seemed that there was something lively, energetic running in the air, because other students had reported having a blast as well.
“I had a lot of fun at the convention,” Dominic Wiszowaty, another member of the Comics, Manga, and Fandoms Club says, “especially since we did a good job with representing MCHS– As for my favorite panel, it’s between the fanfiction panel or the small panel run about humor in Star Wars.”
All in all, with surprisingly respectful high schoolers wielding their homemade lightsabers, a multitude of people who know about the academic viewpoint behind their favorite media, and even an author of one of the most popular Star Wars books, everyone seemed to enjoy themselves. The Star Wars conference at Depaul on May 4th, albeit academic, had clearly brought people– even those that perhaps, never would have met. Not only was this year amazing, there’s also an opportunity for MCHS students to attend the Depaul Pop Culture Conference next year, the theme being reality TV.
