A Quick Trip To Wizard World

Since I missed WonderCon, I was still hankering (even after the toy show onslaught) for a good, old-fashioned convention. So I flew down to Los Angeles to hit Wizard World, which makes its way through a variety of cities over the year. It's not as good as WonderCon at its best (which I heard was quite good this year, if you dodged the nasty bug that went around), but it'll do in a pinch. I didn't have a table set up to sell toys - I was just going to feed the nerd-monkey on my back.

I emailed some of my southern California friends to see if anyone wanted to join me. I figured that most of them aren't all that into conventions (so odds were low that any of them had been to one recently), but maybe the combination of Old Home Week and nerd swag would be a good lure. I got a few "yes"-es: Juliana Korsborn, her boyfriend Noah Miller (from my CalArts and Simpsons days, respectively), and my pal Brian Stokes. That was great - I'd have some company for my hunt-and-gathering. I got up horribly early, took a free flight down to Burbank (thanks to some frequent flier miles), and cabbed it over to the Los Angeles Convention Center.

Wizard World has a different guest process than WonderCon or San Diego Comic-Con. It's not hard to register as a professional, but you have to pay ten dollars to get a badge, and your guests cost twenty-five bucks each. I'm spoiled by the other conventions (I don't remember paying anything for badges at WC or SDCC), so it was a little disappointing. Still, the badges are good for all three days.

I'm snootier about convention-going these days (though I'm not sure why - it's a comic book convention, for goodness' sake), so I was also disappointed that I was sent to wait in the regular guest line. Unless you pay for VIP passes, that's where you wind up! Fortunately, the aforementioned nerd monkey insisted that I get there at nine-thirty, so the line wasn't very bad yet. All the guests were nice, and the local Star Wars fan clubs had some really good costumers wandering about to keep everyone happy and patient. There were even a few radio-controlled Artoo-Detoos scooting about that were very nicely made!

The convention opened pretty close to ten o'clock, and it only took a short time to get into the dealers' room. It seemed smaller than I remembered. I worked my way through most of the tables - and the miniature version of Artists' Alley - before my friends arrived. We puttered about for a little while, then went out to lunch.

Initially, we were going to go to a local Italian restaurant, but we discovered that it was closed, so we went to a place called The Liberty Grill instead. The food was somewhat pricey (I think my pulled pork sandwich was over ten dollars), but good. Now that our potential blood sugar issues had been dealt with, we returned to shop in earnest.

I bought a fair amount of swag, but not as much as in the past. Here's a tip if you're concerned about over-spending: carry your loot bag around with you all day. Once the handle starts to cut into your fingers a little, you'll get less enthusiastic, I guarantee it!

So what did I get? The new Jack Kirby book, an Iron Man movie figure that debuted a little early, two DVDs (one for me, one for a friend), two T-shirts that look like the Star Trek uniforms (Spock's tunic for a friend, and I got the "expendable ensign" design) courtesy of roddenberry.com, and a Venture Brothers T-shirt. Good stuff!

I also got a chance to chat with Dave Kellett, the creator of Sheldon and one of the co-authors of How To Make Webcomics. He was quite nice, and very supportive of my desire to learn more about web-comicking. I'm about two-thirds of the way through the book now - some of it is common sense, but there's plenty of great things to keep in mind as you begin to build an online comic strip. I'm the most interested in the technical and business sections - the areas where I have the least amount of experience!

None of us were really interested in the events or panels, so we stuck to the dealers' room for most of the afternoon. There were some costumed folk competing for prizes, and this pair dressed as Mario and Luigi won top honors.

There were also some people playing Rock Band and Guitar Hero with/against each other, which was fun but puzzling. I know what it's like to have your hobby called a waste of time (that's too harsh, anyway), but I can't help but feel that video games don't give you much in the end (maybe gamers look at it like watching television, but with more interactivity). At least with cartooning, I have a drawing when I'm done, but gaming doesn't give you much but sore thumbs and an empty wallet. But hey, I'm a toy collector, and that doesn't give you much, either. Maybe I'm just bitter because I've always been awful at playing games! But I digress.

The four of us burned out on shopping, so we caught each other up on our lives (I don't think we'd seen each other since last summer), and all of a sudden it was time to get back to the airport. Juliana and Noah generously drove me back to Burbank, and... like that. It was fun!