Conventions

WonderCon? FUNdercon is more like it. Just this once, we decided to take time off at a show to chill and hang out with pals instead of running around like a maniac. Oh sure, we had our Henry Cavill sighting and late night Fix Comics talks. But the great thing about WonderCon is that you can walk the floor of the Moscone Center taking pictures of people in costumes, and buying sketchbooks from your favorite artists and watching exclusive trailer footage...and then run outside and eat or shop in a full-service, world class city, with ocean front views, tiki bar decadence and other exotic thrills a short ride ride away.

The main word yesterday here was BUSY. Everyone who thought this would be a more chill version of SDCC has found that yesterday, anyway, was more just a scaled down version of SDCC, with giant crowds and lines. But that's not a bad thing. Publishers and cartoonists were selling out of things left and right, and there was lots of buzz about comics. We'll have a fuller report later.

Comic fans care about the character or than a particular story. Be true to the characters and fans (in general) will be pleased.

Comic-Con is now like the state fair, as events in Orlando, Memphis, Rockford, WI, and Kansas City took place over the weekend.

On Thursday, March 17, Diamond hosted their "Dialogue with Diamond" panel as part of the Diamond Retailer Summit. Roger Fletcher, Diamond VP-Sales & Marketing, and Bill Schanes, VP-Purchasing, fielded questions and feedback from retailers. Before taking questions from retailers, some data from 2010 was presented.

Joe Field, inventor of Free Comic Book Day and owner of Flying Colors in Concord, has passed along a video called WonderCon 1988 Review, created as a promo tool to get more exhibitors and publishers to attend the '89 show -- then called the Wonderful World of Comics Convention. With next week's show being the 25th anniversary of the Bay Area confab, he's been posting several historical videos to his YouTube account, and this one will blow your mind with its vivid depiction of the primitive conditions our comics forefathers labored under. In addition to a younger version of Joe himself playing Anderson Cooper, you see younger Stan Lee, young Fabian Nicieza, young Tom De Falco, and several other young un's in local TV coverage of the 1987 event. Several interesting factoids emerge from the coverage.

by Brady Russell

S.P.A.C.E. is the Midwest's answer to the Small Press Expo,  founded twelve years ago by Bob Corby, as a show that comics creators without a huge following could afford to go to. I've known about it for a long time and always wanted to go. After attending SPX myself for the first time in 1999, I came home and started Googling creators I had met, and I think it was searching for Suzanne Baumann that I found out about S.P.A.C.E. for the first time. The photos made the show look much smaller, much simpler than SPX, which even ten years ago, at the original location, was a pretty crowded scene.

Much to my surprise there was a comics meet up but further research proved there was an anime AND a furry meet up but I only had time for one. Noah Kuttler, local creator, moderated between aspiring cartoonists, publishers and one sassy-ass reader.

This post by Kirsty Walker rounds up all the evidence FOR the upcoming KA-POW comics convention in London being a total sausage fest -- all the guests, award nominees and face time people are men.

If you'd like to go to San Diego without actually going to San Diego, WonderCon is your best bet. You'll get a scaled down version of the big show with tons of great panels, cartoonists, and even movie stars but with plenty of passes, hotel rooms, and room to jump up and click your heels! The programming has just been released, and there's too much good stuff to possibly see it all, but we've pulled some of our favorites in the jump. To avoid stress, you can go here and make your own schedule. There's also an app for that. As previously mentioned, we'll be at the show, but in a more observational capacity. Come up and say hi!

We'll have our full report in tomorrow's PW Comics Week, but for now, a few notes:

The show was much improved from last year's; rough attendance is about 34,000, according to Lance Fensterman, definitely up from last year.

This was a fun, well run show without a lot of bells and whistles. There wasn't any one thing that made it stand out, but it was definitely a good show with all the elements that achieved "con." The crowd was young and energetic and seemed to be having the time they expected out of a comic-con, (a supposition backed up by happy tweets).

Although The Beat had a sensible evening spent filing stories and getting some sleep, many of the folks gathered in Chicago took advantage of...