Tag: Conventions

It's a rare day in SoCal with high wind and rain lashing the area around WonderCon. Which is not good, because apparently the Anaheim Convention Center leaks.

Well here we are in Anaheim, a battlefront very familiar to veterans of the Anime Expo, Wizard World Anaheim, and many other campaigns. But it's a new setting for WonderCon veterans...and The Beat. You'll recall that WonderCon is normally held in the Bay Area of Northern California. However, construction at the Moscone left the show dates up in the air and CCI organizers had no choice but to move it down to Anaheim.

Rather than flood your Twitter with a ton of postings, we've just dumped it all in one place—scan for your faves! Never a dull moment.

The programming slate for WonderCon, being held March 16-18, has been announced: Friday Saturday Sunday

Anonymous Image creator on the mood at the Image Expo. It was by all account a successful weekend if only as a pep rally, with hopes for the future and independence for creators. The crowds weren't immense, except on Saturday, but they liked what they saw.

Only days ago we were speculating with an industry pal on what had ever happened to Morgan Spurlock's documentary about the San Diego Comic-Con, which was filmed with some fanfare in 2010, had a splashy tie-in book last summer, premiered at the Toronto Film Festival and then went silent.

They're the sites of the continental US's two biggest comics pop culture explosions. And neither one is nearly big enough.

According to the organizers themselves, the key factor in Comic Con’s 2010 decision to spurn suitors from  Anaheim and Los Angeles, and to stay in San Diego (at least through 2015) was the stated commitment of local hotels to not gouge future visiting Con-goers with jacked up rates during the Con.  It was, however, the promise by local politicians and hoteliers to pursue an ambitious expansion of the San Diego convention center (already bursting at the seams from the 125,000 capacity of the Con) that was expected to lock down Comic Con in San Diego long term.

Kids in India don't read comics either. Or so says this story on the just concluded second annual Comic Con India:

The major con season for 2012 kicked off with MegaCon in Orlando. And so did the con news tidbits season.

The first ever Image Expo is shaping up for the end of next month with the addition of Ed Brubaker, whose FATALE recently launched and has sold out. This is really looking like a zeitgeisty kind of show -- Image is scooping up formerly exclusive mainstream writers like a rescue boat in the North Sea, and the lineup of guests includes many with passionate followings.

Last week's Angoulême festival extravaganza wrapped up with the presentation of the Grand Prix to Jean-Claude Denis, whose career goes back to the '70s but is perhaps best known in France for Luc Leroi. The Grand Prix is presented for a lifetime body of work—Denis is perhaps less well-known than some other winners, at least in the US. He was presented with the award by last year's winner, Art Spiegelman, as shown in the above video.