Tag: Conventions

We've said it a zillion times, but we'll say it again, with the picturesque setting, great seafood, and top-notch lineup of comics creators, this is a totally relaxing and informative way to spend the weekend. The Beat will be walking around, listening to all who would speak, and giving a piece of her mind to all who would listen. Please stop and say hi! It's been a long year of travel, but Baltimore remains one of our favorite stops.

Shamus has a lot of answers for everything, but doesn't even seem to be saying that comics are a focus of the Wizard shows any more: “When you look at how comicbooks or the characters pervaded the media, they’ve become celebrities themselves. ... So when you look at people, and how they’ve come to know Spider-Man, or Batman, or Star Wars, ten years ago, fifteen years ago, twenty years ago, they may have only known Spider-Man through a comicbook or maybe an animated show or something like that. ... They are going on their own way, creating a large national chain of comic conventions that’s servicing a local population that can’t make it to the bigger shows – but also injecting them with stars of stage and screen to bring in a new audience. ... It took the MCM London Expos to knock that out of me, and I’m starting to realise that my expectations and experiences are not shared by the vast majority of the population and that an increased numbers of Wizard World style conventions will increase the acceptability and appeal of comics to a population, even if that population is only on hand to see Xander and Spike. ... I'd argue that the focus on celebrities past and present at Wizard/Creation shows is not driving attention to the comics publishers who do exhibit at these shows, so without some kind of support -- even Shamus says that the reason there was such minimal comics programming is because attendees weren't interested in it -- it might not be a cost effective marketing push.

It's hard to find much coverage about this weekend's Chicago Comic-Con/Wizard World Chicago that didn't involve disgraced former Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich. That was definitely THE big story, from his meeting with Ethan van Sciver to his encounter with Adam West and an attempt to steal the Batmobile.

...aaaaand as the fall convention season rolls out, we're now getting APE announcements as well. Renee French has just been announced as a guest....

The Baltimore Comic-Con is just around the corner (next weekend in fact) and they have just announced the programming and complete guest list. Always...

(Above: Boom Boom Satellites) Boom Boom Satellites, Zazen Boys, Echostream and Puffy AmiYumi will be performing at the Far East To East Showcase (FETES) during...

Todd Allen was at the WWC/CCC on Preview Night to promote his collected Murder Professor and sent us along some observations. The opinions expressed below are Todd's own and do not necessarily reflect our own.

BTW Maggie Thompson also attended Day 0 -- her thoughts can be found here. Also, we TOTALLY STOLE HER PHOTO OF GAREB SHAMUS, owner of Wizard and their convention arm. Sorry, Maggie.

The Chicago Comic-Con, aka Wizard World Chicago kicks off today in Rosemont, headlined by William Shatner and lots and lots of old actors and...

By Shannon O'Leary, Entertainment Editor<P>

Last week I said I’d turn in a late True Blood Recap after I got back from Comic Con. Last week I hadn’t actually gone to Comic Con yet.   Going to Comic Con this year was not unlike attending The Fall of Saigon. It was a crowded combat zone littered with hundreds of thousands of nerds elbowing each other out of the way so they could get their pop culture freak on until one of them got stabbed in the face with a pen! <P>

I’m not saying it wasn’t fun. I had a blast! But after all that madness, chaos and immersive viral marketing I just don’t have it in me to properly recap the sixth episode of Season Three: I Got A Right To Sing The Blues. Sorry to not live up to my commitments to you, the fang faithful, but I’ve been to war and back and I’m going to save my recapping jujitsu for episode seven on Sunday. What I can do now is tell you a little war story.<P>

The ever-growing slate of Wizard-branded convention swelled by one today with the addition of a spring show in New York, Wizard World Comic Con NYC, set for May 6-8, 2011, at the home of the Big Apple Con, which this resembles, Penn Plaza Pavilion in New York. If you'll note, the name "Comic Con New York" is similar to another comics-themed event, held in the fall.

If you read ONE local paper story about a comic-con/nerdlerbrity fest/back issue bonanza, it should be this one by Micaela Hood in the Miami Herald on this weekend's Supercon, because it nicely captures the peaceful intermingling of the fans in their homemade costumes, the dealers selling stickers, and the aging stars with nowhere else to go. As "Comic-Con" has become a brand name for an entrainment event where you can expect all this and MORE, the various strata of con-world must learn to live with one another. Just what IS going through Richard "Shaft" Roundtree's mind, anyway?

This popped up somewhere in our RSS feed: The Unauthorized San Diego Comic-Con Survival Guideby Doug Kline from popculturegeek.com. This self published guide is a small pocket-sized book that sells for $7 plus shipping and includes info on surviving the ordeal of a lifetime, or at least the month. BUt if you ask us, you don't really need a book to figure out most of this stuff: