That was three days ago? A Rundown of Wizard World Chicago

This past weekend I set aside my internship and other responsibilities to attend yet another year of Wizard World Chicago with Shions_Glasses. It’s awesome to see every year more and more women and girls attending the con—the first year I went there didn’t seem to be a lot of us, but this year there was lots. It’s a good time to be a fan girl.

I don’t know if it was just me, but Wizard World seemed tiny this year. There just didn’t seem to be as many panels or booths. Hell, the Nintendo booth wasn’t even there. A shame because I was looking forward to getting some more free Pokemon cards and downloading a rare Pokemon or mystic ticket for my copy of Diamond.

Marvel’s booth had me a bit disappointed. I’m always impressed with free swag, even if it’s just DC’s Countdown pins and Batman temporary tattoos. I was crossing my fingers for a John Cassidy X-Men poster or something like that. There was a glossy poster for Anita Blake: Vampire Hunter that was definitely cheesecakey, but a little outside my taste.

I was surprisingly impressed with Sony’s booth. They seemed to aiming for some accessibility by being kid friendly. The PaRappa the Rapper port for the PSP was getting a strong push, as was the strategy-RPG Jeanne D’Arc. I grabbed a gorgeous poster for Jeanne D’Arc, and Shions_Glasses was given a PaRappa t-shirt that’s about five times too large just for posing for a few pictures with the PaRappa mascot.

On Saturday afternoon we made sure to stop by the DC booth to get Will Pfeifer’s signature. Other than that, we didn’t have too much to do with the big two. Instead of going to any of the panels we spent our time flipping through back issues and wandering around Artist Alley. We picked up about 20 issues of Gotham Cental (all for $1.50!) and grabbed Spider-Woman: Origin and the Metal Gear Solid TPB for half-off. In the Artist Alley I searched out David Mack (as I do every year) and bought the second and third volumes of Kabuki. Before we left for the evening we caught some Beck (dubbed, yuck) in the anime screening room. I’m a bit annoyed that they were only showing Funimation licensed anime this year. What about Manga and Bandai? They were there too.

Saturday night was probably my favorite part of the convention, though it wasn’t specifically Wizard World-related. In my part of Chicago they were having a neighborhood festival, and in celebration my local comic book shop invited their regulars to come hang out and drink some beers. There wasn’t too many of us there, which was more than alright with me. I was content with talking the whole while with a woman who didn’t even stop at home to change out of her Catwoman costume. The whole experience was a bit surreal: where I grew up I bought my comics from a video rental store, so there was never a place for me to go and hang out and talk geek.

Sunday was more of buying. For 35% off we picked up the first volume of Monster (manga is always seriously lacking at WW), Coward, the three TPB volumes of Bruce Wayne: Fugitive and Tales of the Slayers. We also stopped by Artist Alley and grabbed a copy of Winter Beard by Cathy Hannah and The Exploits of Aimless Boy by John Aston Golden, who is actually a regular at my comic book store. We waited in line for the Wheel of Doom and I won my cat a rubber band to play with (the topic I chose was Lunar: The Silver Star and they unfortunately didn’t know what the hell I was talking about) and Shions_Glasses won a hardcover book of Wizard covers, which he promptly gave away.

It was after this point that the con went sour. We stopped one last time at the Sony booth to check out the Heavenly Sword demo. Some guys came up behind us, and one of them decided that it’d be a ton of fun to verbally harass me. I don’t feel like going into too much detail, but his comments involved such things as upskirt shots, masturbation, and rape. Unable to contain my anger, I told him to please shut the hell up, and went on to furiously explain that rape is not a joke, it’s a hate crime, etc. but as he only seemed to get more belligerent with my every response. So I went to security and he disappeared into the milling crowd. At least I can say that security did take me seriously and even profusely apologized.

Yet getting harassed sucked any fun that was left out of the con. We did go afterward to check out the Fullmetal Alchemist movie, but it was difficult to enjoy.

With all the internet harassment that’s been going on lately in the game and comics community—the avalanche of racist comments regarding Resident Evil 5, the hijacking of GayGamer.com, and Girl-Wonder.org getting hacked— being harassed at the con just fit in too perfectly.

Face, Flyers and Comics

First, before I talk about Wizard World, I want to direct your attention over to New Game Plus. Lake Desire’s put up the third edition of the Carnival of Feminist Science Fiction and Fantasy Fans. It’s not to be missed!

The Flyers

Mid morning, Shions_Glasses and I met up with Dan Jacobson (who really is an incredibly sweet guy). We chatted, and then took to the convention floor with an important mission: handing out Girl-Wonder.org flyers to the comic book masses.

In the past I’ve distributed flyers for various causes before, not to mention that last year I was responsible for giving out condoms on my college campus. It’s always been a bit nerve wracking for me, as I’m not the most outgoing person. But it was different at Wizard World. While I did have to initially muster up the courage so that I was able to approach strangers with a certain amount of confidence, I found that once I started, I couldn’t stop. Our plan of attack was to hit the major exhibitors booths, like Wizard, Marvel and DC, and work our way back to Artist Alley. This included slipping flyer’s randomly in Dark Horse bags, and sliding others into hardcover Frank Cho nudie books. I placed some at the wrestling ring’s booth, and others at booths that were seemingly empty. (Which is how some were placed at Peter David’s booth.) Shions_Glasses and Dan focused more on the fanboys, while I handed out flyers mainly to the fangirls. Nearly everyone was incredibly nice, even supportive, and it was awesome to see many of the women in Artist Alley get excited when I explained Girl Wonder’s mission. My absolute favorite moment was when Shion gave a flyer to Greg Land. Think he’ll visit the site?

Because we received such a great reception, I truly think it’d be worthwhile for Girl Wonder to have it's own booth at Wizard World next year. I’d be all over volunteering to sit at it.

The Well-Known

One of the best parts of Wizard World is seeing those that you admire. While resting by the Snackoteria, we saw none other than Dirk Benedict, aka Face from the A-Team (or you know, Lt. Starbuck in Battlestar Galactica). Shions_Glasses took pictures of him ordering popcorn, but alas, I accidentally erased them. (Sadly, I lost all my pictures from Wizard World). Shion also ran up to shake his hand—I hear he’s a nice a guy.

David Mack had his own booth at Wizard World--just like last year--which he tirelessly manned on his own. I’m a huge fan of his work, and whenever I’ve gone up to talk to him I become hopelessly tongue-tied. No matter; just like last year, he patiently listened to me stumbled over my words, gave me a deal on a couple of his books, and then presented to me, after I gave him a Girl Wonder flyer, a beautiful print which he gave to me for free. A day later and I’m still swooning.

The Loot

I pretty much bought all the comics that were on my list:
--All issues of Catwoman that were penned by Will Pfeifer that I didn’t already have
--The second TPB of She-Hulk from Dan Slott’s first run
--The third TPB of Gotham Central
--The first TPB of Batgirl: Year One
--The first volume of the Revolutionary Girl Utena manga

Not to mention that I learned how the play the Pokemon card game, and loved every second of it.

Ja, mata.

Late tomorrow, Shions_Glasses and I are leaving for Japan, and will be gone for three weeks. I’m not sure the next time I’ll be able to post, but I’ll try to keep things updated here as much as possible. ::Blows internet kiss:: See you around!

It's Like A Holiday

We're a couple days away from Wizard World! I have a pretty long list of comics I'm looking for and have been holding out from buying, so I'm super excited.

I'll really be packing it in. Since I'm leaving the country on Sunday, I'll have to squish in panels, the exhibitors floor, and the artist alley all in one day. Not to mention that I'll be handing out girl-wonder.org flyers while doing so, and meeting up with the fantastic Dan Jacobson.

Also, a plug: when walking through the artist alley, be sure to stop by local Chicago artist Sarah Becan's booth. I adore her work.