Wizard World Comic Con - 2015...
This weekend, I went to the Wizard World Comic Con in Philadelphia. I decided to order tickets in advance online. It still amazes me how quickly the order went through. In no time at all I had a couple of PDF files to print. This year, I would be bringing my nephew, Anthony with me.Highlights of this year's Comic Con in Philadelphia include:
- David Tennant And Billie Piper, DOCTOR WHO,
- M. Night Shyamalan and Burt Reynolds
- Roman Reigns, Dolph Ziggler, Randy Orton and Sting, WWE,
- Summer Glau, River Tam - "Firefly"/SERENITY,
- Danny Trejo, MACHETE, FROM DUSK TILL DAWN,
- Kevin Conroy, Batman - "Batman: The Animated Series",
- Lou Ferrigno, "The Incredible Hulk"
On the day of the event, my nephew, who was now a seasoned convention veteran wasn't up as early as he was last year. I didn't have to be anywhere until 10:00am, so, after washing up and getting dressed, the first order of business was to make sure that the kitties had breakfast.
Anthony's father, Tony, gave us a lift to the Convention Center in his shiny new Lincoln. This year we arrived in style as Tony dropped us off right in front of the entrance. There were convention staff members in light blue t-shirts directing convention-goers to the appropriate entrance. We got inside and there were additional convention staff members directing traffic -- VIP passes in one line, regular passes in another line and people without passes in yet another line. We had regular passes, so, we were directed to a staging area. The convention staff did a nice job of keeping the lines moving. Our passes were scanned and we were on our way to the main convention hall in just a few minutes. One of the escalators stopped working, but, it wasn't enough of an annoyance to really bother anyone.
A nice touch this year was red carpet in all the main pathways. We headed along the main path running parallel to the entrance. In the corner we ran into the Batmobile from the 60's Batman TV show, Mystery Machine from the Scooby Doo movies and Kitt from Knight Rider. For a modest fee, we could have our pictures taken in the various cars, but, we decided to take a pass on the car photo ops.
We turned the corner and moved along the backside of the dealers space. In the opposite corner, we found the beer garden and the gaming area. Then, we explored the dealer tables. Last year, I made the mistake of buying the big items early and then had to drag them around all day. This time around, I brought a pen and paper so I could take notes about places I might want to visit later.
Moving through the various tables, we came across one dealer showcasing various bootleg DVDs. While don't generally support bootleg DVDs, I'm not above buying a bootleg DVD, if it's something very rare and interesting. I did note that this particular dealer had some rather eclectic mix of 70s and 80s titles on hand. Of particular interest was, the French animated feature, Light Years aka Gandahar. If I didn't already have this item in my DVD collection, I would have been sorely tempted to buy it.
As we proceeded through the dealer tables, we spied some high-end collectible figures. A two-foot, exquisitely detailed Superman figure caught my eye, but, was well beyond my price range. There were quite a few other drool-worthy items on hand.
We stopped by a table with a selection of artists' prints. Anthony couldn't resist picking up an Attack On Titan print. The dealer really wanted to sell us a handful of other items and name-dropped a secret Disney project called -- Top Secret. I didn't happen to see anything that said "buy me", so we moved on. In another booth, I noticed a handful of signed prints from artist, Daxiong Guo, featuring female characters posed with Chinese dragons.
In another dealer booth we saw some of the most expensive items we would encounter at the convention -- a handful of animation cels from the classic Disney title, Snow White -- $9999. At another dealer table we spotted more high-end collectible figures. There was a Maleficent (Angeline Jolie) figure that was really calling for me, but, reluctantly, I moved on.
After having a good look through the dealer tables, we decided to zig-zag through Artists' Alley. Early on in our exploration, we came across Studio 107. They specialize in a variety of handmade jewelry, some items have a Steam Punk flair about them. There was a Steam Punk butterfly necklace that I thought would be an ideal souvenir for Mom. Tradition calls for me to find something interesting, but, not scary to bring home to Mom. And, being Mother's Day weekend meant that it had to be something nice. I made a note of the location and decided to consider this item for later. Before making a commitment, I wanted to have a good look around at the other artists' wares.
We stopped by the booth of the artist, Chrissie Zullo. Anthony was smitten with a very nice poster of Attack On Titan. Anthony picked up a second poster featuring Harley Quinn and I took home a third poster featuring Rei from Neon Genesis Evangelion.
After poking around Artists' Alley for a while longer, noon came and it was time for lunch. Anthony and I skipped the local tourist traps and headed over to what was left of the Gallery. McDonald's was the only place left open in the food court. We had a couple of burgers in the air-conditioned comfort and relative quiet of the nearly empty Gallery. It was a surreal experience.
After lunch, we headed back to Convention Center. We headed back up to the main convention space and it was immediately obvious that there were *A LOT* more people. So, the first order of business, was to head over to Studio 107 to pick up the Steam Punk butterfly for Mom. Then, we headed over to the Wizard World booth to pick up a magnet for Mom's refrigerator.
Anthony wanted to find issues of All Star Superman, so, we checked out a number of comic book vendors. The first couple of vendors we looked at, specialized in older titles and didn't have the specific title that Anthony was after. Another vendor had another Superman title that Anthony just couldn't resist buying, but, not the title he was looking for. Eventually, we stumbled upon a vendor with a unique solution to Anthony's problem. This particular vendor specialized in pre-assembled packages containing all items in a related set. Anthony picked up the entire All Star Superman and another set that just couldn't NOT come home with him.
Afterwards, I had to go back to the figurine vendor to pickup that Maleficent figure that had been calling for me earlier. I don't usually buy extravagant things for myself, but, I just couldn't say no. While we were there, Anthony picked up a Jango Fett mug.
After these last two purchases, it was 2:00pm, so, it was a good time to head back home. On the way out, we happened to spy a life-size statue of the white Orc from the latest series of Hobbit movies. We had discovered the WETA booth. WETA are the people who did the special effects for the Lord of the Rings and Hobbit movies. There were a handful of drool-worthy items on hand including a large Smaug figure curled up around his treasure hoard for less than $800. I'm not sure how we managed to miss it on the way in, but, I'm glad that we didn't miss it entirely.
Before leaving, Anthony made sure to get his picture taken a bunch of times with various people in costume and had a wonderful time. All things considered it was a very good day.
My only regret, is that when I got home Mom was really, really enamored with the Maleficent figure and I had to tell that she was getting a Steam Punk butterfly instead. :-(
