WonderCon 2012 Held At The Anaheim Convention Center from Friday March 16th through Sunday March 18th! |  | | | |
|
TODAY'S FEATURE IS BLOG #3624 - My first WonderCon - and Wondercon's first jaunt to SoCal - was super-mellow. Now that's an oxymoron for you. Let me explain: If you took San Diego Comic Con, slashed attendance by 75% and The Scarecrow gassed the convention center with an airborne version of Xanax, you'd have WonderCon 2012.
Maybe it was because we were next door to the Happiest Place on Earth, but these folks were the most laid-back Comic-Conners I've ever seen. No rushing, no pushing, no seat jumping, no pens to the eye. That said, this was the first Con (in 10+ years of Cons) where I've had anything stolen. Sadly, someone swiped my prized Fringe Lenticular luggage tag while I was in the big Ballroom on Saturday. Said villian even had the nerve to tuck the tie back into my case! May he/she spend the rest of their sorry days encased in amber.
Michael and I attended all three days: Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. Here are my random thoughts on WonderCon 2012 (Anaheim):
Blame It on the Rain. WonderCon 2012 will be best remembered for the deluge that was Saturday and the misery it wrought on this most-attended day. Whether you walked from your hotel or drove over an hour or more (me) to get there, you got wet. Correction, you got drenched. Now realize, I lived over 20 years in New Jersey, I know from rain. This rain was positively Biblical. I was wearing a real rain coat (from my NJ days) and it leaked! Worst of all the rains wrecked havoc on an already shaky parking situation. We exited the freeway about 9:15 am only to spend the next 75 minutes crawling the blocks around the convention area searching for parking. We ended up at the Happiest Place on Earth's "Toy Story" lot which kindly honored the convention parking rate. Unfortunately, this was the moment the skies decided to open with a vengeance. We tried to wait it out, but it would not let up. So we hoofed it about a mile to the convention center arriving with drenched feet and clothes - despite a raincoat and umbrella! I kept wondering, what did the WonderCon folks do to piss off Storm ?
Hall of Horrors. It's hard to imagine that Comic Con International was seriously considering moving SDCC to Anaheim Convention Center. The shallow foyers, small bathrooms and two tiny escalators could never accomodate the SDCC hordes. While WonderCon only had Exhibit Hall D, Con goers spread out the length of the convention center foyer crowding the shallow space and making walking difficult. Fans had no place to hang out with their friends. On the plus side, the convention center staff kept those too-small bathrooms clean and the exhibit floor was configured with wide aisles which eased traffic - a welcome respite from the frustrating standstills, pushing and near-riots on the SDCC floor.
And Now for Something Completely Different. Whoever recommended the Ballroom panel for "Sound of My Voice" needs to have their duties reassigned. Like most, I figured I'd suffer through it in between Trailer Park and Prometheus. And suffer we did. First we were 'treated' to the first inane 12 minutes of the film which included a multi-part 'secret handshake'. Note to film makers: whenever the screening audience bursts out laughing during the serious part of your film, you need to cut. That was 12 minutes of my life that I'll never get back. But wait, it gets worse - two of the actors then came out in character to 'invite' us to their Exhibit Hall booth to join their wacky little cult. At this point, the laughing turned into snorting and uncomfortable silence. But still, this looney and indulgent panel droned on! Next we endured the ramblings of the two people responsible for this drivel as they answered questions from a PR shrill and planted Q&A. While we prayed for deliverance, it became obvious: WonderCon ain't Sundance and Sound of My Voice ain't Blair Witch.
MIA. On the plus side, the Exhibit Hall featured tons of comic book resellers, toys, t-shirt vendors and booths for tons of stuff I have no idea what it was. If you visited an ATM recently, you probably went home with some cool loot. If you were looking for exclusives or were hoping to score some swag, you were disappointed. Aside from the very cool and very popular HBO/Game of Thrones booth where fans could get their heads impaled on a spike, there really weren't any fun experiential booths. Hollywood was essentially MIA.
Of course, this meant more time for Con goers to connect with comic book artists and writers at various booths. WonderCon gave fans plenty of opportunity to get up close and personal with their comic book gods - and, really, isn't that what a comic convention is all about? Grade for this Con? It's a VERY FINE FINUS (VF-) 7.5 out of a possible 10.0 comic book grade. ~Tina LoSasso
(Note: Also, here is the link to the special photo album at my Facebook fan page for the pics taken at the WonderCon 2012! ~Michael D Hamersky On Comics )
 NOTE FROM Michael D Hamersky On Comics: My thanks again to all of YOU reading this blog and our archived blog posts, now at 3,624 total posts in number! I do appreciate your continued reading and support of this Blog!
BTW, You can 'follow' this blog by clicking the 'Follow' Button at this NetworkedBlogs app link! We currently have over 2,718 'Followers'! Thanks to ALL of YOU that have already clicked that button! And for those of YOU that haven't yet... I would appreciate it if YOU would!!! Note: My online 'Loca8' Comic Book Shop (LCBS), carries many different genres of comics, magazines, graphic novels, and comic con promotional items. Possibly even copies of the item(s) that was mentioned here today...! If I have it, you'll find under the BIG TOP of Comics, at Comic Books Circus.com, including the book 'Gotham City 14 Miles' that I am shown holding to the left. I'm 1 of 14 essayists in that book! ! Web Page Note: This blog post is written per the IE Browser standards. Chrome, Safari, Netscape, Firefox and the other browsers serve the page up slightly differently, sorry about that! The screen display resolution is best seen at the setting of 1024 x 768 on your laptop or desktop computer. Note: Your computer's resoulution may be set differently, but the above resolution is the most commonly used resolution at the time of this blog post. NOTE: All images and characters within this blog post are copyright and trademark their respective owners. Comics Creators: If you are breaking into, or already work in the comic book industry or other pop culture productions, you are welcome to email or mail us press releases, news items, and updates that you feel would be of interest to our blog readers. Including YOUR own works! To mail printed items to us for possible review, send to: Make It So Marketing Inc., PO Box 130653, Carlsbad, CA 92013  Also, if you are a Facebook member, I would have liked you to send me a 'Friend Request'. However, I have reached the maximum limit of 5,000 Facebook Friends and Fan pages already, so I've added a New 'Facebook Fan Page' so that even more of YOU can 'Like' what I am doing, and be interactive with me and others there. Here is the link to that 'Facebook Fan Page': Michael D Hamersky On Comics! Please click the 'Like' button on that page!---------------  In Addition, I started a YouTube Channel just before the 2011 Comic-Con International, where I am slowly uploading videos from conventions or other events that we attend that are also pop culture related. You are invited to 'subscribe' to that channel also! As found at 'HamerskyOnComics'!
|
caffeinated
