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Wizard World 2002 It's been a year since the last Wizard World Comic Con in Chicago, Illinois and a few things have changed about the convention. First of all to buy tickets then you have to fill out a form requesting your name, address, telephone number and other personal information. Worst of all, by filling out the form you're automatically signed up to receive their e-mail newsletter. Immediately, my "spider-senses" began tingling telling me that this was a scam. If I'm paying $20 to enter the convention then why does Wizard need to know my "annual family income?" Needless to say, I filled out the survey under my alias of "Mr. Hector Fernandez Braun Junior Jr." of "Bizmark New Zealand" having "15" children with an annual household income of "under $10,000". I wrote my e-mail address down as being "[email protected]". Hopefully, George Jr. won't be too upset as to being included on Wizard's e-mail list.
Then we stood in a line to enter the convention floor. What a line indeed.The line stretched outside the building for several blocks finally wrapping around the building. One of the convention officials kept saying "go in that direction for about six miles. There, you'll find the end of the line." My guess is that we stood in the line for a total of 15 minutes before being let into the convention where the real fun began! This year the surprise toy seemed the be the new, and extremely cool, "Stikfas". A cross between a model airplane and a Gi-Joe. These highly pose able action figures were a hot seller at the convention. I managed to pick one up from a dealer who said that he was almost sold out within a few hours of the shows opening. Where Stikfas could be found the dealers seemed to be in the same predicament. Too many had too few and the demand was too high. I predict that Stickfas fever will sweep the nation in a matter of months. Other items of interest were; Gi-Joe's from the 80's, Transformers, Robotech figures, Japanese toys of all variations, and logo tee-shirts. The most interesting shirts were with 80's characters and movies emblazoned across them. Characters include television's "Mike Severs" and movies like "The Goonies" and "Gremlins." You can't beat a shirt with "The Goonies" Chunk and the words "hey you guys" scrawled across the bottom. Nostalgia just doesn't get any better than that.
Upcoming television series "Firefly" and "Birds of Prey" were being heavilly promoted. There was a gigantic banner hanging in the convention center and ad in the program guide promoting "Firefly". The DC Comics booth played the long trailer for "Birds of Prey" which drew large crowds of excited fans. Other than the Stickfas, I managed to pick up a copy of scripts from the upcoming movies "Plague Season", now titled "Deep Blue", and "The Core". I also picked up a few copies of the 70's horror magazine/comic "Creepy" and the 80's magazine "1994". (Apparently people in the 80's felt that "1994" was a good analogy for "the future". We now know that "1994" is a good analogy for "pizza".) I was surprised this year as to the amount of boot-legged video tapes and DVDs. Usually the videos and DVDs are compromised with nothing more than old television shows and cartoons – if you want to buy episodes of the short lived 60's series "My Mother the Car" than this is the place to be. This year there were versions of recent theatrical releases "Spider-Man" and "lord of the Rings" to name a few. Disturbing indeed since these illegal transactions were taking place in the open. All in all I had a reaqlly good time
at the convention. Next year I pray that they again require you to fill
out a card to enter the convention. I sense that "Hector" might
have a few more children and be making a lot less money! 07/06/02 |
