Worry vs. Donuts

This is probably gonna get ranty, so let’s get to it:

The Good: The programming schedule had very few major shifts over the weekend, and the fans were pretty hospitable. The city returned the favor, welcoming the extra boost of business that the con brought into town. 

The Bad: I still think there should be breaks between panels, but apparently I’m challenging tradition on that one, so we have to stick with the fire code challenging, line violating back-to-back structure that this convention seems to live by. Of more concern are…

The numbers: The poor economy has hit this con, and most vendors and artists confirmed that yes, they are making less money than in years past. Others remarked on the smaller size of the booths and the decidedly scaled-down promotional efforts of some of the bigger companies. Will the trend continue at other conventions? We shall see.

Wrap: When I first started attending cons (Anime Iowa 1997 was my first, for those keeping score), I was told of the dichotomy between “fan” cons and “corporate” cons. A “corporate” con, as I was told, was a convention where the needs of the sponsors were set before the fans because the convention relied on their sponsorship dollars. While it is certain that cons like Anime Expo, San Diego Comic Con, and Wondercon are corporate in this way, having attended these cons has reminded me that these events were still founded by fans and are, for the most part, staffed by them. In this day and age, fans are increasingly fickle with their hard earned cash, which makes the whole “100% fan supported” convention model difficult to implement on a large scale. Furthermore, having corporate sponsorship of a fan-originated event creates the kind of atmosphere that a show like this needs. You get the feeling that the sponsors are coming to the “fan’s turf,” so to speak.

Perhaps that’s why I enjoyed Wondercon. The balance between the fan-centric mood of a smaller con and the need for advertising dollars felt right. We need these kinds of conventions, especially since Reed Exhibitions and their “let’s just spend a ton of money to make sure every big name comes to our con, that way the fans can’t ignore us” business methodology has shown us just what a “corporate con” can entail (and how much it can suck). Despite the tough economic times, things never felt artificial, events ran late into the night, and the public was encouraged to attend late-night events at other locations that were reasonably priced (as opposed to the ludicrously overpriced “post-convention dinner” at New York Anime Festival). 

Although tough times seemed to affect morale in many places of the convention, the feeling at the end of the event was the same: mutual appreciation that was expressed by the attendees and exhibitors alike. As the PA system announced the closing of the event hall, applause could be heard from every table and corner of the Moscone Center. Although I was a little apprehensive about my first comic convention experience at first, in the end, I was more than happy to applaud the convention with everyone else.

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The good: The word from PIxar’s Up panel is good: fans sound pretty happy with what Pixar has planned for the summer. Hopefully this means we won’t be seeing something on the level of, say, Cars 2. Elsewhere, the convention stayed extremely busy on its second day as fans packed the exhibit hall floor and filled panel rooms to capacity. Despite this - and this is quite frankly the most impressive thing about this show - I never saw a line for food that stretched to insane lengths (which I have seen and experienced at every other major con I’ve been to… ever). Whoever made this happen deserves a handsome raise and a lifetime of free massages. Good ones.

The bad: The lines for some events, autograph signings, and the like were not only poorly marked, they often stretched into other areas and blocked tables in the small press comics area. Boo, hiss. 

Running tally of costumes: 4 remote control R2D2s, 1 very impressive Bumblebee Transformer (who drew a team of photographers wherever he wandered), 1 old-school cylon, 2 Katamari “cousins,” Watchmen everywhere, 1 Sailor Moon, and enough Storm Troopers to invade and occupy a small nation. 

Props: To all the friends I saw, all the cool people I chatted with, and to Lincy Chan, who gave me an interview for next week’s The Gallery. Damn, artists are swell people.

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The con season began for me Friday, as I found myself accompanying Lanny to what she is calling “my first comic convention” (as in the focus is mainly on comics, which I like, so huzzah!), Wondercon at the Moscone Center in San Francisco. The convention is run by the people who run San Diego Comic Con, and you can tell - there’s a good mix of Hollywood studios promoting their latest fannish stuff, and it seems like every small and large press comic outfit has a booth in the exhibit hall.

The good: Capcom’s North American HQ is not far from here - a fact that is reflected by their huge booth in the center of the convention hall. On tap from them: demos of the recently released Street Fighter IV and the forthcoming Resident Evil 5. As one might expect, the Watchmen film is EVERYWHERE, Watchmen costumes are everywhere, and I’m going to stop right there because if you really care about Watchmen, there’s another hundred bloggers out there who are able to devote more time to covering it than I am.

Instead, I’d like to give my award for “coolest booth on the floor” to a smaller Hollywood outfit: Miramax, who have a few Skee Ball machines in the exhibit hall to promote their new film Adventureland. The film is director Greg Mottola’s first major film since Superbad (if you haven’t seen this film yet, go rent it now), so I’m really looking forward to it. It also helps that I’m a Skee Ball junkie. Finally, although it is a little small, the Artist’s Alley here is rather impressive, and features a good mix of artists that cater to every style you could possibly imagine. 

The bad: The presence of Hollywood does exactly what one assumes it would - it creates a “larger than life” feeling that can cause you to feel like a “big fish in a small pond” here. Because this con is so huge, it’s no surprise that the close-knit atmosphere you’ll find at some cons is lacking. However, the staff are friendly and helpful, and there’s a little something for everyone here. So as long as you’re searching for something you like, you’ll find it - the search might take you a while though.

Cool stuff today: Although Wondercon boasts a lineup of heavy hitters from So-cal, the con is careful to give plenty of love to local companies that are producing cool nerdy stuff. Case in point: the bay area is home to Pixar, and although Pixar’s relationship with Disney may conjure up visions of scary lawyers with cease-and-desist letters, Pixar has been granted the right to give convention attendees something very special: an advance screening of the first 45 minutes of their forthcoming summer film Up. I don’t know if I’ll make it to the screening (or survive the lines that aforementioned screening will entail), but I have to admit that I’m curious, especially since Wall-E was so fantastic. We’ll see what happens.

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