Wondercon was both super fun and super draining. I am just now feeling like a human again, so here’s the highlight reel:
Demos
Our demos went really well, but it was pretty clear by midday on Friday we were going to have to put in some extra hours to accommodate all the people that wanted to try out the awesome Steve Jackson Games we had brought with us. Overall we ended up running multiple Munchkin tables at any given time, but there was a good amount of interest in FRAG, Revolution, Castellan, and the various dice games we had available. I ran mostly the non-Munchkin games, but I did run one of the tournament qualifiers on Friday night and officiated a spontaneous game on Sunday. We met some great people, found out about cool things like a tabletop restaurant/bar opening down in the San Diego area soon, and generally had a good time all around. Many pics can be found on my Flickr Wondercon album which can be found here, or using the link over on the left.
Panels
Due to the unexpected demo hours, we missed most of the panels we had originally planned on, but we did manage to send the minion (Becca) to the Flash panel and we did squeeze in the Screen Junkies panel on Sunday afternoon. Becca LOVED the Flash panel and from the sound of things, it was much fun, with a ton of information about upcoming character arcs and episodes.
The Screen Junkies panel was a ton of fun. The guys who run it are a good time, and we got treated to the many voice talents of Jon Bailey AKA the Epic Voice of Honest Trailers. We also got a preview of an upcoming Honest Trailer, which, as it turns out, are even more hilarious when you watch them with a group.
Apparently the HT is up now:
Minor Celebrities
I was pleasantly surprised to run into Marilyn Ghigliotti from Clerks (Dante’s girlfriend Veronica) while we were walking the floor on Friday. I got a signed picture as proof! (I only collect signatures when I have actually met the person or there is a good story behind it.) She was really nice and said she will be in Clerks 3! Which makes me happy because I was disappointed when she wasn’t in Clerks 2. David found Jon Bailey in the food court area before the Screen Junkies panel and we said hi and took a picture, etc. On Sunday, I stopped by Phil Foglio’s booth and picked up a signed copy of the second Girl Genius novel, then totally forgot I was going to complement his excellent job of Masquerade MC. For the most part, I was reminded I’m pretty terrible at meeting my minor celebrity heroes – Community pretty much summed up my usual routine with this bit about Troy meeting Levar Burton:
We attempted to meet Rob Liefield (artist/creator of Deadpool, etc.) and Babs Tarr (current artist for Batgirl) at various points in the con, but quickly discovered that doing so would require some elaborating timing and a commitment to standing in a line for quite some time, so we skipped that. Liefield is local, at least, so we’ll have to save that for another time. (Phat Collectables appears to be doing something with him in regards to a Deadpool funeral? This will require further investigation.)
Cosplay
There was so much amazing cosplay this con! I took a TON of photos, and that was despite missing most of my usual favorites. Wondercon has become huge, not SDCC huge, but still, even if you know a cosplayer you like is going, running into them is not a guarantee by any means. I almost kind of wish the semi-pros would set up some kind of meet and greet time or maybe they should all pitch in together and get one cosplay booth where they could rotate their time and sell photos. I don’t know, just tossing stuff out there. Our demo table happened to be in line of sight of the green screen booth, as well as one of the major snack/rest areas, so we did get to see a whole bunch of awesome cosplay despite being in full MIB mode most of the con. Anyone else notice a “Male Harley Quinn” trend this year? After all the years of female versions of male characters, it was interesting to see the reverse. I only got one good picture of the variant, but we got glimpses of at least a half dozen or so. I also saw some awesome entries at the Masquerade. It would take up the whole page to put up all the pics here, so check out the Flickr page for my cosplay sightings.
If you aren’t following me on Twitter, you missed out on all my live tweeting madness! You should check it out. We’ll be mainlining Netflix’s new Daredevil show this weekend and I will probably do some snarky commentary while we watch.
Our next MIB adventure is returning to San Diego Comic Con for the first time since 2006. I hear it’s grown a bit? Should be insane.
Pererro 