Anyone into comic conventions and pop culture shows? Over the weekend, San Diego Comic Con ("SDCC") had their annual badge sale that saw them sell out to capacity in just under an hour. I already had a badge, but managed to get a friend a badge so he could attend. In a few weeks, there's a first-time show called Silicon Valley Comic Con that will be held in San Jose, CA. Michael J. Fox and the cast from Back to the Future will be in attendance, but man, it's pricey! I'm hoping to go just for Stan Lee. A couple of weeks after this, there's WonderCon in Los Angeles and Emerald City Comicon in Seattle. Lots of shows in March if you're on the west coast of the US. I apologize if there's already a thread for this. I searched for one, but didn't see anything. At any rate, I thought it would be cool to have a thread for fans to discuss comic/pop culture conventions, writers, artists and celebrity guests.
Good thread idea Sylent! There's some convention talk in the Transformers Conventions and Get Togethers sub-forum but I don't think there's anything specific for general comic/toy conventions. I just came back from Long Beach Comic Expo, will be posting some autographed pics in that thread soon. Met Michael Bell, Kelly Hu, Lance Henriksen and Tony Todd. Upcoming smaller conventions in California that I'm thinking about going to are Sac Comic Con from March 12-13th and Wine Country Comic Con in April 23-24th. I've never been to SDCC, managed to get the exclusives that I wanted but someday I'll have to make the trip!
How many times do badges for SDCC go on sale? I seem to remember sometime last year badges for this years con went on sale.
Yeah, I thought it would be a good idea to have a general comic convention thread for all shows. It could raise awareness for those in the area that might want to attend. Michael Bell is cool. I attended a panel of his when he came to Sac-Con a couple of years ago. It was fun and informative. I recorded most of it, but it was kind of long, so I never uploaded it to youtube. Kelly Hu is mad hot! I got a pic with her a few years ago at SDCC. You know, there's also a toy show in San Jose in a couple of weeks that feature Shannon Lee, Bruce Lee's daughter and Teddy Sears, the guy that plays Jay Garrick on the Flash tv show. SDCC is fun, but can be overwhelming as there are multiple events going on simultaneously. In addition, the crowds and lines are so long and dense that they can be suffocating. In a nutshell, I go for the exclusives and the cosplay. I used to compose blogs for SDCC coverage, but I stopped to concentrate on my FB cosplay page. They go on sale 3 times. Once for already eligible attendees, once for general registration (those that want to upgrade or that don't have badges) and once for badges that have been returned, about a month before the convention. SDCC is really hard to get into without a network of people helping you out. My squad and I all got badges this way.
Otakuthon '16 (Montreal based anime convention, been going there since its debut in June of '06), yes. Montreal Comiccon... not too sure this year (missed out on the last 5 Comiccons since its debut in September of '11) There's also Anime North '16 (Toronto based anime convention) but it's pretty much a no-go for me (budget and other stuff). Welp, looks like it's this year's Otakuthon for me
Went to the Wizard World Comic Con this past weekend. Went with some first-timer friends which made it more fun. Bought a bunch of pop vinyls and art. Next one ill be attending is the Rose City Comic Con.
Went to a local Convention, "Marcon" a long while back. (2007, I think it was?) Gotta say, the greater Columbus Convention Center isn't a terrible venue, though I was wishing their main lobby didn't have so many damn windows. (That upper floor got stuffy in a hurry) Unfortunately, attending Marcon in recent years has been pretty much impossible. Between that weekend being Fucking Graduation weekend and a busy weekend at my job, I guess it just isn't meant to be. There was a model build show "BlizzardCon" I attended this time last year. 'Course That's the local IPMS chapter's show off day basically.
I might have been at that Michael Bell panel with you - for a voice acting lesson he invited the panel audience to try to laugh on command right, to see how spontaneous they can be? Ah, I can't make it to the San Jose Toy Show because of vacation plans - it would have been cool to meet Shannon Lee! Kelly Hu still got it and had a great sense of humor! Another upcoming convention in the Bay Area is the San Francisco Comic Con, same Labor Day weekend as Sac Anime Summer - have to see which show to go to!
I've WANTED to go to the Columbus Toy Show, but seeing how that's at the Fairgrounds and I have no car or license at the moment, That won't happen for a while (COTA doesn't have any routes that service the Fairgrounds, do they?) During High School, I could've gone to Otakon in Maryland with my Anime Club, but having no job with which to pay for it kinda put a damper in those plans. I'd love to attend a Con sometime, but I just don't see that happening anytime soon. Maybe after I get a car/license
Ok, I'm gonna say it and I don't care. I don't go to cons anymore since they've been taken over by Hollywood, fake geeks and cosplayers who don't even know anything about the character they are dressed up as. It use to be easy to get tickets for cons and now it's getting harder and harder. A good friend of mine is an artist and his sales and table space has gotten smaller every year. Cons are not for the real fanboys/geeks/nerds anymore. I know I'm not the only one who feels this way either.
That's just the way "geeky" things are nowadays; gone are the days when you could get mocked for wearing a Star Trek T-Shirt, such things have become so absorbed into the public consciousness and more heavily commercialized that Spock has become as recognizable as Darth motherfucking Vader. This past Thanksgiving, I was playing with my cousins and they had a Carnage Minifigure, They had no idea who Carnage was or that he wasn't just Red Venom. There was an episode of the Cleveland Show (Fuck Cleveland Show, BTW) that basically acknowledged this fact (the comic-con episode in which Rrrrrrobert Rrrrrrrodriguez had a role and Cleveland Brown Jr reenacted the final battle from Avatar on the convention floor)
All the fake fucks ruined it................ I no longer pay to park, to pay to get in, to pay to get an autograph($50 a hit and bring check or cash? F'you!). Fuck everyone of them assholes. Last time I hit Wizard Wold or C2E2 I was in out done in about 3-4 hrs tops and didn't give a shit. Now I do BotCon(when its near), where 90% of my time is on the dealer floor haggling and hunting figures. Same goes for train shows with my older boy now. I seriously miss actually getting to meet artists and writers and spending a few minutes talking to them like people. Got some classic lines from Frank Miller back in the day.
Middle East Film & Comic Con is approaching soon and so far the only celebrity guest announcement is Veronica Taylor with more to be announced as it goes on. In other words "Filthy Casuals get off my Con!"? Yeah, I liked it better when nerds were the shame of societies and their existence is the downfall of humanities and no civilized human being should love nerdy stuff.
Yeah, that was the same panel! I was the guy standing up on the side, filming the whole thing. I'm starting to think that there are WAY too many "conventions." In actuality, they're all not really conventions. Most of the small, local shows are glorified toy/rummage sales. They end up being a bunch of local vendors trying to unload their old, worthless 90's action figures with maybe one or two B-list celebrity guests to bring in the casual fan.
I completely agree. They're not comic conventions anymore, but pop culture shows. If you look at SDCC, only a small portion of the convention floor is actually about comics. Aside from Artist Alley, the DC and Marvel booths, the rest is mainstream media (i.e. Fox, WB, CBS, Spike, etc.), anime, video games and toy companies. I love cosplay, because I'm a cosplayer myself, but a great deal of women that are bikini models are using the convention platform to parlay their careers into something else. I've encountered numerous cosplayers that know nothing about the character they're dressing as, but because they're attractive and/or have big boobs, they garner the lion's share of attention at these shows. Don't get me wrong, I love T&A as much as the next guy, but when was the last time you saw a Gundam or a Pokémon with boobs poking out? Sadly, the real "comic" conventions have evolved (or DEvolved) into pop culture shows that have a very small focus on comics. Big Wow was a good comic show, but they've gone Hollywood and turned into Silicon Valley Comic Con. I think Emerald City in Seattle is the last comic-centered show, and even they have a large Hollywood presence. The difference is, they separate them and have all of the celebrities on a separate floor away from everything else. A great many people say that "Twilight ruined ComicCon," which I think is partially true. Once the casual fan learned that they could rub elbows with celebrities at these shows, it spread like wildfire and ultimately pushed out the fans that supported the shows to begin; it became more difficult to obtain badges because of the show's newly-found popularity.
Emerald City CC is a joke now too. You use to be able to walk up to the door and buy tickets for each day. They also use to sell badges at various comic book shops around the northwest. ECCC sold out to ReedPop last year and when badges went on sale they did the whole "waiting room" system.
Skipped Portland Wizard World this year, but I've attended that along with Rose City and Emerald City, in the past. My first CON was in Montreal, which just sorta worked for our vacation plans at the time. Despite having lived in CA for 35 years, I never made it to SDCC.
Went to Portland Wizard World last Sunday & got to meet a whole bunch of Doctor Who stars & Elvira in person. Also nabbed NECA's 7" Xeno from Alien Isolation in tribute to having finally gotten 100% on the game! Went with my wife & some friends & had a great time. Lots of great cosplays, but I think my favorite was a girl dressed up as the character from the vid game, Journey. Love that game & it was cool to see someone doing an obscure-ish cosplay.
