Sunday, August 12, 2007
On the one hand...
...the idea that I'm married to a woman who is so in touch with her inner geek that she sets up a quick weekend trip to Chicago for the primary purpose of attending the Wizard World convention there is, without doubt, a very good thing.
The...shall we say...less good thing is requires air travel with the spouse, if you're not hearing the Looney Tunes theme playing as you read that, you simply haven't been paying attention.
We are to meet at the airport. This means my wife is solely responsible for getting herself out of the house and to the airport on time. People who have never met my wife knew there was no way this was going to happen, why did I think differently?
Hope: 1. Experience: 0.
So, after we miss our scheduled flight, and stagger into Chicago and seek out food. The rooftop on the Plymouth Bar and Grill by the Harold Washington Library is worth visiting, should you be in the area.
Anyway, on to the convention. The primary purpose is shopping for the toy collection, so we hit Mattel's booth and pick up a convention exclusive Man-Bat Figure, as well as this Justice League Unlimited 3-pack that the spouse was very keen to get:
You see, normally, figures of Hawkgirl show her wearing her mask. The convention figure has her unmasked, as well as packaged with Green Lantern and the hard-to-find Ray. So this was obviously very important.
What? It's a cool set.
We picked up a few other things roaming the booths, then wandered the artist's section, where independant comic book artists tried gamely to sell people on the idea that "THERE'S MORE TO THIS WORLD THAN JUST BATMAN AND SPIDER-MAN, PEOPLE!"
Good luck with that. You could also purchase original sketches by actual comic book artists. One guy had a sign by his booth that said "I will draw anything you want. Yes, even that."
Price you pay for an underfunded NEA, I suppose.
We listened to a guy from Mattel talk about their upcoming DC figures. He listed an upcoming line that would include several figures from the Justice League, including Flash, Hawkman, and Green Lantern. A few rows up, a woman in a Wonder Woman costume threw up her hands in frustration at not being included.
Which brings us to the real fun of a comic book convention - people in costumes.
This guy was there on business, as he was dressed as a character in some video game somebody was previewing. These guys were pretty much the only ones we saw with in-character costumes, except for the booth babes at the booth for Zenescope selling Grimm's Fairy Tales. I do not, unfortunately, have a picture of them, as my wife forgot the camera for our first trip through the exhibit hall, and once we had it, I couldn't think of a way to say "Hey, can we swing back by the Zenescope booth and get a picture of Little Miss Muffet?" that wouldn't have gotten me in trouble.
This guy was dressed a Tusken Raider, and he looked really cool, until he got killed by a guy dressed as a crummy actor.
Here's a guy dressed as Canadian superhero Northstar.
Being unable to think of any jokes that wouldn't reference John Edwards, I'll simply note that he won a gift certificate at the Tonner booth, where we also saw Poison Ivy.
This was a pretty good costume, when compared to Tonner's take on the character:
Available this fall, although since Tonner pieces can't really be displayed in-box, we'll pass on them in favor of something we did buy, like the Buffy Palz version of the Gentlemen.
Back on the costume front, we were just about to leave when we met the X-Men.
That's Emma Frost, Mystique, Rogue, and Storm, from left to right. Behind them is a guy in an Iceman costume that didn't have near this level of detail. That being said, that guy is truly a super-hero.
Anyway, it was fun, and you should all come down to Atlanta over Labor Day so we can go to Dragon Con. This year, they have Parker Lewis and Frank Stallone!
That's right. Frank. F'n. Stallone.
The...shall we say...less good thing is requires air travel with the spouse, if you're not hearing the Looney Tunes theme playing as you read that, you simply haven't been paying attention.
We are to meet at the airport. This means my wife is solely responsible for getting herself out of the house and to the airport on time. People who have never met my wife knew there was no way this was going to happen, why did I think differently?
Hope: 1. Experience: 0.
So, after we miss our scheduled flight, and stagger into Chicago and seek out food. The rooftop on the Plymouth Bar and Grill by the Harold Washington Library is worth visiting, should you be in the area.
Anyway, on to the convention. The primary purpose is shopping for the toy collection, so we hit Mattel's booth and pick up a convention exclusive Man-Bat Figure, as well as this Justice League Unlimited 3-pack that the spouse was very keen to get:
You see, normally, figures of Hawkgirl show her wearing her mask. The convention figure has her unmasked, as well as packaged with Green Lantern and the hard-to-find Ray. So this was obviously very important.
What? It's a cool set.
We picked up a few other things roaming the booths, then wandered the artist's section, where independant comic book artists tried gamely to sell people on the idea that "THERE'S MORE TO THIS WORLD THAN JUST BATMAN AND SPIDER-MAN, PEOPLE!"
Good luck with that. You could also purchase original sketches by actual comic book artists. One guy had a sign by his booth that said "I will draw anything you want. Yes, even that."
Price you pay for an underfunded NEA, I suppose.
We listened to a guy from Mattel talk about their upcoming DC figures. He listed an upcoming line that would include several figures from the Justice League, including Flash, Hawkman, and Green Lantern. A few rows up, a woman in a Wonder Woman costume threw up her hands in frustration at not being included.
Which brings us to the real fun of a comic book convention - people in costumes.
This guy was there on business, as he was dressed as a character in some video game somebody was previewing. These guys were pretty much the only ones we saw with in-character costumes, except for the booth babes at the booth for Zenescope selling Grimm's Fairy Tales. I do not, unfortunately, have a picture of them, as my wife forgot the camera for our first trip through the exhibit hall, and once we had it, I couldn't think of a way to say "Hey, can we swing back by the Zenescope booth and get a picture of Little Miss Muffet?" that wouldn't have gotten me in trouble.
This guy was dressed a Tusken Raider, and he looked really cool, until he got killed by a guy dressed as a crummy actor.
Here's a guy dressed as Canadian superhero Northstar.
Being unable to think of any jokes that wouldn't reference John Edwards, I'll simply note that he won a gift certificate at the Tonner booth, where we also saw Poison Ivy.
This was a pretty good costume, when compared to Tonner's take on the character:
Available this fall, although since Tonner pieces can't really be displayed in-box, we'll pass on them in favor of something we did buy, like the Buffy Palz version of the Gentlemen.
Back on the costume front, we were just about to leave when we met the X-Men.
That's Emma Frost, Mystique, Rogue, and Storm, from left to right. Behind them is a guy in an Iceman costume that didn't have near this level of detail. That being said, that guy is truly a super-hero.
Anyway, it was fun, and you should all come down to Atlanta over Labor Day so we can go to Dragon Con. This year, they have Parker Lewis and Frank Stallone!
That's right. Frank. F'n. Stallone.
