My leg’s feeling much better, so when Glenn got press passes for the Comic Widows crew, I was definitely in on Saturday. This was my third Wizard World Philly, but it was definitely…different. WW Philly ran the same weekend as Heroes Con in Charlotte, and the show felt smaller as a result.
While Marvel and DC were there and in force, very few other “name” publishers were there. The publisher with the next biggest presence was Aspen, Michael Turner’s company. Image was only represented by the Top Cow division. No Dark Horse, no major book publishers with graphic novel division, no major webcomic artists, and absolutely, positively, no manga whatsoever. This was the Marvel/DC show; the panels were mostly presentations of what’s coming up with Marvel and DC, with only the Steranko/Infantino panel being a notable standout on Saturday.
This was disappointing, especially compared to my experience at last year’s New York City Comic-Con. New York’s about hip comics- manga, webcomics, graphic novels outside of the superhero genre. The show’s inclusive and sprawling, and while the show last year was legendarily overcrowded, it succeeded because of the wide range of events and exhibitors available. You could come out with art from Colleen Doran, an autograph from Gene Colan, a bumper sticker from the Goats crew, some Previews from the major publisher’s GN branches, and a few manga books. Philly, in contrast, was all about geek genres. If you’re not into superheroes or Star Wars, you were not going to have a good time at Philly.
The retailers at Philly seemed to offer the same product- overstocked action figures, overstocked comic books, and lots of statues and busts of your favorite superheroes. No retailer offered any significant amount of manga. There were at least two tables of bootleg movies, surprising given the raids that happened at other cons last year. Glenn and I remarked that the whole setup felt like a weekend flea market or yard sale, where everyone gets together and hopes to get rid of their own junk while somehow finding a rare first edition manuscript in someone else’s pile of used romance novels.
Mind you, this wasn’t all bad. Glenn and I both found cheap toys for our bookshelves, and I did find a vendor selling the Order of the Stick books at a nice price. And if I had more time, I would have taken Rodney Ramos up on his unique offer. He had a prepared art page with Transmetropolitan’s Spider Jerusalem holding a brain jar. Ramos would draw your head onto the page, and Spider would proclaim that your head was being used for cat food. (Rodney, if you’re out there, I tried to get back to your table, but just didn’t make it. If you’re out there, drop me a line- I’d be happy to take you up on your offer!)
There were some fantastic people at the con. I met Marv Wolfman, author of my favorite comic of all time, Fantastic Four #200. (Yes, Glenn, I owe you a column as to why this is my favorite book.) We talked about how terrible it was that Keith Pollard, the penciller on the book, isn’t working in comics anymore. And he shared a neat aspect of the story that I’ll divulge when I get to the FF 200 column, I promise.
More tomorrow.
