Wondercon! » February 28
There’s a guy that works with me, Ralph, who invited me along to Wondercon last weekend. What is Wondercon I hear you ask? It’s essentially a comic book convention, attended by 30,000 people over 3 days at the Moscone Center in San Francisco. What attracted me about it is not only is it a huge geek and nerd get-together (like those comic book conventions you always see on The Simpsons), but this was a paying gig - working for Ralph as he sold lots of merchandise. Now, I realise that my knowledge on comics is tenuous at best but I have worked in a shop for years and know all the lies to tell people to get them to buy stuff. “Is this first print?” they would say. “Of course it is” would be my sharp reply. “A real bargain”.
What is cool about the event is that there are loads of people come in costume. I met tons of storm troopers, Japanese anime characters, superheroes and other completely unique people, including one guy who appeared to encased himself in fiber optic cable lights. This guy obviously couldn’t decide between coming as a storm trooper, or Elvis so he settled on both:
There were a lot of cool stalls all around the place. Most of the stuff I had no idea about but at Ralph’s stall there were thousands of really old comics for a $1 each, so I bought a 1991 copy of the Turtles II movie comic, just for the namesake. We must of sold a few thousand comics over the 3 days we were there, loads of people took advantage of the ‘100 comics for $35′ offer. And nearly all of them looked exactly like comic book guy. It’s true that in the comic community there is definitely a strong majority of beards compared with clean shaven. And long hair seems to be fashionable here too, along with a rotund posture.
There were a few celebrities that showed up too for some promo work. On the first day, Brendan Fraser was there to promote Journey to the Centre of the Earth, a new 3d movie. I actually got 2 free tickets to see a preview of the movie later that night but ended up missing it by being late. On the second day there was Steve Carrell (40 year-old Virgin) and Anne Hathaway, promoting their new movie Get Smart, and finally David Duchovney and Gillian Anderson showcasing the new X-Files movie. Wish I had a picture of them, but alas not.
I missed out on the last day due to being back at work, but all in all was a good weekend. The largest of the comic conferences takes place in San Diego but it’s essentially the same as Wondercon in SF. I was interesting and more than a little nerdy, but fun all the same.
Also, I met Gumbi - highlight of my weekend!
