Another Comic Con has come and gone. It was a whirlwind weekend at Wizard World Comic Con 2012.
Saturday the people watching was prime.
We dig seeing the rampant creativity.
And the mash ups are hilarious.
Poor Spider Man got ganged up on by a band of armed villains in the lobby.
Some of our favs were the families who all got in on playing dress up!
Of course we dropped back to see our friends at the World of Traegonia booth. The author was there again, with her daughter this time.
And we got a chance to see their new Traegon costume.
Check out the videos on their site to see her in action and watch their sweet animated short.
This series is highly recommended, mid grade fantasy, chapter books. We read them as family bedtime stories and got thoroughly engrossed in the highly imaginative, artistic, eco-friendly, creative, inventive, magical, World of Tragonia.
Dino, the illustrator and sculpture maker.
Check back with ChiIL Mama & ChiIL Live Shows like we vote in Chi, IL...early and often. We're still hammering out the details but it looks like we'll be able to run a give aways later this fall. Either way, we'll have a full review of both of these awesome books up for our readers shortly.
We also dropped in on our friends at Threadless and bought 3 new designs to celebrate back to school.
The all navy or white polo & navy bottom uniforms leave something to be desired in the creative clothes department, so we make the most of our after hours with fun, colorful t's. Like we said in our prior Comic Con coverage here, Threadless is great about giving back to the community and holding free kids' workshops with local non profits like Girls Rock! Chicago and 826CHI, so we're extra happy to kick them our business.
We also saw our Pinups for Pitbulls friends and bought a bunch of buttons. I also snapped a pic with them--I wore my Pit 7 Seconds "Walk Together" Tee and they said they'd send it on to Kevin Seconds. Check 'em out if you haven't already. They have a cool mission statement. We're all about rescue dogs and have a rescue Husky mix ourselves. We don't have a pit bull, but we do have a 110lb. Akita, another breed sometimes misused for fighting, feared and misunderstood, who is the sweetest family dog ever. So we get it.
Finally we said hey to our Gorilla Tango Burlesque Peeps and snapped a few more shots.
After the Con, I had a chance to spend the evening with a group of true Con Connoisseurs. We hit up the bar in the Hyatt Hotel adjoining The Donald E. Stephens Convention Center, and talked about their hobby. The guys had what I jokingly called "Star Tracker"....like train tracker which alerts you on smart phones when trains are incoming. These guys had a small network of spies stationed around the hotel lobby, after party and bar, all texting each other whenever a celeb showed up. And there were plenty!
Unlike star stalkers, these guys are collectors and just want a quick photo and maybe an autograph. They have extensive collections and like other collectors, long to finish their "sets", generally particular segments of a sci-fi show cast. Some celebs are rare and hard to get, and these guys have traveled as far as England for some Cons, based on who was signing. They were all nice, pretty normal guys, although one conceded his wife thinks his collection obsession is a bit nuts. So do all of their co workers. But it brings them a great deal of enjoyment and doesn't hurt anyone, so whose to say collecting photos and autographs is any odder than other things people have been known to amass.
The did say there's a subset of Comic Con diehards who cross over from collectors to crazies, going so far as to pay off the maids to bring them celebs garbage! They also conceded that Wizard World is so massive they only loosely include it in the Con Genre. True collectors do better abroad, where the fans are more laid back and there's a genuinely good chance you'll get to hang out and have drinks with more than a few famous folk.
Even the smaller, themed weekends, just centered around one show ie: Dr. Who, are more to their taste and maximize the amount of collecting, formal signings and candid star shots they can do. It was eye opening and enlightening for me to hang with them for an evening. It felt a bit like hangin' with the fire department--all of us hanging out, talking, then a sighting text would come in and they'd all run off ASAP, and reappear with a hit or miss tale.
What Wizard World Chicago Comic Con does well is put on a great party....bringing together a diverse and colorful crowd, a sweet assortments of speakers and workshops, and unprecedented numbers of stars. All in all, it was a fun weekend for the star trackers, casual and serious collectors, gamers, families, spandex fans, and people watchers. Till next year.
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