Wizard World, or how I learned to stop worrying and just love the con

[Necropolis 763]

A panel, featuring my trials and tribulations, and fun had at The Saint Louis Comic con. I'll start with pictures. I took a good lot.

And by panel I mean thread.

Okay pictures may be a bit. They're on my phone and for some reason I can't upload them from my phone to hnet. So stories first.

Day 1

 

We, being myself and friends Rollin and Aric, arrived on friday and after a bizzarre problem with our tickets was resolved we proceded into the breach. None of us were cosplaying this year because we're all no fun fuddy duddies. But seriously had I had time I would have gone as professor Pyg from batman. But I digress. We entered and sort of wandered for a while. I told myself I wouldn't buy anything the first way through, and I didn't which i'm fairly proud of myself for. I'm prone to rampant impulse buying. Friday had no panels we were super interested in so we dedicated ourselves to the glory of consumerism. My first purchase came when I found Green lantern #49, featuring crazy face Hal Jordan. It was $5 which may have been a bit overpriced but its definately one of my favorite covers for Green Lantern period. As we continued I found a guy selling Bootleg Japanese TV shows and Anime that never got licensed in the states. Didn't get anything just then but I eventually came back. The series I was looking for, Kamen Rider Agito, was $60. So once more we walked until we found Neal Adams. Neal is one of the most prolific comic book artists in the industry. Batman, as a broody lurker in the shadows, and much of his modern character is equal parts Neal and Dennis O'neil. Neal has a reputation for being Batshit insane, per some of the things he's written. For an example, check out the wikipedia page for Batman Oddysey. Pretty Nuts. I was happy to learn that he is not in fact Insane, just likes to write crazy ass shit. I got a copy of the aforementioned comic, and had it signed by him. Really cool guy, only charged $10 for his autograph, compared to the $65 and up some of the other guests were charging. Lastly, in terms of Purchases I stopped by a huge rack of discount trades and picked up some classic silver age stuff. Felt good.

Day 2, also known as today

 

Same group with the addition of Rollin's mother, who was a very nice woman, who would later buy us all dinner. We all got our purchases out of the way fast, because the place was PACKED. The line for tickets went out of the main room through the building, into a Gymnasium and then looped four times. It was crazy busy on saturday so we wanted to get our shopping out of the way as soon as possible. Plus today was the day we were going to do panels. So I had to split my purchase of Agito, which had gone down to $45, between 40 dollars cash and 5 on my card. The guys card reader was working improperly, so he gave it to me for 40. Cool guy, hope to see him next year if he returns. Since I was saved from spending money on the dvd from my card, I used the rest of my funds to buy a Sinestro corps T shirt. I don't have like any nerd shirts, so its nice to have one now. My buddy Rollin got some trades and a sketch from Neal, and my other buddy, who only had 5 dollars all con, saved his. I will return to this later in my regailing. So having done our shopping, we decided to go to the game room, where they were running a bunch of table tops. We just wanted to chill so we hit an empty table and talked for a bit. Little did we know, we would be soon trapped in a loop of unpleasantness by That Guy.....

Day 2 Part 2 That guy

 

Y'know that guy who talks to you for long periods of time about things you are incredibly uninterested in, but lacks the social awareness to pick up your somatic clues that, Holy shit dude I reeeaaally don't give a puppy. That is not this guy. This guy is his Horrific evil twin, Ramirez. Ramirez, as I have chosen to name him sat at our table and just started talking. As is almost always the case in such scenarios I became the designated talker. The guy started off with as just an elitist gamer. Lots of, "puppy THE INDUSTRY, MAN, I'M GONNA MAKE REAL GAMES, THEY'RE GONNA BE CHALLENGING, AND puppy ALL THIS COD SHIT..." ETC etc... This isn't so terrible, as I know people like that in real life. Its really not a big deal. At this point I am actually engaging in the conversation. That changed when he started talking about fan fics. I slowly grew to the realization that this was a That Guy, as he began telling the story of a DMC/Sonic fic, and how good it was. And not in the Ironic hipster way, this guy believed it. 5 minutes of "Yeah, uh huh, and Really?"s later a moment of serendipity allowed for our escape. Rollin: Hey we really ought to get ready to go, the panel is starting soon. (Which it was) Aric: Yeah there'll probably be a line. (Which there was) Ramirez got up to follow us, and I interjected. Me: Oh, hey man you're into video games like that, you should check out the Indie gaming panel, its about to start. I had remembered this panel was going on sending Ramirez off and allowing us to head to the Neal Adams panel.

Day 2 Part 3 PANELS. WEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

 

First up was the Neal Adams panel which was the best of the night.  Neal was a very Real, down to earth guy. He didn't bullshit, he just told kickass stories. For instance, The creation of Jon Stewart. Originally Hal Jordan was unavailable so the Guardians selected a back up, which was to be Guy Gardner. Neal asked a grumbling Julius Shwartz if he could introduce a different character, a Black Green Lantern, as at the time there were very few in the way of African American superheroes. After a bit of Cajoling it was done. Denny O'neil wrote the story and reading up on it Neal approved, except for the name, which was chosen by Schwartz. Jon Stewart, green lantern of sector 2814, was very nearly named Lincoln Washington. After some other amusing anecdotes and a cool Q&A he showed us a Motion comic he was working on, which had a nutso story, as is to be expected, an animation style like archer, and Every Character was voiced by Neal Adams. Shit was Hilarious.

 

Next up was the James Hong Panel. James hong is one of the most prolific Asian actors working. He played Lo Pan, Dao Lon Wong, in Jackie chan adventures, and loads and loads more. He told a few stories and there was a cool Q&A afterwords.

 

And finally the Jason David Frank Panel. The Original Green Power Ranger. The Panel was awesome, almost as good as the Adams panel. Somebody actually did his Moveset Demonstration up on the stage, at Frank's request after hearing that he had learned it. It was interesting that it was a clean Panel. He didn't curse and he didn't really tell too many risque stories. He explained that even though his fanbase is mostly grown up, he couldn't shake the image of us all as eager children. Not as patronizing as it sounds. It felt really cool. He talked a little bit about the new show and said he had always expressed interest in a show that would be for the people who grew up watching the show, perhaps to have somewhat more mature themes. Apparantly for a time the Saban phones were ringing 16 times a day asking if Tommy Oliver could return to the franchise. I certainly hope so after such a cool panel.

Aaaand thats it for stories. Hopefully I can get some of these pictures up tonight, some of them are pretty awesome. Hopefully I can go tommorow too, but the weathers getting pretty bad overnight, so its hard to say.