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ExploreThis weekend, for the first time ever, WonderCon was held in Los Angeles, California. The past three year, the event took place in Anaheim (across the street from Disneyland!), having been displaced by convention hall construction in San Francisco. What we in Southern California thought would be a one or two time thing has now turned into a yearly, Spring Break/Easter Weekend event.
Though not as Hollywood star-studded as San Diego Comic Con, they snagged some high quality guests: Jim Lee, Brian Michael Bendis, Amber Benson and Raina Telgemeier to name a few. And there are lots of familiar faces in the autograph room: Lou Ferrigno, Richard Hatch, Larry “Soup Nazi” Thomas and more actors who played Power Rangers than I knew there were televisions series.
Not too many revelations at the WonderCon panels if you compare it to SDCC. But they did premier The Conjuring 2 trailer, have Alan Tudyk talk about his Con Man project, and feature the men of Orphan Black. As well as panels highlighting Legends of Tomorrow, Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., Teen Titans Go! as well as Justice League vs. Teen Titans.
In this day and age, you can see many of the panel highlights on the Internet. That’s why I spent most of my time on the dealer room floor. For me, that’s where the more unique experiences are to be had. Just walking up and down the aisles, there was plenty of cool stuff to see. Most of it just basic decoration:
There were lots of vendors for all your geeky needs: posters, games, action figures, costumes, prop replicas and more. And yes, they even had comics and graphic novels!
Also by walking the floor, you get to admire the cosplayers and check out people’s cool t-shirts. But the place to see and be seen is the lobby. As you can imagine, characters from Star Wars The Force Awaken were there in full, uhm, force. But there were cosplayers of all shapes, styles and sizes.
I was lucky enough to show off my brand new t-shirt from TeePublic at the first day of WonderCon. It was a mash-up shirt of Snoopy dressed as each of the twelve regenerations of Doctor Who (or as the shirt says, the Twelve Dogtors). It got lots of attention from people cosplaying as any of The Doctors as well as kids who were excited to see Snoopy looking cooler the Joe Cool.
With Batman v. Superman opening the same weekend, there were lots of people cosplaying as those characters, in various incarnations. T-shirt wise, many people wore their “team” logo or cool shirts featuring Batman, Superman or the two of them battling it out.
This year, cute t-shirts seemed to be the rage. Our friends TeeTurtle had a booth there, showing off their adorable shirts featuring pandas, bunnies and, of course, turtles.
Three days does not seem like enough time to show off all the geeky gear we’ve collected over the past few months. But it is great to be in a room with thousands of people who love all the things that you love. And we get to at least show our love a little more by wearing costumes or t-shirts of our favorite characters througout the weekend.
Now if I can just figure out which t-shirts I’m going to wear at San Diego Comic Con 2016!
