2009 was the very first year that I ever attended Wonder Con in San Francisco, California. Being an almost 20 year veteran of the San Diego Comic Con, I'd heard about it for years, but for one reason or another had never gotten around to heading up north for the SD Con's sister show. The two shows are indeed very much related. Both shows are organized by Comic Con International, along with the APE Expo which focuses on Alternative Press Comics. I can't really say why I never got around to attending the show up in San Fran, but having been invited to take part in the GeekRoundTable.com panel at last year's show I finally had no excuses, so I went . . . and I had a blast.
Wonder Con really is like the little sibling to SD's con. It has a lot of the same great content, panels, guests, etc. that SD has. It has a really cool sales floor filled with more geek schwag than one can believe. Best of all though, the crowd is maybe a fifth of the size of SD's average attendance these days. If SD Comic Con is the Godzilla of comic conventions, Wonder Con is Mothra in it's Larval stage. Smaller, more accessable, but no less powerful or impressive in it's awesomeness.
My second year at Wonder Con was no less fun than the first, but due to some unforseen circumstances it ended up being a bit shorter for me. I was unable to take a day off of work for the convention, so I sadly wasn't able to attend any of the Friday daytime events. I had managed to get off of work a bit early though and was looking forward to seeing a big Tron announcement and a screening of the new Resident Evil movie in 3D in the evening, but due to nasty weather conditions in San Francisco, my flight up there was delayed for a few hours and I completely missed those events. My good friend Mike over at Inside Pulse was there though to cover the Tron event. You can find his article and review of the con HERE, which also includes some coverage of panels that I didn't attend, such as the Kickass panel.
As for me, I got into town way later than I expected, so I had to accept that I'd missed the first day of the con. I joined some friends at a rum bar downtown, drowned my sadness over missing my chance to see 3D Milla Jovovich in tasty tiki drinks, and eventually went to sleep. The next day, I was determined to make up for lost time.
Saturday morning, I got up early and headed straight for the convention center. This year for the con, instead of just going as a panel guest like I did before, I actually applied for and was granted a press pass. To my pleasant suprise, this came included with a pretty swanky press kit filled with all sorts of information about the con. Once I was checked in and ready to go, I immediately made a bee-line for the exhibit hall floor. That is afterall where my favorite part of cons lie. It's on the floor (in the trenches, if you will) with my fellow geeks that I really feel at home. I enjoyed walking the floor and snapping pics of anything unusual that caught my eye. You can see the whole set of photos over at the Geek-tastic Flickr account, but here's some of my favorites.
Saturday was also the day of the Annual Wonder Con Masquerade, so there definitely was no shortage of great costumes on display as well.
As for the panels, the very first one I got into was the Toy Story 3 panel. On stage were Jeff Garlin, Kristen Schaal and Jon Ratzenberger who all provide voices for the film. I was really happy to see Kristen Schaal on the panel, as I didn't know she was going to be in the film beforehand. I'm a big fan of her work. If you don't recognize her name, she's the lady who play the Flight of the Conchord's only fan Mel on their HBO show. She's also a great stand-up comedian whose comedy special I had actually watched the day before during my flight up to San Francisco.
The panelists walked through some voice acting scenes where they read the dialogue from the film in time with the movie projected on the screens, which was pretty cool actually. Then they did some Q&A with the audience. As fun as that was though, it was the panel after that which I was really looking forward too. The Resident Evil: Afterline panel.
I'm a big Resident Evil fan. I've played all of the games, I've seen all of the films, and in general I have a huge nerd crush on Milla Jovovich. After having missed the 3D screening of the trailer the night before, there was no way in hell I was going to miss this panel. I got there early, snagged a seat as close to the front as I could get, busted out my audio recorder and camera, and did my best to cover this panel as professionally as I could.
The audio from the panel will be getting edited into a future episode of the Patcast that I do, so be sure to look for that. Basically, the panel boiled down to a Q&A about the making of the film and what fans can expect when they go see it. They also screened the trailer (sadly only in 2D) for the audience, which you can see here. Resident Evil: Afterline is going to be the first film since James Cameron's Avatar that was shot using the same camera's he used to make the 3D for that film, so this isn't going to be some crappy 2D to 3D conversion like what movies like Clash of the Titans has done. No sir, this is going to be a full on immersive 3D zombie killing experience. Listening to Director Paul W.S. Anderson and stars Milla Jovovich and Ali Larter talk about the film, you could easily see how excited they are about this project. They were all very energetic and passionate in describing what making the film was like, and how they hope fans will enjoy watching it as much as they enjoyed making it. For classic Resident Evil gaming fans like me, they've promised a lot of inspiration for this movie came from Res Evil 4 and 5, so expect to see a lot of game elements in this film.
After the Resident Evil panel, I ran downstairs real fast to make sure I had a space for the Star Wars: Clone Wars panel. The Clone Wars is a show that in my mind has come a long way this season. There's been a huge shift in the tone of the show. It's gotten much darker and much more violent than I would have expected for something marketed as a kid's show. Not that I'm complaining, mind you. I've been loving this season of the show, and I wanted to see what was in store for the season finale.
The panel was led by the show's Supervising Director Dave Filoni, who told us about how the final three episodes of the show will heavily revolve around a young Boba Fett and his quest for vengence against the Jedi for the murder of his father Jango. The trailer they showed for that panel can be seen here. Also on the panel was Daniel Logan, who played Boba Fett in Episode II: Attack of the Clones, and actress Jaime King, who voices the bounty hunter Aurra Sing on the show. Daniel Logan was obviously excited to be playing Boba Fett again. He could hardly contain his giddyness, so much so that I think at one point or two he was on the verge of letting out information about the show that he's not allowed to say yet. There was a few occasions where someone else on the panel had to cut him off from saying too much. I couldn't help but sympathize with Daniel there. If I was playing Boba Fett in the Clone Wars series, I wouldn't be able to keep quiet about it either. I'd be way too excited to keep secrets.
After the panel, I was able to actually run up to Dave Filoni and ask him a question that had been bugging me for a while about how much Ralph McQuarrie's original concept art for Star Wars influcnes the art direction for the show. He was very gracious and gave me a good long answer. Once again, I was able to record this exchange and it will be in the podcast that I will be putting out soon.
By this point in the day, the Con was just about over, so I met up with some friends and headed out for dinner and yet more Tiki drinks. The next day, I woke up nursing a bit of a hangover (damned deceptively tasty rum concoctions) and headed back to the convention. Due to the hangover, and my general running lateness, I missed the Max Brooks (Author of World War Z) panel in the morning. Instead, I spent a few hours wandering the floor of the exhibit hall again. Sunday's crowd was much smaller than Saturday's, so it was much easier to shop. I bought a kickass Batgirl shirt, took some more cool photos, and then had to head off for my flight back home.
I really did enjoy Wonder Con again, but I couldn't help but feel rushed all weekend. Having missed the first day really made a difference. Next year, I will be more adamant about getting there for all three days of the con. Two days just aren't enough really. I will definitely be back next year too, that's for sure. If you love the SD Comic Con, but are getting tired of the giant crowds and how big it's gotten, and you just want it to go back to being how it was back in the mid 90's, then Wonder Con is the place for you. It's like taking a trip back in time to when Comic Con was much smaller, but still totally awesome.
See you again next year Wonder Con!
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