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Enter WonderCon

"It was a dark and stormy night" . . .
or so the gentleman at the Muni station quipped when he saw me taking notes as I head towards WonderCon. In fact it was a sunny afternoon for a change in San Francisco as it had rained a bit almost every during the week and was likely to do so again.

I arrive at WonderCon and headed over to get my Press Badge, after a few minutes of flubbing around with the man at the counter ( I had forgotten to bring enough proof that I write for an e-rag ) we get it all sorted out and I'm on my way. Pretty dumb of me really, I had spent the better part of the day before getting my gear ready, camera, batteries, pens, note pad, all the stuff I tend to forget about and panic about later ( next time I'll pre-register ).

Anyway it's early Friday and the room is packed with dealers, vendors, guest artist and alike. It's early so the crowd is thin, but plenty of people are definitely here regardless. My plan is simple, start at one side of the room and work my way to the other and get a feel of who's doing what, then head over to Artist Alley and see some friends I know will be here and meet some artist that I have in my collection of comics and art prints ( the cheap poster prints, not the expensive stuff )

Stylin Online

# 1 Street Fighter Foil Cover

Linda Tran

Storm Trooper

First of the more impressive or maybe imposing booths I run across is the booth for Stylin Online, this thing is the size of a small house, you can walk into it and it's nothing but T-shirts, caps, sweatshirts, jackets everywhere. T-shirts with every anime, cartoon character or TV show you can think of, then the guy tells me they have another booth just as large of more stuff on the other side of the room!

My budget for the day is pretty small and seeing this booth makes me think I'm going to break the bank and then some pretty quick if I keep seeing this many goodies I want to buy. Time to write a check list of what I really came here to get before I get off track. One of my targets is CapCom's Chun Li on the Number # 1 Street Fighter Foil Cover ( I still don't have it by days end, I'm bummed ).

I'd also like to get a shot of import model Linda Tran for the pinup collection, plus I want to see if she'd like to be featured as a Pretty Poison Girl.

As I go around I see all kinds of things of interest and a small table called Vampire Tours of San Francisco really caught my eye. I'm thinking I'll have to take that tour for a future article, anything with a name like that has got to be fun. Another eye grabber for me was all the Anime figure statues at the Hobby Fan booth and the temptation to spend freely was hard to resist. Then there was Channel 101, they have tons of wonderfully wacky shorts films with titles like "Laser Fart". These great homemade cheezy ball movies had everyone laughing when Laser Fart started popping off laser beams out his backside to fight off the undead.

Of course there's plenty of people in costume, I spot Death and some Anime Bunny Girls, assorted cat ears, an Obi Wan and of course the obligatory Storm Trooper ( Lucas must have enacted a law about having at least one Storm Trooper at every Con I think ).

After looking at seemingly endless rows of comic books I decide to head over Artist Alley and see some friends and look over all the independent artist comics and art. Being a struggling artist myself I try to spend at least a few moments at every booth and table to chat with all the independent artist and check out their stuff, talk shop, pick up their info, buy a few comics and what have you.

This year there seems to be more of these guys putting out some really great stuff, like Rabid Animal Comics, totally twisted and scores big on the Laugh Meter and Gun Fu with it's Hong Kong Detective fighting Nazi's in London and speaking Hip Hop in 1939 is just out there laughs. Then there's stuff like Dorothy a warped take on the Wizard of Oz that uses actors, photographs and 3D work to make up their panels.

The level of the art and creativity was just mind boggling and I wished I could mention everyone by name, but I'd have to write a book to get them all in so instead I have everyone's links at the page bottom and Links Page so you can see all the same great stuff I did.

Adam Hughes

Keith Knight

Sandra Chang

Dirty Little Tees

So I'm cruisin' Artist Alley and I notice there's only a few people talking to Adam Hughes, I had brought a few of his covers from my collection in hopes of getting them signed as I'm a huge fan of his work. Adam, like a true gentleman is more than willing to put the old AH! on a couple of them for me. I proceed to spend a little time drooling over the large Tomb Raider prints he's got for sale and at a mere $ 50 bucks for a signed numbered short print run, suddenly my credit card is burning a hole in my pocket. But better sense prevails and the credit card is safe for another day.

Next I'm off to say hi to Keith Knight whom I haven't seen in quite a while, he's got a few new books of his cartoons that I haven't seen before, must have been a longer time than I thought. It's good to see him as last time I heard he was in the hospital, but all is well now. I suggest to him that he should do some art on the boot brace he had to wear and auction it off on EBay rather than just toss it out, celebrities sell odd stuff al the time, why not that?

On my way to say hi to Eric Joyner whom I've been a huge fan of since I saw his work at a show at Lo-fi Customs, I spot Sandra Chang an artist I met briefly at the last WonderCon I was at. So I stop to grab a photo so you guys can see she's every bit as hot as her comics.

By this time I've been around the room three or four times and have a bag full of promo stuff from all the artist I've met, a free Tenchu Fatal Shadows T-shirt from Sega, a review copy of the City of Heroes video game ( which has an amazing character builder ) and a butt load of goodies that I bought.

My personal favorite purchases of the day where a T-shirt from Alex Zemke's Dirty Little Tees, a print from Jim Silke and a Adam Hughes Sketch Book, I just love pinup girl stuff.

I also have to vote Channel 101 of course as most wacky and entertaining booth of the day, overall WonderCon was a great time this year and I really enjoyed meeting all the new people and seeing all the amazing art and ideas.

Well that's all for this year, see you at the next WonderCon !

- gWebber