The Irredeemable Shag of Firestorm Fan took zillions of photos at Dragon*Con this year (as usual!) Here are a few cosplay pics with people dressed up as Flash characters.
Box Heroes Flash
Flash Cosplay at Dragon*Con
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Category Archives: Fandom
West Coast (OK, mostly California) Comic Cons: Comikaze, Long Beach, WonderCon & Wizard World
A quick round-up of West Coast (well, mostly Southern California) convention news:
Fall 2012 in LA: Comikaze & Long Beach
First off, Stan Lee’s Comikaze Expo is this weekend in Los Angeles. Flash co-writer Brian Buccellato will be there, and has posted his schedule on his site. It’s a something-for-everyone pop culture con, and while I enjoyed last year’s event, I’m going to be too busy this weekend to make it.
Secondly, Long Beach Comic & Horror Con is coming up the first weekend in November. This is a good comic-focused convention (despite the addition of “and Horror” to the name last year), and I highly recommend it to anyone in the Los Angeles area who wants to attend a show that’s really about comic books.
Update: I totally forgot that Las Vegas Comic Expo is coming up at the end of the month (September 29-30). Brian Buccellato is on the guest list there as well. It’s been a while since someone tried to do a big comic convention in Vegas, so it’ll be interesting to see how this goes.
WonderCon in 2013
WonderCon is going to be a bit weird. Usually it’s held in San Francisco, but renovations at the Moscone Center this year caused them to move to Anaheim. Scheduling problems mean that they’ll stay in Anaheim next year next year, but might also return to San Francisco. They have solid dates in Anaheim for March 29-31, 2013, and a very tentative “maybe” for fall in San Francisco, but they’re reaching the point that if they’re going to do a con in March, they have to commit to it.
Why not try another location in the Bay Area, like Oakland or San Jose? The Beat looks at various convention centers and compares them to the space WonderCon typically uses these days. The options aren’t that great unless you leave town, shrink the show, or hold out for Moscone.
The convention is on for Anaheim in March, one way or another. If they can get San Francisco in fall, they’re planning to do that too, and make that one WonderCon, at which point they’ll call the Anaheim convention something else.
Clear as crystal, right?
I’m looking forward to the Anaheim con, whatever it ends up being called. This year was great, except for parking. Though I wouldn’t mind an excuse to return to San Francisco, either, and IMO it’s best if WonderCon does return to its Bay Area roots.
Wizard Goes West in 2013
Finally, Wizard World returns to the west coast next year (this year, I think the furthest west they got was Texas), but not to the Los Angeles area. Instead, they’re opening shop in Portland on February 22-24, 2013. Wizard has a long, troubled history with the Los Angeles area. They launched Wizard World Los Angeles in Long Beach early last decade, moved it to Los Angeles after a couple of years, and then abruptly canceled 2009’s con with only a few weeks’ notice. After a year’s absence, Wizard came back, launching Anaheim Comic Con in 2010. That only ran two years, and while they announced WWLA for 2011, that con was canceled before it happened – again with only a few weeks’ notice.
Frankly, it’s probably just as well. I don’t think Wizard World has ever run a show in the Pacific Northwest before, and Southern California has been burned enough times that I can imagine people would be a bit shy of booking hotels and transportation. And as you can see above, the convention scene has changed a lot since the days when WWLA was the only mid-sized con around, and you had to either go to a tiny con or drive three hours to San Diego.
It’s a bit close to Emerald City Comicon (the following weekend in Seattle), but I suspect the audience for Wizard’s current style of show is different enough that they won’t interfere too badly.
Fan Expo cosplay
Fan Expo was held in Toronto on August 23-26 this year, and size-wise was quite possibly bigger than ever. I’ve gone every year for about a decade now, but this con was different: I cosplayed for the first time! Nobody who knows me would be surprised that I decided to go as the Top, as I’m probably the Internet’s most diehard Top fan.
I cosplayed on Saturday, which is the convention’s major cosplaying day. And to my great surprise and delight, I met a Heat Wave cosplayer! While I’ve since learned that somebody else dressed as Captain Cold in a previous year, I’ve never personally seen a Rogue at Fan Expo, so it was really great to see one during my first time. And many people seemed quite excited to see Heat Wave (Brando Lars) and I together. We also met up with a couple of Flashes and participated in a photoshoot with other people dressed as DC characters. It was a lot of fun.
It’s Read Comics In Public Day!
In honor of Jack Kirby’s birthday, today is the third annual Read Comics In Public Day, created by Brian Heater and Sarah Morean at The Daily Cross Hatch.
Comics are fun — that’s why we read them, right? So why hide your love of comics? Read about the event or just go out and read. Bring some comics along to read on your lunch break, or at a park, or on the bus or train. Head to one of the meet-up events today.
And if you want to share stories or photos, the official hashtag is #readcomicsinpublic and there’s a Flickr pool as well.
Next Tuesday is Read Comics In Public Day (August 28)
Read Comics In Public Day is coming up next week, on Tuesday, August 28. Celebrating it is simple: Just read comics in public!
From the announcement of this year’s event:
That’s right, we haven’t abandoned the cause — for as long as people sneak comics home from shops in unmarked brown paper bags, we will be there. As long as men and women conveniently fail to mention their love of sequential art until the third date, we will be there. As long as we’re content to use any excuse to celebrate — and read — comics, we’ll be there.
It’s held on August 28 because that’s Jack Kirby’s birthday (he would have been 95 this year).
So head over to your local comic shop this weekend, pick up some reading material, and plan to kick back on a park bench, a bus or train, the break room at work, at a restaurant, or anywhere else where you can show people that yes, regular folks do in fact read comics!
You can also check out one of the meet-up events if there’s one nearby, or plan your own.
Back to Comic-Con in 2012
Comic-Con was a lot more fun and a lot less overwhelming than usual this year.
Maybe it’s because we skipped the busiest day to go the San Diego Zoo. Maybe it’s because we picked our battles on what we tried to do. Maybe it’s because last year we crammed the whole experience into a single day, and having three days felt like a luxury in comparison. Or the fact that the logistics of getting to and from the con were so ridiculously complicated (more about that later) that they made the convention seem relaxing.
Whatever the reason, the floor did seem a bit less crowded this year. Both of us remarked on the fact that we never felt trapped as we usually feel on the busiest days.
(Skip to the photos if that’s what you want.)
Thursday was the day I spent mostly on the floor, exploring. I hit the usual haunts: DC Comics, Sideshow Collectibles, Studio Foglio. DC was really plugging their upcoming fighting game, Injustice: Gods Among Us.
Sideshow seems to be displaying more figurines (and a wider variety) every year. Their Lord of the Rings figurines are absolutely incredible. Though I’m not sure what the target audience is for the life-sized Han Solo in Carbonite or Boba Fett. I can’t see putting one of those in my living room. They also had a very cheesecaky Poison Ivy statue. I overheard someone saying they couldn’t see themselves buying it because it would be like having that lamp in A Christmas Story. At another booth I discovered that you actually can buy that lamp.
Continue reading at K-Squared Ramblings…