Fans who were shut out of getting tickets for the San Diego Comic-Con headed north this weekend for WonderCon, the Bay area comics show which celebrated its 25th edition this year. While final attendance numbers are not yet available, director of marketing and public relations David Glanzer confirmed that attendance would likely exceed the 39,000 fans that attended last year’s show.
Long a smaller version of the famed San Diego Comic-Con, this year’s WonderCon came into its own as an attractive alternative to the increasingly hard-to-get-into San Diego Comic-Con International, which is already completely sold out. Three day tickets to WonderCon sold out by Saturday, and single Saturday tickets sold out by early in the morning—both first time occurrences.
Interest was spurred by a strong line-up of guests – from Jason Aaron and Robert Kirkman to Seth and Hope Larson – and notable entertainment presentations, including new footage of the Green Lantern movie and an appearance by future Superman, Henry Cavill, promoting the movie Immortals.
While panels covered everything from the history of WonderCon, to creator’s rights to spotlights on guests like Sergio Aragones, some publishing news came out as well. Archaia made a splash with news of two new graphic novel anthologies – one adapting the Immortals film and another reviving another Jim Henson project, The Storyteller, which ran briefly as a TV series in the 70s and featured fable-like stories. The anthology will feature creators such as Roger Langridge, Jimmy Palmiotti and Justin Gray, Jeff Parker, and Colleen Coover, and an unproduced story by the late director Anthony Minghella.
IDW is bringing back the kids perennial franchise Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles in a new ongoing series. They also announced a surprising partnership with Marvel Comics to present deluxe editions of several Marvel classics, starting out with a volume reprinting Walt Simonson’s highly regarded run on Thor. Although Marvel doesn’t generally license out its characters to other comics publishers, parent company Disney has made several such deals – an IDW spokesperson pointed out that it’s a small print-run deluxe project that Marvel would be unlikely to publish.
Dark Horse announced Buffy Season Nine, the newest edition/episode of the popular franchise, with creator Joss Whedon writing, along with Andrew Chambliss (Vampire Diaries.) The “Whedon-verse” will expand with a book featuring Angel and Faith, also from Buffy, and the recent TV series Dollhouse will get its own 5-issue mini series.
Over at Marvel, which returned to the floor as an exhibitor for the first time in years, most energy was expended promoting their upcoming film slate of Thor and Captain America with an impressive campaign involving men in suits recruiting fans to join S.H.I.E.L.D., the Marvel Universe version of the CIA. S.H.I.E.L.D. figures prominently in both films and the upcoming Avengers crossover movie.
In publishing news, Marvel announced that writer Warren Ellis and artist Jamie McKelvie would be taking over Secret Avengers.
At DC, the emphasis was likewise on Green Lantern, with toys and video game tie-ins taking over much of their booth. On Friday, look-e-loos surrounded the booth awaiting a glimpse of Ryan Reynolds who signed a few autographs prior to the panel. Chief creative officer Geoff Johns was heavily involved in the Lantern goings on but also announced a return to writing Aquaman, with artists Ivan Reis and Joe Prado.
A few publishers debuted at WonderCon, including indie mainstay Drawn & Quarterly, which sold out of new books by Shigeru Mizuki and Pascal Girard. Although D&Q regularly exhibits at the fall Alternative Press Expo also in San Francisco, they found WonderCon to be another strong venue for sales. “We love the Bay Area,” said creative director Tom Devlin. “We’d come here every time if we could.”
While WonderCon has long been seen as the smaller, more laid back cousin of the pop culture behemoth known as Comic-Con, there were some signs that the show is getting big and crazy as well—the line to get into the Green Lantern panel stretched halfway around the convention center, a smaller version of the all-day line to get into San Diego’s Hall H. The early spring timing is a good platform for summer movie promotion, and many veteran attendees were overheard fretting that the show would turn into “MovieCon 2,” however, organizers remain committed to keeping the show manageable, even as the “comic-con” experience becomes more and more mainstream. “I'm sure we'll see some growth, but no one expects it to be another Comic-Con International,” Glanzer told the site GamerLive. However, given the giant crowds on Saturday, talk of expanding some functions to another part of Moscone next year seems increasingly plausible.
