This year's WonderCon, held February 27-March 1, was an acid test for what a mid-size convention could be like in the new economy—and Friday’s business was sluggish enough that the mood at San Francisco's Moscone Center was nervous. Fortunately, attendance and sales picked up enormously on Saturday, and many publishers and vendors were reporting solid or better-than-solid sales by Sunday. David Glanzer, director of marketing and public relations for the San Diego Comic-Con International, which owns and manages WonderCon, said that while he did not have exact attendance figures as yet, he expected attendance to be at least about 29,000, the number that attended last year’s WonderCon, “and very likely more.”

Bob Chapman of Graphitti Designs described sales activity at the show this way: “We live in a perfect fantasy world that has a fantasy economy." Radical Comics publisher Dave Elliott said that they'd done better at WonderCon than at this year's New York Comic-Con. (He also noted a sign of the times: Radical is phasing out its 32-page comics in favor of a 48-page, $4.99 format.)

The book of the show, unsurprisingly, was Watchmen—when DC Comics' booth was giving away reprint copies of the original periodical, Watchmen #1, the line stretched down the wall of the convention center, and the Friday night screening of the movie was the hottest ticket around. WonderCon is the kind of convention that attracts plenty of cosplayers, and many of them were dressed as Watchmen characters: at least a few Sally Jupiters, a body-painted Dr. Manhattan with black briefs, and more Rorschachs than you could shake a canister of sugar cubes at. It's as much a media show as a comics show, and official news from comics publishers were thin on the ground: Marvel announced that Arthur Adams would be drawing one of their Ultimate titles, DC that Judd Winick and Paul Dini would be writing Batman-related series. IDW, meanwhile, let it be known that they're publishing a deluxe collection of the late Dave Stevens' Rocketeer material and collecting Bil Keane's Family Circus, and Boom! Studios formally announced a co-publishing deal with Fox Atomic, although they didn't name any specific titles they'd be publishing.

The graphic novel panel with (l. to r.) David Petersen,
Windy Pini,Alex Robinson and Stan Sakai

There were also some notable absences from the show floor. Marvel didn't have a booth, although they had a handful of panels, including a dialogue between rising-star writers Matt Fraction and Ed Brubaker. Tokyopop, Fantagraphics and Drawn & Quarterly didn't have booths either, and most of the cartoonists in Artists' Alley were either industry veterans of several decades' standing or unknowns. And there were a few signs of changes in the industry, especially the tough environment for serial comics from independent publishers. Archaia—no longer Archaia Press—noted that several of their titles were being discontinued as serials and would be going direct to graphic-novel format. (Their booth also featured a poster for a forthcoming project called Days Missing, a tie-in with a Roddenberry Productions project.)

Jill Thompson at the Dark Horse booth

The mid-sized publishers that were on hand, though, reported a warm reception from this year's crowd. "It's different from other WonderCons," SLG Publishing's Jennifer de Guzman said. "It's expanding beyond superheroes." SLG's booth didn't have any big debuts, but they were selling a solid cross-section of their back catalogue—as well as copies of DC's Supergirl: Cosmic Adventures in the 8th Grade, which creators Eric Jones and Landry Q. Walker were on hand to sign. Oni Press's booth featured Lars Brown signing the second volume of North World, and was also doing a brisk business in Bryan Lee O'Malley's new volume of Scott Pilgrim. Dark Horse's booth drew lines for signings by Jill Thompson and Chris Onstadt. Image had a handful of creators on hand for signings—Ivan Brandon was showing off pages from Viking, his forthcoming collaboration with artist Nic Klein—and reported steady sales of a broad swath of their back catalogue. Last Gasp sold a pile of a slipcased Hi-Fructose hardcover and two newly translated volumes of Barefoot Gen; and their booth previewed the March title, Banksy's Bristol: Home Sweet Home by Steve Wright, an art book and essay collection on the cult British graffiti/street artist Banksy.

Viz editor Annette Roman

There was relatively little manga presence at this year's WonderCon. Viz Media had arranged to have a booth literally the day before the show and they were displaying their books rather than selling them. Viz showed previews of the forthcoming titles including, Detroit Metal City, a send-up of death metal rock by Kiminori Wakasugi, Ikigami, a crime thriller by Motoro Maseand Fumi Yoshinaga’s Ooku, historical fiction set in the 18th century after a disease has wiped out most of the men and a female shogun rules Japan. There was a near-constant cluster of people at the Viz booth looking at the two new Naoki Urasawa series, 20th Century Boys and Pluto. The first volumes of both Urasawa titles were both selling briskly at Comic Relief's booth, too—although nothing was selling faster than Watchmen.

So far, the gloomy economy has not had a significant impact on shows like WonderCon. “We’ve always done well in a bad economy,” Glanzer said, “this past weekend people were spending money and we’ve got high unemployment in California.” And while he acknowledged that the economy, “has never been this bad before,” he also doesn’t anticipate the downturn affecting the upcoming San Diego show either. “We don’t anticipate much impact. There is always way more demand for hotels and exhibit space than we can accommodate.”

“We give people value for the dollar,” Glanzer said in explanation, “and in our surveys fans feel that they get their money’s worth. At WonderCon they got a Watchmen screening and a lot of other stuff for a reasonable rate and the fans realize that.”

[Additional reporting by Calvin Reid. Photos courtesy of Deb Aoki and about.com and check out her WonderCon Gallery.]