Comics Days

It's that time of year again when, if Chicago isn't exactly the center of the comics universe, it's a point on the comics map, at least for a few days. Wizard magazine is holding their annual comics convention, Wizard World Chicago. The big convention, of course, is Comic-Con International, which was held two weeks ago and just seems to get bigger and bigger--you could barely avoid it if you followed entertainment news. But Wizard World Chicago is local, and I could wrangle a free pass, so that's the one I'm attending.

Every year Wizard World seems to shrink a little bit, and this year is no exception. On Thursday's Preview Night, there were already retailers selling hard-cover collections of comics for half price, which is highly unusual. Sometimes prices would be lowered on Sunday before everybody went home, but this low this early is something I haven't seen before. Of course, although that doesn't necessarily auger well for the future of this show and possibly of the comics industry itself, it does provide a lot of great deals for me.

The other problem at Wizard World is that the programming is uninspired, to say the least. Unless you're jonesing to get detailed accounts of Marvel and DC's publishing plans for the next year, there's not much of interest in the panels. I swear, the roll-out of upcoming plans for their titles (Will Batman fight the Joker this year? Is Spider-Man going to have a face-down with Venom? This is the place to find out!) becomes more and more like going to a home appliance convention to see Whirlpool introduce their new refrigerator and dishwasher features. As Jason pointed out at Howling Curmudgeons, the next Batman movie has been shooting in Chicago, and although he didn't mention it, Angelina Jolie has just come into town to shoot another major comics film, but no actors or filmmakers have been announced on the program. If Wizard ever had the pull to get anybody like that to show up at their con, those days are behind them.

But anyway, that's where I'm off to in a few minutes. If I'm not quite as attentive to current events as you might expect, that's because my focus has gone to a large, uncomfortable convention center in Rosemont.

By the way, if you want to enjoy some aspects of the con from your own computer, check out Todd Allen's run down on convention models (sometimes referred to as "booth babes" in the vernacular). [Full disclosure: Todd and I were part of the winning team at yesterday's comics trivia panel.]