Chicago Comic Con 2011 – Post Convention Thoughts

Another Wizard World Chicago Comic-Con has come and gone, and while we wait another 51 weeks for it to return, all we can do is look back on the weekend and reminisce.  It’s interesting to compare this year’s convention to previous years.  At first glance, it may not look like it, but much has changed about the convention over the past few year.  Some say it’s for the better, some say it’s for the worse.  My feeling is that while it’s different, the convention has found a new focus that still provides a weekend of fun.

I’ve been going to the convention for almost ten years now.  I first knew of the show in the mid-1990’s when it was called — what, else? — “Chicago Comic Con”, but my first time at the show was after Wizard bought it and it became “Wizard World Chicago.”  I still remember being in awe of the sights and sounds of the show.  Everywhere I looked I saw huge booths of comic characters on display, toys and games for me to drool over, and dealers selling comics and toys as far as the eye could see.

Flash forward nearly a decade, and the sights and sounds of the show are still there, but they are different.  Gone are the comic book companies and toy companies; in their place are movie and TV stars, more dealers, and even more attendees.  Chicago Comic-Con may not have the big comic companies any more, but they’ve turned to pop-culture stars as their main attraction.  It seems that the public loves this new focus, because this year’s show was packed.  It was hard to move about at times on Saturday with the mass of humanity waiting in line to meet Patrick Stewart or Bruce Campbell or Felicia Day, or the people looking for toys and comics, or the people snapping pictures of the costumers.

This year, as I usually do, I spent all of Saturday and part of Sunday at the convention.  I spent the entire day on Saturday with ASM’s Rogue Z snapping pictures of people in costumes, seeing old friends (some whom I hadn’t seen in months or even since last year’s con), wandering down the aisles of the dealers’ area (some of them more than once), and drooling over artwork in Artists’ Alley.  This year, it seemed that the Dealers’ area had expanded a tiny bit — what was a concession eating area in years past was converted to more dealer tables, while a different sitting area was created on the other side of the room.  I do so love seeing the dealers.  While I didn’t buy anything from them this year, it was more because of a lack of shelf space than a lack of things that I wanted.  Every year it seems I see toys that I didn’t know existed, and every year I see toys that make me think of my childhood.  “Oh, I had this when I was a kid!”  In some cases, that statement turns into “I still have this toy!” or even “I think that toy’s still in my parents’ attic….”

Artists’ Alley also had increased in size by at least a third, and this can only be a great thing.  There are so many talented artists at the convention; you could spend an entire day chatting with them all, asking for sketches, buying prints.  Rogue Z and I ended up taking home a print of Daenerys from HBO’s “Game of Thrones”; we were hoping to see more artwork from this show, but alas, it was not to be.  Hopefully there will be more next year.  Even if you aren’t there specifically to buy artwork, it’s amazing what can lure you in and say, “Hey, maybe it’s worth checking out this person’s stuff.”

As for the costumes, well, you can read Rogue Z’s Costume Report for more information on that.  All I can add to it is that seeing families together in costume brings a smile to my face.  The family that costumes together, stays together?  Maybe so.  I only wish that I had gotten a picture of the family with two daughters in fully-fitted custom-made Star Wars Clone Trooper armor.  That was a sight to behold.

This year, there weren’t as many guests that I felt I needed to meet.  I did end up getting Felicia Day’s autograph on Sunday morning, when the line wasn’t too horrible.  It’s amazing how many people she had waiting to meet her compared to some of the other stars.  It’s a testament to her non-traditional way of marketing “The Guild”; she’s developed a rabid fan-base, and it shows that there’s a market for niche shows that wouldn’t make it on traditional television.

Do I miss the old days of the convention?  In one sense, yeah.  I loved being able to look at toys from Hasbro and Mattel and get upcoming news from Marvel and DC.  But I also love meeting stars, getting autographs, seeing great artwork, and looking at all the things to buy.  So, while Wizard World Chicago may be gone, Chicago Comic Con is still a fantastic place to be for a weekend.  I’m already eagerly waiting next year.

Check out our two galleries from Chicago Comic-Con:  General Pictures and Costumes.  Be sure to tag yourself in our Facebook galleries, too!