Wizard World Chicago 2010

In this Archive post that I recently brought over from my old WordPress, I added captions on the photos that reflect back upon this time five years ago. Those are in red. It's interesting how differently I see comics and my own efforts now compared to then.- Mario updated Nov 9, 2015

I still remember driving up to this. The city seemed bigger than when I had gone to GamesDay prior.

So much waiting, so much anticipation, so much work, yet so much fun. Chicago Comic Con has left me both worn out and also powerfully re-energized. I got a chance to meet so many talented artists and writers, cosplayers, collectors, toy enthusiasts, and all around interesting people. But as most of you know, I am based out of Kansas City, so there was a bit of a drive involved before I was able to join the ranks of those who'd come before me to this mecca of super geekdom.

This was the first trip I took for an extended amount of time, in which I took in other things aside from what was going on at the show.

I would love to have had a series of wonderful pictorials that showed the wonderful foreign land of Iowa, but in truth, it just looked like the Ozarks, but with a LOT more corn, and HUGE wind power generators. It was no Kansas, but my god, I have no clue what Iowa plans on doing with all that corn and I don't care. Later, after what was like 5 or 6 hours of driving through Iowa, I finally saw something new and wonderful called BUILDINGS. Those were in Illinois. Finally I was closer to Wizard World!

Or so I thought. Because of a slight planning oversight, I was not able to set up my stuff on Wednesday, all artists were to set up on Thursday. That left less time during the day on Thursday to take in the local Chicago sights. But I had found out about the Museum of Science and Energy while using "the Facebook", and my inner rocket scientist needed to be appeased. I hadn't even gotten INTO the building when I ran across a cleverly disguised R2 unit. Usually, I have criteria that make places I visit awesome, if you have a Sega Arcade machine of any kind or you have a robot represented, I automatically want to never leave. This wonderful USPS ode to Star Wars was a nice sign that today would be awesome...

It's hard to read some of these past entries, because I was still trying to balance my sense of being a positive pete kind of guy, and holding it back a bit.

AND IT WAS!!! Within moments, I was immersed in images of the old west interpreted as 3 dimensional cartoons, rocket men with lazers, works by Nikola Tesla, and not one, but TWO Sega arcade machines of the seminal arcade hit, "Daytona USA 2"!! I had barely been in the building all of 20 minutes!!!

I do remember MSI being a lot of fun. I also think I had twenty Dr. Peppers before I got there.

And this place is BIG! They had planes, trains and automobiles of all kinds, but nothing, NOTHING prepares you for seeing a German U-Boat inside a building!!!

They had this video playing on loop near the U-Boat that showed just how they got it in there. I think I was driving everyone crazy, because I was such a touristy sort of "WOW! WOOOW! GEE! WOWOW" about it all. I started getting out of the house more after this.

I could go on and on about the museum, but I will save that for the forthcoming galleries I am working on. But let's get on with what for four days became my home. The Rosemont Convention Center, and Wizard World.

I actually did get some great stuff there, and met some cool people that I know to this day.

You'll notice a myriad amound of items above, from a DragonQuest Nintendo DS booklet, to Pentel Pens (they were giving them to the illustrators in Artist Alley, one particular one was valued at $18 alone, more on that later...), to a wonderful hardbound book by Phil Machi (go check out his site!), and what is that at the top? An autographed photo of Commander Data? Yes, yes it is. And here's the story to go with it.

I was just on a lark noticing after the 2nd day of the convention, that there was an area that one might want to stand in to look over the convention. While approaching the area, I am passed by a distinguished looking gentleman, and after moving to the side to let him go by, I meet his eyes, and it's Brent Spiner. And I say "Hi Brent." And walk on, only realizing moments later what I've just done.

Understand that Star Trek: TNG is my favorite series. Understand that although I love all of the characters in that series, none of them have fascinated me or influenced my love of robotics and conveyed such a mood of wonder and innocence in a character at the same time as Brent Spiner's character, Commander Data. To think that I had a moment, at complete random, to run across an actor whom I've admired as much as Mr. Spiner, and not even be in the right sense of mind to say the right thing, made me want to sit down and drink a glass of sand.

I remember that Brent Spiner did not shake hands. Only fist bumps. He, unlike I, did not catch the "Con Crud" I am sure in the days following...

Well, this had to be righted! So the next day, after encountering an interstellar mechanic and his sidekick robot who were evidently attending a "Bloody Wedding" (see sign), I finally managed to make it to Mr. Spiner's booth and gushed with fanboy appreciation and disbelief that I was meeting yet another childhood hero of mine. Thankfully, he was more than understanding, and made no big deal out of it, but simply remarking that "Brent" was his name, and I'd done no wrong in calling him by that.

Let me tell you that Brent is first and foremost an engagingly funny and patient man whose wit and wile are razor sharp with just the hint of Data breaking through the surface on occassion. It's funny I had 5,000 questions I would have liked to have asked him, but all I was able to utter was that he had been a huge influence to me, that he was the best thing about ID4 (which he was, sorry Will Smith), and I think I said thank you 40 times for his time and patience.

I was still really shy about taking pictures of people, but Chicago helped me get over it.

Armed with a freshly signed autograph of Brent Spiner, and a photo of the man, I went back to Artist Alley and back to filming and taking photographs of the shenanigans and goings on of the convention.

I was pleased by the interaction I had with people who were gracious enough to ask me for autographs and to sign stuff (I'm some weirdo from the midwest, I never thought anyone would ask for me to ever sign ANYTHING...). As for the awesome lady in cosplay, Heather, I thank you for the advertising. I actually had some people come back to my table because of it.

Vanessa's chainmail work has only gotten better over the years. I was just reminiscing about meeting her with a person that had interviewed her just today. The internet world is small and cool at times.

Lady DeathPool was as terrifying as she was incredible to look at. The chainmail shirt on Vanessa Walilko (in the center) was amazing. Click on her name and check out her work! And the Sith Lord on the right was downright awesome. He was so in character and menacingly so, it was not hard to picture him being a threat to Jedi everywhere.

...I am seriously glad I draw better than this now. I really really really really am glad I draw better.

Commissions and artwork were coming off of my work area from time to time as well. I was also pleasantly surprised by some KC folk who came out to the convention to see me (Johnny Epic, I want a photo with you next time!) And man it was nice to finally meet both Trevor (creator of A$$HOLE), and Al (creator of Rival Angels), if you love comics, these guys make some great ones. [I'll be adding links to their webcomics soon]. And to my booth neighbor, Phil Machi, you were great to talk to and funny as hell.

I never updated to add that I was all chipper and happy and while holding it up to the sky to look at it better, I promptly dropped it, and it rolled into a storm drain. Poopy.

And remember that $18 pen that Pentel was nice enough to give me earlier? Well, this thing is magic in a pen shell. And it's not even available here in the U.S. yet!!! I'll be doing a review of the set later, but first impressions on me for this brush pen are good so far. :)

Thankfully, I am still as cheesy as I ever was.

And I've adopted a new more heroic and "sure to sell comics and art" pose that I was attempting to get started as the next big thing there at the convention. It seems that Phil's in on the game (but he's got a successful sideline gig as the man with the plan when it comes to Convention Conga line leadership qualities...), but Brian opted for a manly Avengers style pose it seems. And I know better than to tell a lady how to pose. She's really tall isn't she? Alexandra was nice enough to pose with me for this, (as a friend of mine pointed out, she does resemble Melanie from Pagan Zoetrope, especially in height), and then told me to come by her booth and she'd take my pants off for me. O_o She was working with Utilikilts.

Chicago Comic Con was truly an incredible experience, and there are so many things more I could go into, but in all truth, my brain is still trying to process it all. Chicago as a town is so dang cool, and if I could of, I would have gone downtown to see the devastation of tall robots (as Transformers 3 was filming while I was there), but I'm not complaining. It was fun. Till next time Chicago, thanks for reading all of you, I really do appreciate it! - Mario