Chicago Comicon: A Tale of Two Cons (Part Three)
Hello again, one and all. I’m back for this final day to wrap up my thoughts on the 2010 Chicago Comic Con, as presented by Wizard. See what they did there? Fooled you. Same way we all don’t know Xfiniity is actually Comcast, and Fox News is actually Satan’s News Network. When we last left off, I’d given a fairly positive review of the dealer floor. While it feels like the Swap-O-Rama had a child with that creepy guy who shows up at the comic store in sweatpants and an original 1978 Incredible Hulk shirt stained with brown mustard… the dealer floor offers a plethora of deals, steals, and hard-to-find collectibles that you’d just not find if not for the gaping square footage of a convention hall. With that said, it’s time we wrap up this little tour of the “Big-Con-That-Could… but didn’t.”
I want to start this final day’s wrap up with a little pull-quote from Wizard concerning former Illinois Governor Rod “1 count of fraud is better than 24” Blagojevich, and his attendance on Saturday.
“Wizard
World Chicago Comic Con is all about pop culture, and Rod Blagojevich is
as relevant to today’s news as it gets,” said Gareb Shamus, CEO of
Wizard Entertainment. “We think the court of public opinion will show
him to be a popular figure at the show.”
I couldn’t state it any better folks. Wizard World Chicago Comic Con is all about ‘pop culture’. Never mind that COMIC is in the title. Never mind that a SINGLE comic book publisher showed on the “exhibitor floor”. Never mind that the same floor was dominated by C, D, and Z level celebrities. Gareb Shamus has turned a show that once was the San Diego Comic Con of the Mid-West into a glorified flea market and three ring circus. I lamented earlier that for me, the meat and potatoes of a convention comes in it’s programming and exhibitors. At this con, the main floor boasted booths for everything BUT comics. In fact, aside from Avatar’s presence, a con goer walking into the show floor may not even reach an actual book until the dealer room. And with panels ranging from iPhone game demos to a “celebration of die-cast car collecting” … they might as well do themselves a favor and take COMIC out of the title. In all honesty, as a comic book fan, I resent that a casual con goer would think what they saw in that hall was a representation of what comic fans like.
Yesterday, BOOM! Studios joined the growing number of companies to add the rank of Chief Creative Officer to their mastheads. Mark Waid, the publisher’s Editor-in-Chief was named CCO with Matt Gagnon promoted to Editor-in-Chief. Marvel also formalized C.B. Cebulski’s talent scout role by naming him Senior Vice President, Creator & Content Development of Marvel
While much attention has been given to Marvel Studios’ ramp up to production on Captain America: The First Avenger and the recasting of Spider-Man, 20th Century-Fox has been making great strides towards repopulating Professor Xavier’s School for Gifted Students.
The 2009 
ComicMix congratulates Joe Quesada on his justly deserved promotion, recognizing the strides he has made in salvaging Marvel as a creative entity in the years since the company emerged from bankruptcy.
With the summer 2010 film season officially underway, calendars for 2011 and 2012 are rapidly filling up with eagerly anticipated fare. The latest juggernaut to claim a weekend is Columbia Pictures’ Men in Black III, which staked out May 25, 2012. Jumping on the bandwagon, the film was also announced as a 3-D production.
Let’s see if we caught them all– there have been some real gems this year:
