This past weekend in Philadelphia was Wizard World Philadelphia AKA Philadelphia Comic-Con or whatever they are calling it now. I have been going to Wizard World since the convention started 10 years ago and I did the same this year…So for those of you who have never been to a convention sit back and enjoy because I am going to take you there…
At Wizard World you can pretty much find anything you ever wanted, from Super Mario plushies…
To awesome celebs…
To people dressed in crazy costumes…
Put it all together it makes for one heck of a time. This year was my first year going all three days which was pretty cool. Let’s go day by day and go through it in its entirety…
FRIDAY
I arrived at the con around 4pm ready to see a few friends in Artist Alley and see how things were going, I first checked in with the head of the Xion group I work with, Shawn Alleyne.
Shawn is a crazy detailed artist who was there showing off his crazy talents and promoting the Xion group. Check his stuff out by clicking in the contacts section on the main page.
From there I headed over to the Xion table where the creators of this sweet book called Dinoman, Jeff and Ben Cohen were there representing.
The book is hilarious and they are awesome guys you can check them out at their Myspace here: http://www.myspace.com/dinomancomics and you can buy the book at Brave New Worlds Comics in Philly.
I also had a chance to catch up with my friend Bryan G. Brown writer and artist of his autobiographical tale, First Fight.
If you guys want to read a great personal story about a guys life, his times with MMA, and his journey to becoming an Artist then pick this up ASAP…you can see him here: www.bryangbrown.com
From there I made some new friends in Artist Alley, Matt Spradlin and Barry Wernick, the creators of a book called Bad Kids Go to Hell. The book is a horror comedy about a group of prep school kids locked in detention that eventually turns into hell. Cool guys with a cool story, think Paris Hilton and Lindsay Lohan being hunted down and brutally murdered in a detention type setting…awesome.
You can find out more at www.badkidsgotohell.com
After I met all those peeps I wanted to go get a sketch from my favorite Green Lantern artist Ethan Van Sciver. I have been checking out his art since his New X-Men days and he was always one of my all time favorites. After waiting about a half hour Ethan said he had to go so I figured I will just catch him tomorrow (another advantage of going all 3 days…) and get a sketch.
So after that I picked up some Heroclix and made the journey home.
I get home to find that my Cousin Shawn had sent me a Facebook message asking if I was going to Wizard World and telling me that if I was I should text his wife Michelle, she is friends with Ethan Van Sciver artist at DC Comics.
My brain immediately exploded.
Apparently all this time I had a link to Ethan Van Sciver…what a small freakin’ world!
Needless to say I was pumped.
SATURDAY
I texted Michelle IMMEDIATELY! She told me she was in Artist Alley now and to come on over. I walk over and she is sitting RIGHT NEXT TO HIM.
My brain exploded again.
I got in line and finally got to the front, Michelle introduced us and I just immediately started telling him how cool he was. We got to joke back and forth talk about tradition vs digital art, movies, his upcoming projects and more. Then he asked me what I wanted him to sketch, I didn’t want to hassle the guy because he was so cool so I told him you can just do a Green Lantern (I’m sure he can draw Hal Jordan with his eyes closed at this point). About 10 minutes later he draws this awesome sketch of GL and tells me “You can have this…but from now on you have to call Michelle your personal savior.” Well Michelle, my Personal Savior…
THANK YOU!
Can’t wait to frame this and hang it in the office!
From there me and my wife walked around and shopped and checked out a few things like:
The giant T-Shirt stand that Stylin’ Online has every year…
And the DeLorean that Michael J Fox’ charity had for donations…you could sit in it and take pictures with it and 100% of the proceeds went towards Parkinson’s research so we did it.
My wife really loved the Hover Board too
Nice touch.
We also walked past the Sexy Superhero Massage booth and had a good chuckle as desperate nerds got massages by chicks dressed as Slave Leia
Yeesh.
After eating an awesome Roast Pork sandwich from Reading Terminal Market we headed back in…My wife handed out the rest of the Synergycomic.com postcards and I met with my friends again. While I was there I also talked to Jamie Fay an awesome artist I knew from Deviantart and asked him if he would do a sketch of Synergy for me. I was dying to see what he would do with it and he told me he would and I could pick it up tomorrow.
So after buying a few MORE Heroclix and some old Spideys I headed home.
SUNDAY!
Headed to Wizard World for the last day this year with a bunch of friends and showed them where the good stuff was and where to avoid, another advantage of being there all 3 days.
First thing I did was pick up the Jamie Fay sketch, and he didn’t disappoint.
The Synformers Universe 