Wondercon '08 - personal shenanigans

This weekend may have been the big Oscar hoopla; but here in San Francisco it was also that time of year again. The time for Wonder-con. This year as I mentioned a while ago I just didn't have time to drop by for very long. Inn fact I really only spent about half the day on Saturday there, which kinda sucked because I had to miss out on many a fine sounding panel discussion; but overall I'd definitely say I still had a really great time. Since I simply can't afford to make it down to San Diego every year, its nice that there is a cool con up here for the local Bay area crowd.

My thought with the convention floor, when I first got there, was pretty simple. I was planning on wandering around for a little bit, seeing if I could find a 50% off trade paperback seller grab a few odds and ends and then head off to the panels. This is a big show and growing every year but the booths aren't huge, and while there's a lot of space, it's pretty manageable. Lucky for me too because I found a 50% comic booth almost right away and so I went to work. My thought was that I'd pick up a few bits and pieces I've been missing, see if I couldn't complete my Swamp Thing run, grab the latest trades of Fables here, and Hellboy there, then maybe wrap it up with an Essential or two. Instead I decided to go another way.

The great thing about these 50% bins is that if you see a run of something you'd been meaning to pick up but were too intimidated because of the length, this is a great opportunity. Like how I've been wanting to catch up on the Ultimate X-Men line for a few years now, but I was put off knowing that it was already 16 volumes strong and still going. That's a lot of investment, especially at $14 a pop. So last year at SD comic con I bought them all at 50% off, and felt honestly justified in the price. That kind of value is just too good to pass up.

This year however as Erica and I are seriously looking at buying a new residence, we don't have that kind of disposable cash. So I kept myself to a limit of $65. Which I thought was pretty good. I ended up picking up the first 6 volumes of Marvel's House of M event. And since there are only 3 more in the series, followed by I think 6 follow ups in Decimation, this is a good start. And reading this event will finally get me up to speed on leading into Marvel's big cross company event from this year Civil War. I was looking at the graphic novels for that and there are seriously like 15 of em... gonna take me forever to buy and read those, hopefully they stay in print long enough. Sheesh...

Also, aside from the comics I picked up a bootleg dvd of a tv series I've been wanting to see for a very long time, G.I. Joe Extreme. As most of you can probably tell, I am a bit of a G.I. Joe nut. I have all the dvds that have been released, expect for that Sigma Six crap, and am REALLY looking forward to the movie. Extreme was a show that I totally missed in it's life on the small screen and I am sad I did. Basically it was a short lived tv series, and direct follow up show to the Real American Hero series we all know and love. Extreme was on for two seasons in '95 and '96 and stared a new cast of Joes, led by the bad ass Lt. Stone, against the forces of S.K.A.R. (Soldiers of Kaos, Anarchy, and Ruin) and their leader the masked Ironclaw... here check out the opening credits...



Very 90's, eh? Totally extreme! And totally awesome! Anyhow, after watching two episodes so far, I understand why kids might not have really gone for it, the show isn't bad per say; it just isn't all that original. But I'm really glad I picked it up, its cool to see these bootlegs finally. If I'd had another $20 I would've definitely picked up the unaired Global Frequency television pilot... maybe next time.

So other than the shopping and the wandering I did manage to hit two panels. One was for the new Spectacular Spider-Man animated tv series set to air this fall, and the other was for Starship Troopers 3: Marauder, where I actually got to see Casper Van Dien and Jolene Blalock live in person! I think I'll post a report of those panels on their own though, just easier for future reference. In the meantime though, why not check out some of more pics I took around the con. I didn't go too nuts on the photos this year, but then again I only had a few hours.

I will definitely say Wonder-con is a great convention. Every year, even if I just drop by for a single day I've enjoyed it. And one of these years I'll really do it right. Take the Friday off work and just spend the whole weekend seeing stuff. Maybe next year will finally be that time. Until then, enjoy these last few pics :)

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