It was an odd and yet familiar feeling, being back at one of those shows. The last time I was there, it was in the North building of McCormack Place, and it was spacious, bright, and vibrant. This year, it was in the South building and a bit more like going to Wizard World at the Donald E. Stephens center: Darker, too many open and wasted space, and crammed in together with an emphasis on autographs and an absence of the big names in Comics. Marvel was there, though no more than selling some shirts, an autograph desk for artists, writers, etc. and a small stage where you could hold Captain America’s shield or Thor’s hammer and get some pictures. I really expected a more grandiose display since Civil War is only a month and a half away. DC Comics was missing entirely, which is an even bigger shock.
The South building itself was too sprawling, with hundreds of feet on either side of the room empty, and the show crammed in together. It was very difficult to walk down the aisles and prevented you from taking casual glances at things. If you wanted to stop, you had to push your way to the booth. The autograph section was up against the back wall of the South building, so the lines were incredibly long to handle many visitors. If you were an autograph collector, it didn’t seem too bad. The flow was confusing, with artists, small comic book companies, retailers, and guests like The Honkey Tonk Man all jumbled together. In all, I was very put off by the layout, because they’ve done much better before.
On to what was cool, were some of the costumes! I love to see the creativity, and hard work some of these people put into their costumes. Almost immediately upon entering, was a large Wampa there to greet guests. The guy was standing on stilts with arm extenders to make him bigger, but it was one of my favorites. There were a pair of Muppers, Dr. Bunsen and Beaker, who were fantastic as well. Oddly enough, I only saw a couple of Stormtroopers there. Deadpool and Rey were the #1 choice of too many, with not many being super quality. Ghostbusters were in full force as well, with some great effort put into them! My girlfriend had never been to a con like this, so it was funny to see her reactions to some of them.
As far as big name companies goes, there were only a couple that weren’t t-shirt companies. Marvel had a booth for their collectors box club, but really lacked much in the way of aesthetics. The one that blew me away immediately was WETA. If you’re a Lord of the Rings fan, and you want some highly detailed, highly priced collectibles, WETA is by far the way to go, and their booth reminded everyone why! I’ll try to post some pictures later, as I didn’t get too many, but Their booth was by far, the most complex and complete. The other booth that I found really interesting was a company I hadn’t heard of, but might be paying attention to again soon. Sadly, I can’t remember the name of the booth, but I’ll see if I can find it because they had a lot of cool looking collectibles. Some highly detailed action figures/statues, and some cool egg-like ones too. The other trend I saw a lot of were “Mystery Boxes.” For a price, you got a nondescript box that had a certain value of merchandise in it, but you didn’t know until you opened it later. I saw one booth that advertised “Choose 3, Open 2, Purchase 1” on their boxes. I almost bought one or two just to check them out. Otherwise, it’s the same items you see at every con, from all toy collections. In all, it was fun to be back, and I may have to try and hit up one or two more again in the future, because I do miss it a bit. It was weird NOT having a shopping list to search for like I used to have, so that actually cut down the time I spent there quite a bit! As soon as I have the pics uploaded and edited, I’ll post them for you all.
