There was a lot of talk around the booths that the foot traffic at Wonder Con was a lot thicker this year. The regulars were saying they felt that attendance was up. The only rational explanation is that people heard that I’d be there for the first time this year.
I think the best compliment I can give to Wonder Con as an experience in whole is that I was actually smiling while on the drive back home to LA. Even as I was at the wheel, alone at 1 AM, halfway through a six hour drive down the 5 in the black nighttime landscapes of central California - - I couldn’t help but smile. Good vibes, good company and good experiences… what more can one ask of a couple days? I got to see San Francisco for the first time since I was a kid and enjoy a Californian city with a distinctly different identity from the city of Angels. I got to see all my fellow tomatoes on the comic vine - - G-Man, Babs, Riezner, JoeyF & ADH - - and get into some on-camera shenanigans with them. I got to sign copies of HYBRID BASTARDS! for a throng of unsuspecting fans in the company of my Archaia peers… Josh Finney, Kat Rocha, Patrick McAvoy, Chandra Free and too many more people working “behind the pages” to list. I even got to meet some of you, the fresh-faced Comic Vine community…
== TEASER ==
I put a special shout out to RadZombie, Misterz173 and a kid whose screen-name I apologize most profusely for not recalling, right now. I wrote it down in a notebook that I subsequently lost somewhere between LA and San Fran. So, if you know who you are, by all means, stand up and make yourself known! All three of these guys stopped by the Archaia booth to say hello to me and I can’t overstate how much I appreciated that. Forget the editable databases, forget the wacky videos… what puts Comic Vine above the competition is the positivity of our community. It’s infectious and I want to see more of it in fully-living, oxygen-breathing, carbon dioxide-exhausting reality at C2E2. I want to meet more of you maniacs in person, so stop on by the Archaia booth next weekend and check out the Archaia All-Access panel I’ll be on from 1:45 to 2:45 on Saturday the 17th. I’ll have copies of the HYBRID BASTARDS! hardcover with me (which I just found out is FINALLY hitting the streets on April 28), so whoever moseys on over will have an inside scoop the whole rest of the world won’t have access to.
For my first con of the season, I have to say that Wonder Con was a four-cylinder-firing, jackpot-hitting, cowbell-ringing success. I’m stoked to do it all over again in just a couple weeks. Goodbye City by the Bay, hello Windy City. My home town, Chicago. See y'all at C232!
-- Tom Pinchuk is the writer of UNIMAGINABLE for Arcana Comics and HYBRID BASTARDS! for Archaia. Watch out for the HYBRID BASTARDS! hardcover collection this April - - available for pre-order now on Amazon.com.