Wizard World, Comic Con - What's In A Name?

Spent most of today recovering from WizardWorld/Chicago ComicCon/whatever you want to call it this past weekend, and I have to say....I was sadly disappointed. My expectations were maybe a bit high, but the experience was a bit overstuffed. Although I'll probably be talking about it in other areas, some preliminary thoughts:

• All in all, Comic-Con was an attempt to reengage a name that hadn't been used in years. Quite frankly, the energy level of the convention was best described as "Um, yeah". Given rumors about a new convention hitting Chicago in April, this might be Wizard World's last gasp at greatness.
• Wizard attempted to ramp up more of a "celebrity" presence - more reliance on celebrity autographs (there were a ton of wrestlers), as well as the usual suspects. It was a bit overdone, like the punk band who played on Saturday (which ended up blocking traffic through part of the hall), the tattoo parlor providing live tattoos (I'm not making this up, folks)....Wizard is becoming as hip as your uncle Jim. And Uncle Jim's not hip. Not even my uncle Jim.
• Biggest mistake - having most of the high-end celebrity panels with high-end prices. Forty dollars for the John Ostrander auction - fair, it's a fundraiser. But $100 to hang with Mark Millar or Nichelle Nichols? $150 to chat with BSG or the guy who played Toad in X-Men? Granted, they need to eat, but that's a little steep.
• Noticed a lot of retailers selling trades for $5 and hardbacks for $10, and 85 - 90% of those were Marvel. Quick question for our favorite comics retailer who blogs: is this a matter of Marvel flooding the market with trades, or retailers ordering way too many copies?
• Best panel - Hero Initiative.
• Best moment - Brian Azarello at the DC Nation Panel on his upcoming Spirit series - "I will have things that you would expect, and things that you won't expect, and I'm not going to tell you the things you won't expect!"
  
• By the way, I spent 15 minutes in the Twilight panel in order to get good seating for the DC Nation panel, and for those of you who like Twilight, two words: Dark frakkin' Shadows.
• All in all, a very disappointing time - maybe this is proof that the Wizard magazine mentality is finally jumping the shark.
  

But enough of my yakkin' - here are some photos for you to savor. Enjoy!