WWC was my first con a few years back and when I showed up Thursday and saw;

1. No printed tickets, cheap wristbands
2. No detail amenties for exhibitors carpet, cleaning staff for the room, con staff to assist with any issues that arose.
3. The utter shit they uses to fill some of the booth.
4. NO major publishers, sponsors, etc.
5. No attention to layout or aesthetics
6. Utter confusion with check in and crowd control due to the all volunteer labor force given crap instructions (i felt bad them!)

I shuddered with PTSD. I’ve watched this type of event hit the rocks. The show was awful. Bought lots of trades, almost completed my mirage tmnt run (#59, 62 anyone?) but all in all no decent panels, horrible quality, kinda depressing.

Wizard won’t live long, this is a downward spiral.

Its a pity.

When I was at the show Friday (the only day I went), and they made the announcement to stop by a booth and pick up tickets for the signing, I thought it was a joke. Chicago-style, you know? “Welcome to Chicago! Our leader is a puke! Enjoy the show!”

Better still, the announcement was met with many “boo’s” from attendees.

But then someone came up to me and asked if the signing was legit, and I said, “Of course, not. It’s a joke because of the trial.”

Then I visited the site Friday night and saw the announcement. It was true.

I can understand filling the show with celebrities and I can even sacrifice it a little bit and say that I understand that other media will eventually infiltrate WW Chicago, like it has with San Diego, but when the show is shifting so much into pop culture that is not related to comic books, AND THEN use Blag as a poster boy to sell more tickets (and the news media in Chicago LIT UP with the news that he’d be at the show — it was the biggest news of the weekend), the show is so much less about comics than it should be.

I wonder if Wizard as a magazine will turn into something different entirely. They’ve already lost the support of the big publishers in comics. Maybe the mag will simply become pop culture grist and whatnot. Wizard certainly hasn’t reported anything in the past year that you didn’t read about before on Newsarama.

Who’s going to step up and take Wizard’s place as THE magazine for comic book fans?

Over the years, I really looked forward to DC’s monstrosity of a booth when I walked into the con, and that went away in 2009, replaced by celebrities charging for autographs and SOME even going so far as to hole themselves up behind curtains so that you couldn’t walk by and snap a wayward shot with your digital camera.

This year, and perhaps it was just me, even the dealers’ area seemed a little more abbreviated, because the celebrity booths were taking up the whole floor.

I’m reading articles from CNN about how San Diego is no longer a con for comic fans and people are upset that they have to wait in line for hours to view a panel, only to miss the cut-off due to the high number of attendees at the show, getting locked out, and this all leads me to believe that the days of the “traditional” comic con are gone.

There were posters at WW Chicago for Detroit Fanfare, though, and word around the campfire is the admission is FREE. Word around the campfire is also that Motor City is going to compete with it the same weekend .. in the same CITY .. and CHARGE admission!

I’ll make the trek for Detroit Fanfare .. don’t know if I’ll ever brave San Diego .. but we’ve got memories of what the shows used to be like, and what they used to possess.

Makes you feel kind of old when you can say, “When I was a kid, comic cons MEANT something! But TODAY…!”

Sigh.

There are D list celebs at Mid Ohio, just as there are at pretty much every comic con. However, the focus still remains on comics. I don’t have a problem with celebs being there, but when you market yourself as a comic con, BE A COMIC CON.

Yeah, cause there are no D-list celebrities at Ohio Con, right?

A typical line-up there includes Noel Neil, Lou Ferrigno and the guy who played Jason in Friday the 13th. I live in Ohio and I stopped going 5 years ago because there are no big publishers and only lame guests. I enjoyed the comic atmosphere, meeting up with friends and seeing some good indy stuff, but that just isn’t enough for me anymore.

A lot of us on the Wizard board tried to warn Wizard and air our grievances, but every year we were shouted down and ignored as the show sank lower and lower.

Part of me is sad I didn’t make the annual trip to Chicago this year, but I’d rather not taint the good memories I have with a sham like this. I consider the 2009 show my Wizard World Wake. Unfortunately the expense and inconvenience of downtown Chicago keep me from making the trip to C2E2, so I guess my days of attending big comic conventions are behind me. But at least I still have Mid-Ohio Con.

F-Shamus, and F-Wizard.