Wizard World Chicago Review

Definitely something worth going to if you like comics.

Ok, first of all, let me say that Chicago is overwhelming as hell. I have never seen so many people in my life-granted it was my first time going to a huge city in the U.S. other than Atlanta if you can count Atlanta as being huge. We used the subway and buses to get around because nobody would want to drive in that town. Ok, you guys don't care about that shit.

On to the convention itself. I went with Joey who is an all out Batman fan. He was so excited to be in the city where they were filming The Dark Knight (TDK). Anyway the morning of the convention he went online and found out about TDK panel they would be having later that evening. But you had to get there early because seats were limited. So, we hauled ass and got to the convention center. The place was MASSIVE!!! We got in and got in line for TDK panel and it seemed to almost wrap around the interior of the building. We had no idea what to expect from the panel other than it was Batman related. Well, luckily we were able to get our wristband to get in the panel and a free shirt that advertises the movie. All this was at no cost which shocked me, but it is a publicity event for the movie.

After all that was done, I preceded to go meet someone I idolized as a kid--Lou Ferrigno- okay maybe not idolized but I did watch Incredible Hulk. Let me say that Lou was huge. I got my pic taken with him and I look small next to him which says something. He was really nice. My wife wanted me to mention that she likes him on the show "King of Queens". I told him that and he said "Really good show". Man of few words. But I met him and it was cool. Yes I got an autograph pic of the Hulk. We did proceded to walk around and take everything in. Keeping in mind it is about 11 am at this point and the panel was not until 6.

One of the booths of interest were DC. They had statues and action figures of their characters to see and stuff like that. They had a TV showing a preview for an upcoming Justice League animated direct to video movie. There really was not much to the booth, since I guess they were doing TDK panel and that was enough. Other booths of interest were the Playstation 3 booth-where you could play games from the system. I did not get to play because everytime I went there it was packed out. I did see some of the games and I really was not that impressed with the graphics considering the system cost $500.

Anyway, other booths that we went to were just people from comic shops, collectibes, etc. from all over representing their shop and selling stuff. You definitely could find what you wanted at this convention if you took the time to look. At this time after walking and looking for hours I heard that Bobby Heenan was there. I then went to get his autograph. I was standing behind some dude in a wrestling mask (although I have no clue who he was trying to be or if maybe he wrestled locally or whatever. (People were in costume and more on that later) Anyway the guy in the mask tells the Brain what an inspiration he was blah blah blah. Bobby was like thanks and then had this look on his face as if he was wanting security real fast. As I walked up to Bobby the Brain Heenan my first thought was how sad his health had become. He did not have that pizazz he had in wrestling due to his condition (is it throat cancer?) He was friendly and spoke to me by saying hello. I chose a classic group shot photo from AWA for him to sign. Joey walks up to him and says hello Mr. Heenan. Well, Bobby then goes Mr. Heenan is my father you can call me the Brain. That was awesome! To the right of Heenan's table was Virgil's table from wrestling. Above his table was the names Ted Dibiase with Virgil. Dibiase was not there. I was sad because everytime I walked by Virgil's booth one person may have been there. He looked exactly the same. I did meet and shook his hand but no autograph.

Other celebs that were there were some chick that had been in dirty mags and she was built let me tell you. Someone from one of The Star Wars movies Episode 1 maybe. Friday the 13th kid that pulled the woman into the water at the end--he was there of course he is an adult know. Richard Hatch from Battestar Gallactica (the old version) and Tricia Helfer from the new version. I did not meet any of these people because to be honest, I did not care too. I did see Michael Madsen. He was signing and promoting a new movie or tv show that he is doing with collaboration from Fangoria magazine (Nate, you probably know about this) I did not get his autograph but I did see him.

In addition to comics they had illustrators, writers, etc. there as well. Now, I do not keep up with who writes what. I do know that Michael Turner and Mark Millar (Civil War) were extremely popular!!!!I tried to paint this pic I possibly could for the convention itself. You really have to be there to take it all in. I plan to go next year but to one of the other cities.

Now to TDK panel. It started at 6 and Joey and I got in line at about 4:30. The line was incredilby long. They finally started letting us all in at around 5:30 and they had security--no recording devices at all or cameras. Anyway we got in and sat about 30 rows back which was not bad at all. Finally it was about to start and the President of DC Comics came up and started talking then he starts to introduce people to come out. (We had no clue who would be there) First out was David Goyer (awesome--the writer, extremely talented), then his collaborator and the director's brother Jonah Nolan came out (a little quiet, I did not know him that well), then Chris Nolan the director comes out--HUGE POP from crowd. (this was cool because I think he is a great director), then the Batman himself Christian Bale (BIGGER POP), Aaron Echart-Two Face (BIG POP), and my personal favorite as far as film history and stuff goes--Gary Oldman. I was hyped up. I could not believe all these people were there from this one movie. They then each spoke a little and opened it up for Q&A from the audience. Now, I hate to disappoint but I do not remember most questions from this and some were so stupid they did not need to be remembered. I do remember Bale talking about how reading Long Halloween and Frank Miller's Year One inspired him to do the movie and how his only recollection of the character was Adam West's version as far as TV and film go. Echart was saying he was truly excited to be in this movie and Goyer saying that we will not be disappointed! They did the Q & A for about 20 minutes and then we got to see some footage from the movie and Nolan made sure to mention that they are only about halfway through shooting. Let me just say that the footage was awesome!! It is really hard to put it in words. I will say that the review from the panel on batman-on-film.com does a good job so check it out there.

I was one of the many people who could not believe that Heath Ledger was cast as Joker. From the footage we saw, I think we are going to be pleased. Jonah Nolan said that he had trouble getting Ledger's performance so far out of his head and Chris Nolan said that Ledger has a terrific understanding of the character and went with it in his own way.All in all, it was worth the trip. If you ever have an opportunity to go I would suggest doing so. I only touched on little parts of the convention. There was so much going on!!!!