Wizard World Los Angeles
Los Angeles Convention Center, Los Angeles, CA
March 14-16, 2008
Admission: $25.00 per day

The best way to describe Wizard World is it’s one part rock concert and one part swap meet, speaking of rock concerts . . . is Marc Silvestri looking more and more like a rock star? And the best part of going to thee annual Wizard Conventions is, unlike San Diego, you actually see comic books, and you can find the books you're looking for without a GPS navigation system.

Like any event of the scale you will have pros and cons. First, let’s start with the pros. Being veterans to several (four or five) past Wizard World shows, I spent much more time talking with artists, than previous years.

Mid-day Saturday, we got to watch David Finch (click here) do some outstanding Moon Knight commissions. Great artist, my Brother bought one of his original pages from a recent vampire story. I bought his limited edition sketch book, 392 of 1,000, which Finch signed for me.

Also on Saturday, I got to spend some time talking with Matt "Batt" Banning. Not only is he about the best inker in the business, but probably one of the most down to earth guys you’d ever want to meet. His portfolio is incredible.

Also on Saturday I talked for a bit with Jonah Hex co-creator Tony DeZuniga. Extremely nice guy. Last year, I came to see him, and brought some books that he had worked on back in the early part of the 1970’s, he was nice enough to sign them, and give me a bit of background on what was taking place in the industry at the time. I stayed with him for a while , and watched sketch a Red Sonja commission, over thirty years in the business and he hasn’t missed a beat.

Marv Wolfman was one of the many, many creators that was there over this three day event. Unfortunately, he proved to be a pretty terrible interview subject. Read his exclusive Web Comics interview here!

The showroom floor was comics galore. Almost any back issue we were searching for was there. We saw dozens of copies of Giant-Size X-Men #1, and even a couple copies of Batman #1.

With all the good stuff, there were a few short comings this year. The absence of a few of the major company’s. DC and Image were missing. And absent were all the great DVD booths. I know the last few years there has been a big crack-down on bootlegging, so I think that put a damper on this business, but it was always fun to see copies of films that are otherwise out-of-print.

All in all a great shows, and the free books that were produced for Wizard World were worth the price of admission alone. This year’s books were the very popular Hulk #1, and Aspen Showcase: Grace #1.

If you have a chance to go to Wizard World Los Angeles or one of their many out of state shows, take advantage of it. A truly great show.

Lastly, I want to thank Drew Seldin for the great service he provided us with, in regards to obtaining our press credentials, and the Wizard World Los Angeles books.