WIZARD WORLD CHICAGO!

Wizard Entertainment, the publishers of Wizard, Toyfare, Inquest, and Toy Wishes, held their annual Wizard World Convention at the Donald E. Stephens Convention Center, in Chicago IL. This event usually attracts thousands of fans, big companies, and great looking booth girls. Yowza! They did not disappoint this year! It was a great convention with something for everyone. Whether you are a fan of Comic Books, Video Games, Toys, or Role playing Games, they had it all here. They also held the Wizard Fan Awards, where the “Best Action Figure line” went to the Marvel Legends! Congratulations to Toy Biz on this one. They really deserve it.

The Convention itself was well organized and it was very easy to find everything you were looking for. They put all the major toy manufacturers in one area so you could basically go door to door and find all your exclusives and see all the upcoming items from each company. Every company had something to offer. Art Asylum, Neca, Palisades, Mezco, Diamond, Gentle Giant, and even some new companies, were all there in full force. I have to hand it to DC Direct, who had some incredible upcoming items for all to see. With new Lines like the Alex Ross “Justice League” figures and their hot new 12 inch line, it looks like its going to be a great year for DC Direct. The new 12 inch Hal Jordan Green Lantern figure was simply amazing!! I want it now!!!!

Then there was the comic book section, where you could find almost every comic you ever needed or wanted. I can not believe that there is still a market for old comics, but believe you me, there certainly is!! After that, we come to the Toy section. (Can you guess where I spent most of my time?) The vendors here had some great items at some great prices. It really was not the usual over priced Toys R Us items, but some really unique and vintage toys could be found here at reasonable prices. I bought a ton of stuff and really got into Heroclix at this convention. They are so cool!! The next section was the “Artists Alley”. Here were some of the greatest and not so great Comic Book Artists past, present, and future, signing away and interacting with their fans.

One section I can not forget about was the gaming section. There were hundreds of people in here, playing all different kinds of games. They even had a Heroclix tournament. I could not believe how big this tournament was. There were people from all over the country and some from other parts of the world here to play!!

If you wanted panels, there were plenty here. So if you got bored walking around the Con, you could duck into one of these for a few. Lucasfilm liaison and Star Wars author Steve Stansweet had a great presentation as well.

Then we go to the after party! Where every year most of the professionals and fans make their way to the Hyatt Hotel, which happens to be right next to the con, to the infamous sports bar “Knuckles”. Here everyone kicks back and hangs out with some of their old friends and even make some new ones. It was great to see good friends like Art Asylums Donna Soldano, Shocker Toys Geoff Beckett, and Comic Book Artists Billy Tucci and John Cassaday.

There are so many conventions going on all the time, all over the United States and there are only a few “Must Attend” conventions. This is definitely one of them. If you missed this years con, I urge you to go to the next one. It really is a fun convention and as I said, whatever you are into, you will certainly find it here. Eternal Collector cant wait for the next one!

Click here to see more pics from the con!