Displaying items by tag: Wondercon

Hello Ocasters! We are back after a short hiatus to bring you the latest and greatest diatribes about none other than Wondercon 2011. We bring you our impressions about the convention in general, cosplay, guests, and panels like the Green Lantern. We also dig deep about the Priest panel and our video interview with Min Woo Hyung, the creator of the original manwha. All that and more await you! Stay tuned for our Fanime 2011 discussion, and a special discussion between David and I about Sucker Punch and live action adaptations of anime. Coming soon!

This year Wondercon presented a slew of excellent panels about the comic book and video game industries. Some of them served as direct Q&A sessions about breaking in, while others dropped insider news about where things are going for everyone. I'm going to talk about each panel in the order that I saw them, so check out the title of each section before you dig in!

Wondercon is a small comic book turned pop media convention which makes its home in San Francisco. The easy way to think about it: Comic Con's little sister. Even though it's a fraction of the size, Wondercon still packs a wallop every year. This time around T-ono caught some face-time with Hyung Min-Woo, some great panels, and awesome cosplay. Read on for what you missed at Wondercon 2011!

While at Wondercon 2011, we got a chance to talk briefly with Hyung Ming-Woo, the creator of the manwha, Korean comic, Priest about the upcoming Hollywood adaptation of his series. Manwha have become quite popular in Japan recently with titles such as Black God and Freezing receiving anime adaptations. Check out our video interview with him for the full scoop!

Wondercon is a magical time in which geeks from all over can congregate in one small space. It's a special time of... Well, I'm getting off track a bit.

Wondercon is awesome!

This year seemed the usual fair. A few great costumes jumped out, and there were products aplenty with a great selection of artists to share their wares.

It would definitely be nice if the venue somehow booked more people, but it doesn't seem likely. It's not exactly a bad thing that it's small, we only really need ONE CCSD, but there's an awful lot of unused space on the showroom floor.

This time around I actually wandered through the artists alley and checked everything in full. There's a lot of great talent to scope out, and they sell you great art on the cheap. In my mind they're the core of Wondercon, though you often see bigger crowds surrounding the vendors down the way. If we didn't have people of all types working their butts off to put pen to pad or pencil to paper or stylus to screen we really wouldn't have such a large community of comic lovers.

It was another good year: plenty to see, plenty purchase, and lots to love.

Kick-Ass, for those of you who don't know, is a film based on a British comic book of the same name. How does this apply to The-O Network Online? Well, I saw it as part of a screening on Saturday April 3rd, the second day of Wondercon, a full two weeks before the U.S. release. It's a tad late, but here we go!

Director Zack Snyder walked out to thunderous applause. After a brief introduction, the first 15 minutes of the movie was shown spanning the death of the Comedian to Rorschach discussing with Nite Owl about the Comedian. Actors Malin Akerman, Billy Crudup, Jackie Earle Haley, Jeffery Morgan, Patrick Wilson, and the original Watchmen artist Dave Gibbons joined Snyder afterwards.

Unfortunately I didn't have my pad with me during this panel, so rather than trying to recount what happened, you can watch a video a fan posted on youtube of the panel. We also were able to take a bunch of photos of the cast which can be found in our gallery here.

WonderCon's special guest turned out to be famed director and creator J.J. Abrams himself (and members of the cast) taking the podium as he addressed the overfilled room. Abrams noted he had just flew back in the country after a visit to Tokyo, Japan and is "so excited and can't wait for you to see the film." Abrams took a step back to show a special world premiere of the brand new Star Trek trailer that will also be shown at the Watchmen opening on March 6.

WonderCon, mostly known as a comic book convention held yearly in San Francisco, will have a larger gaming presence this year including panels by Capcom on Resident Evil 5 and Street Fighter 4. Fans will be able to join an impromptu Street Fighter match on stage to win prizes from Capcom. Nintendo will also be on scene to promote the new NDS title Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon. Video game publisher 2K Games, Electronic Arts, Capcom, and surprising G4 TV  will all have booths in the Exhibitor's Hall.

Expect our full coverage on the event in the coming weeks! Panel descriptions and links inside.