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Wizard World Philadelphia Comic Con Show Report and Photo Gallery

Wizard World’s Philadelphia Comic Con has just wrapped for another year. The NSU team visited the show on Friday (Alan Biegel) and Sunday (myself) avoiding Saturday, the busiest day of the show. Both Alan and I found the crowd quite manageable on the day we.

By Jun 23,2014  1

Wizard World’s Philadelphia Comic Con has just wrapped for another year. The NSU team visited the show on Friday (Alan Biegel) and Sunday (myself) avoiding Saturday, the busiest day of the show. Both Alan and I found the crowd quite manageable on the day we visited.

And speaking of the crowd, as is now common at the Philly extravaganza, the longest lines at the show are in front of actor’s tables. On Sunday, Norman Reedus (The Walking Dead) had a mammoth line while many other actor’s lines were easily navigated. Alan found just one actor on-hand when the show first opened–Wizard World mainstay Lou Ferrigno. Other celebrities arrived as Friday progressed. The lines for photo ops with the celebrities was quite long as well.

The side of Norton's Project X display

Norton’s Project X display

Wizard World Philadelphia had an extensive artists alley featuring over a dozen rows of artists. Several artists who have worked on sketch cards could be found including Danielle Gransaull, Brian Kong, Bill McKay, Mark Pingitore, Sara Richard, and Dave Ryan. I enjoyed speaking with most of them and also talking with Ted Dastick Jr., who was on-hand as a fan. Dastick had just come from John Carpenter’s table, where had has the horror master sign his art (see the gallery below for a shot of Ted with the piece).

Wizard’s Philly show always has a few massive booths upfront and this year’s 20-ton gorilla’s were Norton: Project X (X-Men related from the computer security company) and The Purge: Anarchy and The Purge: Breakout (movie sequel and game experience). Other large booth holders up front showed off a displays lightsabers, t-shirts, and movie promotional booths for Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy and The Expendables 3. Zenescope Entertainment, who we wrote about last week, was also in this area.

Nearly a half-dozen cars could be found on the show floor including the DeLorean from Back to the Future, The General Lee from The Dukes of Hazzard, one of Dale Earnhardt’s race cars, a car painted with The Walking Dead characters and logos, and more.

One of Wizard World's t-shirt offerings

One of Wizard World’s t-shirt offerings

As you might expect, comics were plentiful on the show floor. Unfortunately, non-sport trading cards were virtually nowhere to be found. There were a handful of older titles on a table in the artists alley area and other then this, all I spotted were a smattering of game cards. Its always sad to see a show of this magnitude, with so many titles in common with non-sports, devoid of non-sport cards.

On a personal note, I very much enjoyed meeting several new artists for the first time. Dave Ryan was working on Guardians of the Galaxy sketch cards at his table (and they truly were top notch).  While Danielle Gransaull did not have any cards on-hand, I recognized her name and artwork and so it was great to speak with her. And finally, I met Sam Ellis. We’re currently working on the Aug/Sep ’14 issue of Non-Sport Update here in NSU-land and we’re featuring an original Adventure Time cover by Ellis on the cover. The art for this was commissioned by Cryptozoic Entertainment and we had no direct involvement with Ellis. I was unsure if he would be phased when I told him ‘we’re featuring your artwork on our cover’ or even recognize NSU‘s name so it was great when he told me he knew about the magazine and cover and was excited about it. I spoke with him for a while and he seemed quite popular with the fans who came to the table while I chatted (he’s a lead designer for both Adventure Time and Archer so he’s a pretty in-demand artist).

Guardians of the Galaxy

A clever promotion for Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy movie allowed fans (and me) to have themselves inserted in the cast line-up photo

 

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Of Wizards and Oz

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1 Comment

  • Dave Ryan June 28, 2014 Reply

    Great meeting you too Harris! I’d love to do the next Allentown show.

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