A Misuse of Judgement

Wizard World Philly
(Originally written 6/5/2008)

Yep, I managed to check this out this past Sunday. My awesome girlfriend bought me tickets for our 3 year anniversary, so I was stoked. This is the first WW that I have gone to, despite the fact that I've been a comic collector for the last 18 years of my life. What is wrong with me?

Anyway, I'm glad it was remedied. I went there with the expectation of buying some issues to fill in the gaps in my collection, or picking up some variant covers of cool issues that I'd wanted. What happened, though, was strange. I spent most of the time, and money for that matter, with the artists. I've never really paid attention to buying signed prints, until this show. The first person that we ran into was Greg Horn, who, if you are aware of his work, is an amazing artist. He was such a cool guy to talk to that I got one of his prints, and I guess that got the ball rolling. We ran into Billy Tan, and he and I got into a talk about the New Avengers and how great of a writer Brian Michael Bendis is.

The coolest experience, however, was Billy Tucci. His interactions with the people at his table was off the wall. He seemed like a very subtle weirdo, and he was really cool. My girlfriend purchased an original sketch from him, and we let him take his time. We went back a few hours later and he hadn't finished it yet. That was cool with us so we left and came back and it still wasn't done. No problem. If he wasn't as friendly as he was, we may have had a problem with it; he was a busy guy with the panel he was on and all the attention that he got, so it was understandable. He was also a nice guy so we came back at the end of the show. Needless to say, the sketch was amazing and my girlfriend was really happy with it. I regret not getting a picture with the guy, but he was busy.

We also spent some time checking out the underground, independent stuff. Two of the things that stick out in my head are Freaky Dinkys and Brielle and the Horror, both of which are pretty cool and worth checking out.

Needless to say, we both had a blast. I can't wait until next year to see what other stuff I can pick up. Hopefully, there will be shit just as cool, if not cooler.