CC.com does Wizard World Philly!
Posted by: Bill Cable 06.08.05 12:01am
Friday brought me to the friendly confines of the City of Brotherly Love to attend this year's Wizard World East convention. I was greeted by this massive anime-style robot...

It was for some card game or something, I don't know... But whatever it was for it was spiffy.

Now, I went on a Friday expecting a small crowd... and that's pretty much what I got. That was good in that it wasn't elbow-to-elbow chaos the whole time... but the downside was that you didn't get the typical convention parade of humanity that's so enjoyable. There weren't a lot of people in costume. Maybe it was as much a function of the weather as it was the crowd size, but I was a bit disappointed by that. But I did run into a couple costumed folks who more than made up for the lack of wondrous variety.

My main objective for the excursion was to grab a couple more photos of Star Wars celebs holding the CreatureCantina.com SUCKS! sign. In that endeavor I was successful! I was humored by the ever-classy Jeremy Bulloch, though I nearly fled from the booth after seeing his book opened to a photo of himself in S&M regalia. And then Kenny Baker, though looking somewhat befuddled by the whole ordeal, was very happy to ham it up for the camera. Check out the latest additions...

Then there was Peter Mayhew. For what I believe to be the third time, Mr. Mayhew declined to pose with the sign. He was polite enough about it, though... didn't go all raving lunatic scaring the photographer like I heard he'd done in times past. But man... the mitts on that guy...

Then there were the vendors. I honestly remember there being more stuff last year. Tokyo Pop didn't have a big booth like they did last year, which was particularly disappointing. Their set-up last year was killer. This year they had a lot of video games. There was a huge array of PlayStation2 consoles set up so you could play their latest games. They were showing off God of War and Batman Begins, among others. And there was a big PokeMon display with GameCubes. But I really don't go to these things to stand there and play video games... I can do that at home. So they didn't do much for me. But the vendors did offer a nice assortment of massive walking stuffed monsters!!

The dealer tables were OK, I guess. One toy dealer looked like the next, for the most part. Identical layouts. Nearly identical product. And not much Star Wars, which was surprising this soon after ROTS. I mean, there was some good stuff, and I purchased a couple items, but I remember last year being a bit better on that front. Of course it didn't help that the dealers didn't get much set-up time Friday morning, leading to many booths looking like this most of the day...

So, all in all, WWE05 was a bit of a mixed-bag. There were some highlights, but I wasn't swept away like I was in 2004. I'd still recommend it, but next time I'll need to go in with more measured expectations. I had a great time, and look forward to next year. Maybe by then those guys at Wizard Entertainment will finally secure a decent Star Wars exclusive for us Pennsylvanians.