Wizard World Chicago

I walked into the convention center and stopped. I had no idea where to turn. Everywhere I looked, there were people pimping their comics, giving out free things, or offering signatures. Intermittently, there were people famous only to comic book fans. I was overwhelmed, and a little embarrassed because I had no idea where to start.

This was my first comic book convention: a foray into a whole new level of geekdom.

While waiting in line for a "goodies" bag, I got my first surprise of the weekend. A little in front of me in line was a woman who posted at the same comic message board as me for a few years, but who I'd never met before. It was nice to meet her. She was the first of literally dozens of people that I'd meet from that board.

I started cruising the artists alley (where all the comic book artists have booths) and was amazed to find how many big profile artists were there. Everyone was very nice and ready to talk. I got several cheap or free sketches, and a lot of discounted books from these guys. It was great.

Eventually, I started going to the panels. These all had specific topics that told about writing comics, gave us some ideas of what was to come in some comics, and allowed everyone to ask the creators of comics questions.

Although a lot of the artists were easy to get signatures from, the writers were a little harder to catch. Still, I got several signatures over the weekend. One of which, though, I had to wait two hours in line for.

Overall, I had a great time buying comics, talking comics, and learning about comics all weekend long. I was a geek in a sea of geeks.

R