Dressed as a ditzy schoolgirl from a Japanese manga, I remember cheering, "Come to Anime Overdose!" to dozens of Wonder Con geeks passing by our table. That was almost six years ago at my first Wonder Con back in San Francisco. I do have fond memories of taking the M line from my apartment and getting off at Powell and zipping through the rain to get to the Moscone Center. 2012 was the first time Wonder Con has ever took place outside of San Francisco. I have not attended Wonder Con since 2007, but it was nice to be back at one of the best nerd events.

My favorite part about Wonder Con is that it brings the real nerds together. I really enjoyed seeing academic themed panels that discussed gender issues in comics and criminology studies on various villains. This made the graduate student in me quite pleased that cerebral discussions took place and were very well accepting of like minded people. Unfortunately, you do not get this kind of vibe at an anime convention. You are more likely to see fangirls deface a rainbow flag with their favorite non-cannon pairings rather than sharing insight on subtext in Disney animated feature films. I highly recommended the CAC panels for the academic type.

Programming was very diverse. In addition to the cerebral symposiums, Wonder Con also had news and preview type panels. Unfortunately, I was unable to see any premiere related panels because of schedule conflicts, however, I did enjoy the DC Nation panel. I was also happy to see that 100% of the programming was focused on things nerds like. Unlike San Diego Comic Con's notoriety for Twihards, Wonder Con has Star Wars, Star Trek, hero comics, anime, and almost everything under the nerd umbrella.

People were very friendly and welcoming. For example, while the ponies and I were grabbing lunch at the Anaheim Hilton, a Doctor Who couple from Atlanta saved a table for us. I am not used to the kindness of strangers, but we delved into a conversation about Dragon Con and why boomerang generation nerds should attend. The Star Wars costuming group, Rebel Legion, was rather friendly and was excited about recruiting more people in their group. The same can be said for LA Dumbledore's Army. I am not used to seeing nerds actively having an all inclusive environment. This is a world of difference from the anime cosplay community that tends to prefer exclusive meet ups and gatherings.

Wonder Con did have flaws. While we enjoyed ourselves, there were a few things that struck a nerve. The biggest pet peeve was how press registration was handled. The website can be rather daunting and it does not help that it has small print; it's very easy to miss a detail or two. Information regarding the number of badges should have been much more clearer. This goes for the same for bylined articles. We did not know that each member had to have their own. This was also unfair for podcast groups such as our Bizarro Files / Zero Hour team because podcasts are a group effort, not one person handles a podcast. For future events, clarification and communication needs to be written out much better on the press website. This would have saved our colleagues and ourselves a headache.

While rain cannot be helped, it was unfortunate that the weather limited our food options from inside the convention center or the Anaheim Hilton. The Disneyland Resort area has plenty of good sitdown restaurants. It's unfortunate that we could not explore these options. Saturday was the worst because it was the first time Southern California had a rain storm in months.

Masquerade, while a fun show, also had technical difficulties throughout the show. It was a shame a few acts had sound issues where the audio did not play, audio was skipped, or audio was looped. Otherwise, masquerade was really fun to watch. It's just a shame we had to leave before the awards ceremony.

Otherwise, Wonder Con was a breath of fresh air. We would love to cover more comic book / pop culture themed conventions in the future. We are definitely looking forward to Long Beach Comic Expo in May. Additionally, we are considering returning to San Diego Comic Con for full weekend coverage. It was really nice to meet new people and to network with various fan groups. We hope we all see you again in the future.

Extra thanks to the press team – Jared, Andrea, Todd, and Jeff – for all their help. Even more thanks to Deb, Stan, and Ramses for contributing to the Zero Hour podcast coverage of Wonder Con 2012. See you at the next con!

Pictures are copyright by Scarlet Rhapsody . Feel free to use any photos of you, just link us back. If you want us to remove something, kindly email us. While you're here, do sign the guestbook. This site was brought to you by the font Troglodyte Pop