Getting There is Half the Fun by Andrea

It was my travel day, and taking the train down from the Northridge Metrolink station involved me waking up early so I could get to the convention at a reasonable hour in the morning. Upon arriving, I made my way to the convention center, where it took me a while to figure out that there wasn't a mistake, the cheerleading/spirit competition that was taking place wasn't the only event in the venue, someone hadn't made a mistake and just not let me in on the joke, and so on. After walking almost the entire length of the convention center, I finally spotted where WonderCon was being held, and I was directed downstairs to wait with others who were getting press credentials.

The waiting and credentialing process was relatively uneventful; however, the exhibition hall wouldn't be opening until noon, and I was getting rather hungry and needed to stow my baggage until that evening. So I walked to the Hilton to check my bags at concierge (major plus to the Hilton for this service!), then started to make my way back to the convention center. I had the unique privilege of running into Mr. Kurt Miller, writer for the RPG Call of Cthulhu and upcoming project The Wasteland. So I spent a good chunk of time listening to Mr. Miller tell me about The Wasteland, and I have to say that I really hope he gets it fully off the ground soon. It sounds like an amazing series that I will be first in line to purchase when it's finally for sale.

In peeking online at the programming schedule for WonderCon, the CAC panels caught my eye right off the bat. The Comics Arts Conference, or CAC, was established in 1992 to provide a more academic analysis of the comics medium. For someone like me, who self-identifies as a more cerebral nerd, these panels were perfect. I ended up attending several of their panels over the course of the convention.

Iron Man, Robopocalypse, & the Future of Humanity by Andrea

My first panel on Friday was at 12:30, it was a CAC panel titled Iron Man, Robopocalypse, & the Future of Humanity. It was hosted by E. Paul Zehr, Professor at the University of Victoria, and Daniel H. Wilson, author of the bestselling novel Robopocalypse (which also has a movie adaptation coming out next year). It was a really interesting look at the technology used in the Iron Man comics, and how that could potentially translate into new and improved medical technology for humans in our universe. Professor Zehr showed two examples of exoskeleton-style technology (Berkeley's BLEEX exoskeleton and iCORD's Locomat) that are currently in limited use for physical therapy for individuals who have had paralysis. Both of them were really neat to see, though I did comment to another person that I hoped the technology would become less bulky and more streamlined with time. I asked them a question about their thoughts on how this sort of technology might influence future health care costs, and they both emphatically believed that eventually this sort of technology would lead to reduced health care costs, especially as far as manpower was concerned. As someone planning to enter the health care field, keeping up with this sort of experimental technology is very important to me, and I thoroughly enjoyed this panel. (As a trivia side-note, they both predict that the first fully robotic technology to be utilized will be fully autonomous cars, which are slowly being created now as we speak.)

Friday Dealer's Room Shuffle by Andrea

From there, I had time to kill before the next panel I wanted to attend, so it was time to explore the Dealers' Room. While it had opened at noon, I wanted to wait until after my first panel, when I had more time to walk through and appreciate everything. The Dealer's Room had a wide variety of items from a wide variety of sellers; you could get everything from comics (of course) to clothing and wigs, to high-end statuettes of your favorite characters. One thing that really impressed me was the greater focus on comics and more muted focus on movies, video games, and other media. I've heard it noted that San Diego Comic-Con seems to have strayed from its roots as a comics show into the incredible behemoth it is today, and as a result the comics get lost in the shuffle and buzz of the latest TV shows, video games, and movies. At WonderCon, those media do have a spotlight, but the greatest focus is on the comics in their various incarnations, from DC and Marvel down to independent publishers and artists. In perusing the Dealer's Room, I was happy to see Slave Labor Graphics (one of my favorite publishers!) right as I entered the hall. They had a few of their artists there, in addition to voice actor Riki Simons (the voice of GIR in Invader Zim). Plus they surprised SLG fans with the appearance of Invader Zim and Johnny the Homicidal Maniac creator Jhonen Vasquez throughout the weekend. I instantly regretted not having known he would be there so I could have brought my Director's Cut version of JtHM for him to sign, but I bought some other works by him and had them autographed. There were a number of booths I visited with in my time in the Dealer's Room; the most noteworthy to me were Phil and Kaja Foglio, the creators of the wildly successful comic Girl Genius, artist and comic creator Travis Hanson, and the independent bookstore Mysterious Galaxy, where I picked up a copy of Robopocalypse and later had it signed by Daniel Wilson.

How to Get a Job in the Video Gaming Industry by Andrea

I ventured into the How to Get a Job in the Video Gaming Industry panel. It was a pretty interesting panel, which featured several professionals currently in the industry. It amused me slightly that the panelists were heavily CAPCOM-centric (four out of the six panelists are currently employed by CAPCOM, one is currently employed by Treyarch, and the last is employed by Naughty Dog), but they all had great information. In order to work in the video gaming industry, you need to be more than someone who draws pretty pictures and can animate pixels. You need to be a jack of all trades, including public relations, marketing, retail, publishing, and editorial work. I definitely encourage people who want jobs in this industry to do their homework, and a panel like this is a great step in that direction.

Animation Voice Over by Andrea

To further help me kill time before my 6:30 panel, I peeked in on the Animation Voice-Over panel for the first 20 minutes or so. It was neat to see several individuals who voiced characters I remember from cartoons I grew up with, and they also talked about the work they put into getting where they are today. Definitely a panel I would suggest for a serious up and coming VO professional, they tell you what to expect and what work you should put into getting somewhere in this career path.

Detecting Deviants in the Dark Knight: Profiling Gotham City's Serial Killers by Andrea

And off I went to my next panel: Detecting Deviants in the Dark Knight: Profiling Gotham City's Serial Killers. (Personal Note: This was a panel that I felt could have just as easily been placed under the CAC banner due to its subject matter and panel of experts.) Being interested in Forensics and Forensic Psychology, I decided to check it out. Included on this panel was Mark Safarik, retired FBI agent and current host of the show Killer Instinct. This panel covered definition of a serial killer, as well as the basics of what makes a serial killer and the patterns that police and FBI agents look for in order to catch them. During the course of the panel, they also talked about a number of Batman villains, including the Dollmaker, Onomatopoeia, and Zsasz. They also touched on the difference between psychosis and psychopathy in the case of James Gordon Jr. The part of the panel that I found the most chilling was the end, when they played clips of the Joker from the film The Dark Knight in order for us to analyze his behavior patterns to determine if he fit the criteria of a serial killer. I didn't see the movie, so seeing the scenes of the Joker causing mayhem was incredibly chilling to watch. But this was another fascinating panel that I wish there could have been more of. I'd love to see more studies of criminology in comic-book universes.

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