Wizard World Comic Con at Minneapolis Convention Center (06 May 2016)

Convention Hours

• Saturday, May 7– 10am -7pm
• Sunday, May 8 – 10am – 4pm

 

Wizard World Minneapolis, the annual convention gathering of comics, and pop culture fun officially started on Friday at the Minneapolis Convention Center.

VIP ticketholders will receive an exclusive VIP badge as well as Star Wars: Vader Down #1 Wizard World Presents Comic Con Box Exclusive Variant Color and Black & White cover by Mike Mayhew. The comic books were previously only available via Wizard World’s ComicConBox subscription, which is their version of the “Loot Crate.”

 

Also, like previous years, Showbiz National Talent Competition was also taking place in the same building, so we had some dancers spilling over to the comic book/pop culture convention. With synchronized dancing and team costumes, they fit right in with the rest of the cosplayers.

 

The convention seemed to have expanded their Wizard World Gaming area, almost tripling their space from previous years. The gaming area had plenty of computers or consoles with pre-loaded games…. In fact, we got a first look at the new HTC Vive VR system, courtesy of online retailer Newegg. More details on this later (we’re preparing a full review), but just quickly: it was a lot of fun.

There are some cons, of course, and its biggest road block is the pricing: HTC Vive is $800 (this includes goggles, two cameras, and two controllers – which its competitor Oculus Rift does not comes with all the extras… but costs less) and you need a current/modern computer to drive it (recommended i7 CPU and Nvidia 980 graphics card). Like many of you, my gaming computer is not up to par, so even before I consider the Vive, I would have to get a new computer. You can learn more about pricing and necessary equipment over at newegg.com/VR.

Still, this immersive HTC Vive VR system is really the next step in computer games. Although it’s out of my reach right now, I do have this on my “want list”.

 

The Prince: The Comics Connection panel seemed to have been put together quite quickly – but made a lot of sense considering how much the late Prince meant to Minneapolis. The panel featured Dean Haspiel (The Red Hook), Zak Sally (Low), Guy Gilchrist (Nancy), Alex Lubet (music professor at School of Music at U of M), and moderator Danny Fingeroth.
The panel went through their memories of Prince and talked about Prince in comic books (and cartoons).

 

The Cosplay Costume Breakdown with Super Kayce and photographer/YouTube star Spyros Heniadis was a lot of fun and went beyond the programming listing. This entertaining “how to” photograph Super Kayce had some good thoughts and setup (including light rigs, flashes, and a laptop that automatically upload images from Spyros’ camera). Both Spyros and Super Kayce had some great tips on photographing and poses, etc.

At the end of their show, they offered anyone with a hotshoe camera (DSLR or Mirrorless) to take photos of Super Kayce.

The highlight of the show was “the Creative Mind: Top Artists on Drawing Comics” panel, featuring Dean Haspiel, Peter Gross (Books of Magic), Chaz Truog (Animal Man), Barbara Schulz (MCAD), Mikey Babinski (Deadpool), and moderator Danny Fingeroth.

The strong artist panel talked about how they go about their creative process, from rough sketches on copy paper to “blue line” full size paper. Leading by example, Chaz Truog (who famously worked with Grant Morrison on his Animal Man run) showed us how he draw Animal Man. This was given to Mikey Babinski to ink (or as he jokingly called it “tracing” – obviously a joke from Kevin Smith’s film Chasing Amy).

Honestly, the 45-minute program probably wasn’t long enough for these artists, who had a lot of stories in them… from Haspiel working with Howard Chaykin (American Flagg) to Walter Simonson (Thor) or Barbara Schulz’s various sketches she brought as show and tell.

Convention hours run Saturday, May 7– 10am -7pm;  Sunday, May 8– 10am – 4pm with the most recent guest, panel, and events updates on wizardworld.com and the Wizard World app (available on Android and iOS).