by Demi Moumas, Reporter
Wizard World Philadelphia Comic Con 2014 – Day 1, Friday June 20th:
What is everyone doing on a gorgeous sunny day and the last day of spring? Why staying inside and going to Wizard World Philadelphia Comic Con of course!
So my day started off with the challenge of my back and neck locking up for a few hours in the morning. I ended up walking a few blocks to the convention center in order to avoid the parking fiasco I knew would be near Chinatown where the Pennsylvania Convention Center is located near. Despite going through the front entrance, I had to detour back out into Philadelphia streets and had to go one block south and three blocks east around the building instead of cutting through it to get to the main building the Con was in. Those staff attendants are scary…you will do what they ask. But it seemed that from last year, Wizard World had consolidated most of its programming and events with the east section of the building. This was great, considering last year it was spread out throughout the entire thing….or at least it seemed like it. But also the added benefit of being across from the Reading Terminal equals awesome food during the con.
The walk before and after getting my badge was a sea of red…I mean a sea of red fezzes. Nearly everyone was wearing one of the 11th Doctor’s vibrant colored head piece. I decided to hit the vendor room first to see if it was the same as last year. Oh boy…let me tell you – it was 3x the size it was last year. I honestly want to know how they got those tractor trailers in there. There were more vendors, more artists who actually showed for more days (last year there were a bunch of blank tables), and more tables for celebrities in the back. It honestly made my head spin when I walked it. I want to say it took me a good two to three hours to scope out the area and situate myself to where everything was. In the end, I think I was still lost. I did see some vendors that I saw last year and that remembered me! Well….flirted with me…I did get Marvel and DC prints….don’t look at me like that they were too pretty to let go!
With Operation Vendor Room Recon done, I marched onward to Program Recon! I grabbed a program and looked at what was open at the time. I wandered from room to room again trying to remember where they would be in order to get to them quicker. I ended up in a Marvel History panel with Historian Peter Sanderson. It was interesting to hear about how certain characters were made such as the Hulk, who was a guest star in multiple comics before getting his own. As the panel finished, I wander out and roamed the halls like a photo-taking wraith stopping everyone that caught my eye. It wasn’t until I got a tweet from a friend stating she was that I stopped.
I ended the day going to the +2 Comedy panel. It was a few standup comedians from the area that do geeky jokes. It started off with Vegas, who apparently have a thing against Tommy Oliver in Power Rangers. It was hilarious and had me cracking up. Next was Alex, he was able to put the nerdinesss into his jokes seamlessly. Last up was Noah, the storyteller who wove the tale of how a famous wrestler hit all over his girl during a con. It was a good end to a day that started a bit rocky. It left me with a smile.
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