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Posted on Mar 19, 2005 - 11:06 AM by Admin |
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The second annual Wizard World LA got underway Friday, and for the first time both The Fan Man and Glenn Blanza were on hand to represent and report for The Comic Fanatic.Com! Read on for all the excitement, entertainment and Erin Gray of Wizard World LA – Day 1!
After an exhausting 11 hour ordeal with airports, airplanes and delays – something not recommended for a first time flyer, trust me! – I arrived in not-so-sunny California at 2 a.m. local time/4 a.m. my time. Barely awake, I was greeted by an equally tired Glenn Blanza and whisked away to his lovely home, where everyone promptly crashed!
Early morning soon became late morning and we were off to the wonderful Wizard World LA 2005.
After securing our handy-dandy press passes, we then stood in a line…a LONG line! (Sorry, no pictures of when the skies opened up and the rains came…)
Once inside, we were greeted by a familiar Jade Giant in purple pants…
From green to Gray…as in Justin Gray, one of the creative forces behind DC’s Hawkman. (Seen here signing an early copy that he was stunned we already had our hands on!)
Gray’s partner in crime, Jimmy Palmiotti – horning in on Jeph Loeb’s line!
…so, we’ll give Loeb the solo spotlight, too!
Also hanging around the DC booth, we found one of our favorite writers: Manhunter’s Marc Andreyko!
More friendly and familiar faces at the DC booth included…the talented Gail Simone:
Grant Morrison:
Greg Rucka…and friends (including one of our favorites, Karl Kerschl!):
Alex Ross:
Not too far from the DC booth, Ross had his own impressive display:
The House Of Ideas was in the house, too…
And running the House Of Ideas, we found EiC Joe Quesada:
Across the way at the Image booth, the man with the plan – Erik Larsen:
Just around the corner, superstar artist Michael Turner:
And the legendary George Perez:
As we wandered, I ran into one of the main reasons why I wanted to travel all the way to California…to meet the incredible artist known as…Franchesco!
And an early look at Franchesco’s next big project – Image’s She-Dragon!
More friends I specifically came to California to meet…Illusive Arts Entertainment’s Mark Masterson and Anna Warren Boersig (who were so incredibly nice to us, they even showed us a sneak peek of the next issue of the red hot Dorothy, which won’t be out in late April or May! Trust me, folks! This book is only getting better! And you will not believe how impressive this new issue looks…nor what legendary artist will be illustrating the cover!)
Another must-meet friend of The Comic Fanatic.Com was Beckett Comic’s Gabriel Benson, who was more than happy to hand over a much-sought after copy of the much-anticipated The Ballad Of Sleeping Beauty #8!
We also ran into one of the true ambassadors of Comicdom, SSS Comics’ Saul Colt:
Another pal, who came almost as far to the convention as I did, Drive Comics’ Davis R. Vaughn:
And Vaughn was gladly showing off one of his favorite quotes at his booth:
We were surprised to run into the legendary Art Thibert and his Chrono Mechanics partner-in-crime, writer Rich Birdsall:
And we ran into our pal from Arcana Studios, Sean O’Reilly and his better half:
As we wandered along, we ran into Punisher cover artist Tim Bradstreet:
Batgirl artist Ale Garza…(love the lid!):
Artist David Mack:
Cover artist extraordinaire Mike Mayhew:
At the Wizard booth, we stood in line to meet one of the best superhero writers in the biz, Geoff Johns:
Standing in line there was so much fun, we went back and did again for writer Mark Waid:
Since this was Wizard World LA, the entertainment world was out in force, including Lions Gate Films, who are one of the most popular booths this year since they are giving out limited free passes to a new zombie flick screening of “Undead”:
And check out Jessica Alba in all of her Sin City glory:
From the world of wrestling, the WWE’s Rob Van Dam!
And the moment I was certainly waiting for, I got to meet the girl I’ve had a crush on since watching Buck Rogers on TV as a child, the still-lovely Col. Wilma Deering…Erin Gray!
Ms. Gray even had stars in her eyes to meet me! (Okay…so it’s a camera flash on her glasses! A guy can dream, right?!)
And that was just Day 1! As I type this last line, we are heading out the door for more! See you back here tomorrow for Day 2 coverage…including a meeting with Daisy Duke! Yee-Haw!!
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