Anaheim Comic Con makes a play for the mainstream

It was a big weekend for comic conventions this weekend, with the inaugural C2E2 landing at last in Chicago. While most of the comic book publishing industry was there, I was heading south from L.A. to the Wizard World Anaheim Comic Con, which was more full of pop culture celebrities than comic book folks

Let me talk about Chicago first. This was the first show in Chicago put on by Reed Exhibitions, a sister company to Reed Business publisher Variety that has extensive experience putting on trade shows all over the world. It’s best known to comics types for putting on Book Expo America and New York Comic-Con, which has shifted from chilly February to fall for this year’s fifth annual gathering.

By all accounts, this was a show very much like New York — focused on the publishing side of comics. Pretty much all the top writers, artists, editors, publishers and retailers in the comic book business were at Chicago, and it sounds like anyone who loves and reads today’s comics would have had a total blast. As you would expect from a company like Reed, the show appears to have been very professionally run and I particularly like that photos of the main hall showed large windows that let in some natural light to the place, which is always nice at these shows. The usual comic book news sites — Newsarama, CBR, Bleeding Cool, The Beat, Comics Reporter, etc. — were all there and extensively covered the industry announcements.  Few of those announcements struck me as particularly fantastic — there’s always creative churns on long-running titles, a few new titles to announce, etc. But it does sound a like a terrific show that I hope to catch one year soon, especially since I’ve never had the luck to visit Chicago and would like to do so.

Since I wasn’t going to Chicago, I was already planning to spend a day at the new Anaheim Comic Con, when Newsarama’s Mike Doran emailed with some panels they needed covering. If you haven’t seen them already, head over to Newsarama and you can see what I live blogged from a joint Stan Lee and Avi Arad panel, as well as the 1960s Batman TV show cast Q & A and writeups on the Empire Strikes Back 30th anniversary panel, the William Shatner panel and a panel with Superman movie producer Ilya Salkind.

I was unsure what to expect from the new Anaheim convention. I had been to a number of previous Wizard World shows — two in Long Beach, two in Los Angeles and one in Texas about five years ago — and found them varying widely in quality. The first show in Long Beach was quite good, but each subsequent year seemed to slide a bit as the programming never developed beyond publisher promotions and the number and quality of exhibitors appeared to be either static or declining.

But this is a new version of the Wizard World shows. It is less focused on the comic book publishing industry and more about celebrity appearances, collectibles and cosplay. If you must have your comic book industry presence, this model is not going to be satisfying for you. But for the vast majority of people who attend shows like Comic-Con International: San Diego or New York who are less interested in comics and more interested in an overall pop culture experience, this kind of show is going to scratch that itch perfectly.

Reed goes to Chicago, sets N.Y. show for fall

Reed Exhibitions, the company that puts on the New York Comic-Con, today announced the debut of its new show, Chicago Comic and Entertainment Expo (C2E2 for short), April 16-18, 2010.

They also are moving the New York show to the fall, with the next edition (after the one going on this weekend) set for Oct. 8-10, 2010. That's a long wait for the next New York show, but the fall dates are ones they will be able to consistently ensure going forward after having had to move around from February to April last year and back again to February this year.

This rather nicely settles down the convention calender, leaving WonderCon free and clear to do its thing in the early part of the year without having to compete with a New York show. (This year's show is set for Feb. 27-March 1 in San Francisco.)

But the biggest impact will obviously be on Wizard and its Wizard World shows. Wizard recently postponed its March show here in Los Angeles and canceled its Texas show. That left only the two summer shows on its tour, Philadelphia (June 19-21) and Chicago (Aug. 6-9).

What kind of impact the Reed show will have on WWChicago in particular will be interesting to watch. Wizard got into the convention business by buying in 1997 the Chicago Comic-Con, at the time the second-largest show after San Diego, and rebranding it as Wizard World.

Wizard's Chicago show is still the largest one they put on and a big show by any standard, but Reed's success in growing its New York show from 33,000 attendees in 2006 to 67,000 last year will make them tough to compete with. Reed also has more experience and greater resources to draw upon in marketing the show to the wider audiences that have made the New York show and San Diego more mainstream events.

Reed's also trying not to step on anyone's toes by finding clear spots on the schedule for its shows that don't force exhibitors to choose between shows or rush from one crazy con experience to the next with no break in between.

Wizard World kills Texas show, postpones L.A.

Wizard announced today it is postponing its Wizard World L.A. show, originally set for March 13-15, and is canceling Wizard World Texas in November. That leaves the magazine publisher/con organizer with two shows: Chicago and Philadelphia.

I can't say this is surprising news, considering the struggles indicated by the paring down of the Wizard staff. The magazine, which truly was the bible of comics reading and collecting in the early to mid-1990s, has seen its stature as the source for news, info, comedy and data about the comics industry migrate to the internet. The last Wizard World L.A. show was a decent but unexciting event. My one year at the Texas show was enjoyable, but the show was quite small compared to other Wizard shows and to events like San Diego and New York.

The problem with Wizard's shows has always been their limited scope. While shows like WonderCon, NY Comic-Con and Heroes Con are inclusive of all kinds of fans, Wizard shows have always focused far too much on just superhero comics fans. While other shows put a lot of effort into thoughtful and compelling programming that covered a lot of territory, the Wizard programming was pretty much limited to cheerleader marketing sessions for Marvel, DC and whatever Hollywood properties the show could reel in. (Essentially, what you get in the magazine.) There wasn't enough there to warrant more than a single day's visit. In short, it failed to tap into the wider interest in things like anime, manga, indie comics and the wider worlds of cool TV, movies and animation that give shows like Comic-Con their wide appeal.

They also could have helped themselves with better marketing. I know comic shop regulars who are always surprised to hear a Wizard show is coming up or has just passed. And this show needs a better locale — the L.A. Convention Center is scaled for huge mega-events and Wizard World, taking up last year just a small corner of one of the massive halls, was lost in there. A decent hotel, or even the original Long Beach site, would be far better suited and more comfortable for a mid-size comics con. And maybe that's what we'll get — assuming the show is rescheduled.

Meanwhile, Texas is out of luck. That was a really pleasant show the one year I went. I don't think fans there had another option when it came to a show that brought in creators and celebrities. But it was the smallest of the Wizard shows and obviously first on the chopping block should times get tight — and they have.

The current absence of an L.A. show opens up the schedule a bit and should let the organizers of WonderCon and New York Comic-Con breathe at least a little easier. Hopefully, it will give both shows more flexibility when planning their shows for 2010 and beyond.

And the big questions, still to be answered, is whether the economy will put the breaks on the runaway growth of other comics shows — most notably the summer behemoth in San Diego.