Wizard World New England Comic Con Pictures And Wrap-Up
By Jason Joseph at October 17, 2010 | 6:42 pm | Print
Well, this year’s Wizard World New England Comic Con is in the books, and what a great time it was! Rich, Sasquatch and I made our way down to the Hynes Convention Center in Boston, Massachusetts today for the festivities, and a good time was had by all. We were fortunate enough to sit down with Doug Jones (Fantasic Four, Hellboy, Pan’s Labyrinth), Ethan Van Sciver (Green Lantern, Flash) and Arthur Suydam (Marvel Zombies) for some awesome video interviews, and also had the opportunity to talk to a bunch of other great people at the event. Before I talk about some of my favorite parts of the day, I want to take this opportunity to thank our fearless leader from Wizard World Jerry for just going above and beyond to take care of us today. It was a pleasure working with him and we can’t say thank you enough.
The entire show was a comic paradise, with wall to wall merchants and comics galore. When I saw the initial list of celebrities for the event, I wasn’t necessarily as impressed as I had hoped to be. This wasn’t due to a lack of talent, because having nearly the entire case of Buffy The Vampire Slayer is quite the haul, as is Lee Majors, Burt Ward and Adam West, they just weren’t necessarily the people I would go to see. What I quickly realized about the show was that the celebrity power is only half the draw, that there was just so much going on that it really didn’t even matter to me who was there. That’s not to say I didn’t enjoy meeting some of the people we did, because that was pretty cool. I saw some of the coolest stuff I’ve ever seen today and wished like hell I came in with more cash to spend. Fortunately, Rich and Sasquatch did the spending for me, but if anyone happens to still be there and wants to snag me the statue of Nova, I won’t complain. Just sayin!
We were fortunate to meet a lot of great people today, and I want to share some stories about a few in particular. So let’s get things started:
Doug Jones: I’ve been very fortunate to interview well over 100 of my favorite bands, and very few interviews will ever top this one. For those of you who don’t realize who Doug Jones is, he is an actor that has been in a ton of really great movies, and is most known for his portrayals of the Silver Surfer in Fantastic Four 2, Pale Man and Fauno in Pans Labyrinth and of course Abe Sapien in the Hellboy series of films and cartoons. He was so gracious, and easily one of the nicest people I have ever met. He made three huge fans on this day, as I know I will go see any movie he is in from here on out, and this is coming from someone who doesn’t go to many movies. I’ll talk about him some more when I post our video interview, but I really can’t sing his praise enough. Awesome experience.
Lisa Marie Varon: Whether you know her as Victoria or Tara, it is undeniable that Lisa is one of the best female wrestlers the WWE or TNA have ever seen. She’s known for her mean streak, but she could not have been a nicer or sweeter person to talk to. I actually didn’t even know she would be at the show, so imagine my surprise as we were waiting in line at Dunkin Donuts and I see the woman I just saw win the TNA Women’s Title on a Pay Per View just a few days earlier. Apparently I need to go watch Impact on my DVR, because as I asked Lisa about her being champion again, she kind of smirked and said “so uh… you didn’t watch Impact this week did you?” Aww man, busted! This picture of Lisa is easily my favorite picture I took this weekend, and basically sums up our entire conversation in a single smile. It was a pleasure to meet Lisa and I wish her nothing but success in getting back that damn title!
“The Franchise” Shane Douglas: Another guy I wasn’t expecting to run into! Shane was really cool to talk to, and I got his thoughts on TNA running their little ECW storyline they are currently mucking their way through. He wasn’t very pleased with what is going on, or with TNA in general, and I’ll have a little more to say when we record the second episode of Shockblast Fight Club this Thursday. I would have loved to have interviewed Shane at the show, but because I was unaware he would be there (totally my own fault), I just wasn’t ready. I hear he is fighting around the New England area these days, so the SFC crew may have to make our way down to a show for a little chit chat with the Franchise! Awesome dude. I literally watched him talk to people endlessly.
Shocker Toys: Yeah, I realize there isn’t anyone in this picture, but the guys at Shocker Toys were totally cool to talk to. While I didn’t catch their names, one of the owners say down and explained the way their company works and glowed about all the great products they have coming. He said they are trying to create a new universe of characters by mixing in some classics in the same world together. We look forward to working with Shocker Toys in the future, as it really sounds like they have some exciting stuff in the works. You can check them out at www.shockertoys.com
Brimstone And The Borderhounds: I got to talk to Marcello, one of the co-creators of Brimstone and the Borderhounds, and while most people would sit around and pitch their product, he just wanted to talk about music. Nothing against anyone out there handling their business, because we want to talk about that too, it was just really cool to share experiences we’ve both had in the scene through the years. He was wearing a Man O War shirt and spotted my Sevendust, Killswitch Engage and Shadows Fall patches on my bag, so the stories were flowing before we knew it. He told me he had done a little A&R over the years and had some cool stories about his times with Sevendust, the Wu Tang Clan, Visions Of Disorder, Biohazard and a bunch more. He eventually kicked into Brimstone mode and told me a little bit about the comic, and it looks like it is going to be great. We’ll definitely be on the lookout from here! Check them out at www.theborderhounds.com
I don’t want to feel like I left anyone out, especially Ethan Van Sciver and Arthur Suydam, but I’ll have a lot more to say about them when I post their interviews. Wizard World run comic book conventions all over North America, so chances are they have one coming to a city near you really soon. They have one coming up in Connecticut really soon, and I know Rich and Sasquatch will be hitting the road for that. To check and see if Wizard World will be coming near you any time soon, check out their website at www.wizardworld.com. That concludes our wrap-up piece for Wizard World New England. I hope you enjoyed, and a big thanks again to Jerry for being awesome and taking care of us. We have over 100 images from the show in our gallery, so check them out below.
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