Wizard World Comic Con in Portland
To Summarize: We headed out to Wizard World Comic Con this past weekend where fans of all ages congregated to cosplay, check out great Q&A Panels, and to meet and greet some of the coolest celebrity guests to hit Portland! Everything from Anime and Collectibles to Movies and Video Games were in the exhibit halls were celebrated and seen in this mega pop culture fest. You can see our day to day activity below!
Day 3
So today was pretty low key. It was the last day of Wizard World Con in Portland and I was really dreading having to watch that Gangnam style video one more time, but to my delight….I didn’t have to! I headed straight to the Boondock Saints panel where I waited patiently to see David Della Rocco and Sean Patrick Flanery hit the stage. The panel was really great and friendly, Flanery and Rocco basically just opened up the floor and asked us what we wanted to talk about. We have some video clips of the panel that you can check out here and here. They talked about The Boondock Saints 3, which has been confirmed and denied multiple times in the past year, as well as talking about favorite moments from set from the past two movies.
After that panel we caught up with Jason David Frank, better known as the original green Power Ranger! We ended up in a room where “Power Ranger Power Hour” happened, this was where Frank came in and taught us all some martial arts. There were little kids and adults alike both having a wonderful time.
To wrap up the rest of Wizard World Portland, we caught the end of the panel featuring Mark Shapiro who was talking about Laika and the creation of Paranorman and Coraline. Since I caught the tail end, I only saw a bunch of great commercials for Paranorman as well as having the chance to actually check out the pieces used in the movies. Which was pretty awesome. This convention was filled with great celebrity guests who really knew how to treat their fans, incredibly talented artists, as well as other great local Portland businesses and groups. The date has already been set for Wizard World Convention Portland 2014.
We look forward to checking out the convention next year! Did you end up going? Let us know how it went or share photos with us on Facebook or Twitter!
Check out Day 2 and Day 1 after the cut!
Alright Day 2 at Wizard World Comic Con in Portland. Today was all about the panels for me. I started off my day checking out a Cosplay panel after doing a quick run through the exhibit hall where I saw Lou Ferrigno aka The Hulk, James Hong from Big Trouble In Little China and Kung Fu Panda, and Brent Spiner who is best known as Data from Star Trek. They were all doing autographs for fans. Anyways, I checked out a Cosplay panel and the first thing I see is a giant Totoro in the corner. Pretty cool. The panel mainly discussed what it was like when you first started out, what types of materials to use, and any tips and tricks that the panel could suggest.
After that panel I wandered around some more and upped the Joker count to: 10? I think. It’s hard to tell when I honestly spent all of my time in a panel rooms all day. Anyways, after a little break it was time to head back to see Stan Lee in the flesh! That was pretty great with a fun Q&A session. Stan let us know that his cameo in Iron Man 3 is by far the best one and that we all need to check it out.
After Stan Lee, we staked out some seats for the long haul, and ended up catching The Last Exorcism Pt. 2 panel with Ashley Bell which was pretty interesting. I’m not a fan of exorcist movies because I don’t like the sound of bones cracking and weird body contortions, but it turns out that Bell did all of her own stunts with the help of ballet lessons; she even has a stress fracture from the creepy back bend you can see on the movie poster.
Next up was Bruce Campbell from Army of Darkness, the Evil Dead movies, and most recently Burn Notice. This guy was awesome, he didn’t even sit for the panel and had them remove the table and chairs from the stage. Campbell asked us to tell him what makes Portland so weird and asked the weirdos to stand up and tell him what made them so weird. No one really came up with anything, but one guy came up to show off his Bruce Campbell autograph tattoo on his ankle. We also got a sneak peek of the new Evil Dead movie, which won’t be the same as the cult classic but still looked pretty great.
Last up was The Walking Dead panel. Michael Rooker, who plays Merle Dixon, showed up and definitely won the crowd over after a wonderful warm up of Stan Lee and Bruce Campbell. Rooker talked about his role in a new video game coming out mid march, The Walking Dead: Survival Instinct, as well as answering a lot of questions about the cast and his brotherly relationship with Norman Reedus. This panel was very amusing for all. There was of course the cute girl dressed up as a murderous My Little Pony who asked for a hug, and questions about how Rooker really feels about Asians. Norman Reedus made an appearance late in the panel, with fake dead middle fingers up, and made the crowd go insanely wild. With that we went into a “Lightning” question round for about 10 minutes.Where Rooker and Reedus were asked questions like:
Q: On a scale of 1-10 how would you rate Portland?
Norman: I haven’t really seen Portland yet, but I love Portlandia does that count?
Q: If you were both to be a team, who would you fight?
Norman: The Kardashians?
Michael: We would kick their little butts! The entire Kardashian family!
Q: When you die how do you want to be remembered?
Norman: In real life? Just as you know a good driver and a semi-okay dancer
Michael: I want to be remembered as the guy who never really learned to play the guitar. I can do a C Chord that’s it.
After this panel ended I just wandered around the exhibit hall again. Looking at all the things I want to buy but have to think about before compulsively buying every cute thing or Star Wars related thing that I see.
Check out Day 1…
I ventured out to the Convention Center this afternoon to pick up my wristband and get a feel for Wizard World in Portland. I have never gone to a CON before, ever so this is fairly new to me. I think I’m going to start keeping a count of how many Jokers I see. So far the count is: 5. I’ve only seen one Stormtrooper, and a Batman/Catwoman combo walking around. Ibasically wandered around the exhibit hall dazed and confused in weird circles for a while. Brushed shoulders with Sean Patrick Flannery and Henry Winkler early on in the afternoon, and watched exhausted attendees sprawled out on the couches in front of the entrance. Stopped in on some of the panels. One was on horror in comics which was pretty interesting.
Then I went and took one for the team and went to The Real World Portland panel. I received an exclusive sneak peek of the first episode, which is due out March 27th, and met the cast. Apparently there’s a house dog, a guy who calls one of his extremities “The Black Mamba”, someone who was in Playboy, a girl that works at Hooter’s. You guys can picture this right? Anyways, they’re living in the Pearl and they’re working at Pizza Schmizza and some Frozen Yogurt food cart. Some girl keeps saying she’s a hurricane, and there’s a guy that’s known as “The Farter” so we can see that it’s going to be worth watching. At least the first episode….maybe some viewing parties. Anyways, my brain hurts but I made it out alive. How many times a cast member said “You’ll just have to tune in”: 20+
We’ll see how it goes tomorrow!
Words + Photos by Kimberly Lawson