Off to see the Wizard...

**A Quick note from The Tauz Blaug Staff ** You can find fun captions for my pictures in my posts by floating over them!**

So, in case you missed it...I went to the Wizard Comic Book Convention in Philly this year. I decided to do this when Joe saw an ad for it in his ToyFare mag back in April or so and hollered the following classic gem: "Hey! I want to go to Wizard this year...who's driving me?"

Ironically, it was Joe who ended up doing all of the driving that day. After a shifting lineup of participating characters, the roster ended up being me, Joe, and Molyneaux. And when Molyneaux came aboard, he suggested taking the train out to good ol' market four (cuz he was still making that specific commute himself less than a year ago...).

So we decided to ride the iron horse, and Joe drove us from my place (the middlest of grounds) out to the Lancaster depot. Here we are.





After a pleasant and nondescript train ride, we get off of one train, cross the street, and onto another. We grabbed the SEPTA train a few stops to the Convention Hall in Center City. And as we step onto the glorious streets of Philadelphia, I look up and am greeted with this lovely welcome.



Nice, eh? I was confused at first, but then took a step to my right and realized that I wasn't being told to fuck off.



I shouted to the guys, who had already started off to the Hall. We all shared a laugh at this unique photo op.

So after hoofing it from this lovely sight, a short 5 minutes or so, we finally see the doorway into which countless nerds, virgins, cos-players, pimples, and a general odor of unbathed excitement were pouring. As we walked to the back of the line, which took us another 5-7 minutes and at least 3 city blocks, I scanned the t-shirts of those waiting in line. I saw many mainline superhero tees, some StarWars ones, and a bunch that went over my head. (I wouldn't have known wtf was on Joe's Ambush Bug T-shirt if I hadn't been informed a couple of years ago.) I overheard many snippets of geeky conversations, some of which I was even tempted to join, but we were on a quest to the back of the line, and had no time to dally. I felt so cool to be there; proud to belong to this sad assembly of people who share common interests, at least on some level.



Once we reached the back of the line, we didn't have a terribly long wait to get in. We were moving along at a steady clip towards the doors. When we reached them, this is what greeted us:



I was immediatly geeking out. I felt like such a newb. In my defense, tho...I was a newb. I totally paused to snap the photo and he dutifully gave me the "Move along." line. Nice. I liked him.

This one, not so much. He must've been cloned from the douchey part of Jango. As we move along through the gauntlet of costumed StarWars characters, I see that some of them are handing out free shit. Sweet! So I approach this guy...



...with my camera up in my right hand and the left outstretched to receive my free shit. What do I get? A picture of a DoucheBag and a LEFT-HANDED STORMTROOPER HANDSHAKE?!?!? Where's my free shit, asshole?? I was so dumbfounded that I just moved on empty-handed.All I could do was keep walking and joke about it with Joe. (By the way, Joe's free shit is pictured being held by the TIE-fighter pilot behind my DoucheBag friend above.)

So we're in. We go and "register" and pick up our convention bags and some free mags and a free con-exclusive re-issue of a Fantastic Four comic. And then we're off to the booths! Along the way we spot some more familiar characters.



We also stopped to check out this guy chalking some FF stuff...it was a nice coincidence that the FF movie featuring Silver Surfer dropped into the theaters the night before. None of the three of us has yet to see it, to my knowledge... This guy's work was pretty kickass, tho...



One of the first booths that we came across (almost literally for Molyneaux and I) ... (think about it.) ... was the ViewAskew shop. It was here that I reminded Molyneaux about our upcoming venture to Jersey. I'm pretty sure we shared a gay little giggle or something at that point. Then we saw this T-shirt and peed a little.



Then we moved on to see how many toys we wanted to buy but didn't. Here's a couple. I thought the Fucking Huge Sentinel was picture-worthy. It was bigger in person, I promise.



These guys were in my raccoon wounds. Hard.



I looked sadly at Joe when we heard a guy on the overhead speakers announce that there would be a Padawan Light Sabre Class in fifteen minutes. Those guys were the instructors. Go fig.

I'll end this here, so I can get some damn sleep. I hope to finish the Wizard Saga here on The Blaug this weekend. We'll see how that goes...

In the next episode, I will reveal what picture is so awesome that it not only became my background at work, but also spawned a series of pictures while we were at Wizard World. AND...I'll post some famous people who didn't want their pictures taken for free!! Woo!