Cowboys, aliens, and S.W.A.G., oh my! Today’s con activities included film footage, some really amazing costumes, great giveaways, and meet & greets with the comics industry's top talents. Fanboy Headquarters’ Hotshot was joined in costume by two of our good lady friends (also in killer costumes…pictures in the album). The day closed out with a killer S.W.A.G./prize acquisition from Marvel for Brightboy and a gift to a father and son at the end of a long, long line.
The first panel attended of the day was for Jon Favreau’s upcoming summer movie, Cowboys & Aliens. Favreau opened up by saying how much he loves Wonder Con because it feels like the “traditional comic con” (the way it used to be). He was also very thankful for the impact comic con fans have had on his career (which earned a big applause). Favreau heard that the previous day’s film panel had brought 9 minutes of film to show fans, so he made sure he had about 9 minutes too and unlike the previous day, his footage won’t be shown to any other audience until the film’s release – this footage was for WonderCon fans only. The film, starring Harrison Ford and Daniel Craig, is very much a western with an alien sci-fi touch. Favreau said so much of the film is the tone. “Even though the title is cowboys AND aliens, you have to feel like you’re watching a western and be surprised when the aliens show up,” he said. The clips were great, lots of authenticity to the Western genre and then a literal invasion of sci-fi alien attack. The action looks great; the iconic acting by Craig and Ford is great with seriousness and humor mixed in. To pay even more thanks to the fans, Favreau included a quick shot of the aliens the cowboys will face. He promised that was going to be shown to anyone else and it was our job to spread the word of how scary these things looked – THEY LOOKED SCARY! Not horror film scary, but enough to make the audience see the threat from the space attackers. It looks like Jon Favreau has another great film under his belt. The movie also has Olivia Wilde (TRON Legacy) and Sam Rockwell (Iron Man 2) along with many other recognizable actors. Catch Cowboys & Aliens this July.
The rest of the day was spent catching writer and artists for signings and chats. We caught up with Joel Gomez again today to check out some great sketches he did this weekend, including Cyclops and the Rocketeer. Robert Hickman of Image’s The Walking Dead fame spent a couple hours signing fan souvenirs and being thanked for helping to bring Zombies mainstream on the AMC TV show titled after the comic book, The Walking Dead. Geoff Johns, Len Wein, Jeph Loeb, Sergio Argonnes and many more were spread out through out the exhibit hall floor to give fans autographs and answer questions about their ongoing projects.
In the S.W.A.G. (in case you forgot: Something We All Get) Department there were Thor and Captain America movie posters from the Marvel booth. DC comics were giving out Green Lantern movie lanyards. Dark Horse comics had posters for their new comic series (and TNT’s Spielberg driven TV show of the same name), Falling Skies. The people over at MightyFine were giving out the always-popular large tote bags featuring a giant Elmo shoot laser beams out of his eyes. Probably the coolest S.W.A.G of the day came from the last hour of the exhibit hall floor during Marvel’s Giveaway Hour. Marvel’s Giveaway Hour is made up of hundreds of fans crowding the Marvel stage as the MC offers great items from the Marvel merchandise line including comics, posters and figures. Brightboy was there for almost the whole hour competing to earn a prize. After holding up a sign trying to get attention, he resorted to the Banner App on his phone to make a scrolling sign that stated “Can I have a figure please” that earned Marvel’s attention and got Brightboy an exclusive (not available in stores) Archangel action figure. A great victory!
As mentioned before, Hotshot headed to WonderCon in costume today. Fanboy Headquarters had a rowdy posse of friends in attendance with them this time around and two of them, Heather and Allyssa, joined Hotshot in the cosplay action. The three garnered lots of attention and compliments throughout the day. A special shout-out goes to Hotshot, Heather, and Allyssa for representing Fanboy Headquarters proudly!
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| Black Widow, Steve Rogers, and Batgirl (a.k.a. Allyssa, Hotshot, and Heather) |
And they were not the only people in costume today, there were hundreds of attendees dressed up as their favorite characters on site. Check out our
photo album for some of the best we found.
Finally, our friend Allyssa came into possession of 2 VIP tickets to the Costume Masquerade event hosted at the end of the day. She was not able to enter the costume contest (due to some misguidance by an unnamed staffer <you know who you are!>) and so Allyssa decided to share her 2 tickets with a father and son who were very far back in the long line to enter the event ballroom for the show. Instead they were able to get in ahead of the line with great seats and we hoped enjoyed the show. Very kind gesture Allyssa!
Sadly, tomorrow is the last day, but we will make the best of it. As always, follow Fanboy Headquarters for coverage on all of the events happening at
WonderCon 2011!
