March
19 The Wizard World dilemma

Part of the problem is that San Diego, WonderCon and now New York Comic-Con have set a high standard for comic cons as places that are packed full of fans, creators, celebrities and unique events – certainly more than any one person can see during the show.

Wizard shows on the other hand seem quite content to focus on mainstream comics and a few related areas, such as wrestling, Kiss fans and the IFL.

What’s surprisingly missing is the studio presence that was the original rationale for the company setting up a show in Los Angeles. While WWLA has a few Hollywood-focused panels — most notably the popular “Heroes” panel I’ll talk more about in a bit — and presentations from smaller studios like Lionsgate and small studio arms like Fox Atomic, the majors were nowhere in sight. Compared with the first WWLA, this area has actually shrunk for the show.

That first show saw Marvel and Fox send out producer Avi Arad and actor Chris Evans to preview “Fantastic Four.” This year, with the FF sequel and “Spider-Man 3” set for summer, there was nothing from either Fox or Sony. Warner Bros., which just hit it big with “300” and is working on a number of DC Comics-related projects, also was absent. During the DC Nation panel Friday, DCU exec editor Dan Didio pre-empted movie questions early on by saying that the comics operation is focused on making comics and knows next to nothing about what’s going on in Hollywood.

That leaves fans with a show that’s fun for spending a few hours looking around, maybe checking out a specific panel, but still lacks the depth of experience that attendees expect from big shows and that keep fans coming back the entirety of the convention. Even for die-hard comics fans, it’s tough to find enough to do the whole time. DC didn’t even have a booth on the floor as it had in the past. Marvel on the other hand did have a booth, but popular editor in chief Joe Quesada, as well as other top-level execs, was noticeably absent this year. Hometown crew Top Cow showed up, but the rest of the Image Comics operation was largely absent.

More Hollywood material and more programming in general would help the show draw in a wider audience, as would some marketing. (I don’t recall seeing stories in the local media, though it’s possible and even likely that I missed them. I’m sure readers will be kind enough to correct me if I did miss something.)

In the end, Wizard World L.A. has to decide if it is happy being a niche show that caters to a specific group, or if it wants to grow into the kind of Hollywood-rich, pop culture-enriched show it originally set out to be. Certainly, there’s nothing wrong with filling the niche of a series of mid-level shows, though that may change as the convention circuit becomes more and more competitive. There already was talk in artist alley about how many creators were going to attend Wizard’s Philadelphia show, which is held this year the same June weekend as the well-established and much-loved Heroes Con in South Carolina.
Wizard itself is making a number of changes, having hired a new editor in chief for the magazine, preparing a revamp of its web site and promising changes in upcoming shows. There certainly should be a market out there for a series of midlevel comics shows, and Wizard can fill that gap much more easily than it can ramp up its shows to truly compete with the majors. But to maintain even that niche position, Wizard needs to do a better job of defining its shows to its audiences and in doing more to keep people interested in the show once they get there.