WonderCon: The Geeks of San Francisco

This past April Fool's Day, I pulled off the ultimate prank of tricking people into thinking I was a nerd by attending my first-ever WonderCon during a weekend in San Francisco. WonderCon is sorta like a Comic-Con lite, but this year's convention went big with some appearances by stars like Ryan Reynolds and Blake Lively (Green Lantern) and Oscar nominee Saoirse Ronan (Hanna).

Anyway, the joke was on the WonderConventioneers when they realized I pulled the April Fool's wool over their eyes and turned out to be a totally supercool dude merely pretending to be geek. Suckers! It was cosplay, whatever that means! You should've seen the looks on their Batfaces!!! It was like Issue 104 of the DC Comics classic Silver Age... I mean, wait, what?

Um, just check out my show coverage after the jump»

Comic-Con 2010 - Thursday: The Nerdical Limit

Thursday morning I arrived in San Diego to attend Comic-Con International 2010, and let me tell you, my warp drive is exhausted! Nerd humor! I'll be here all weekend. Try the veal! No, really, I'll be here all weekend. Dunno about the veal, though.

Anyway, Day 1 of my annual trip to the San Diego Convention center culminated in reaching the nerdical limit of geekdom -- previewing movie props and new toys including merch sneaks from Monster High, Marvel Super Hero Squad, Super 7, Scott Pilgrim, Mez-Itz and Minimates, scoring bags full of freebies and exclusives, and attending a highlarious panel with Rob Corddry, Rob Huebel, Ken Marino and the rest of the cast of Adult Swim's Childrens Hospital.

Read more (and see almost 100 pics!) after the jump.

Comic-Day 1: Thursday and the Half-Blood Prince

Welcome to my Thursday coverage of Comic-Con, that nerdgasmic time of year in San Diego when thousands of people will go crazy if you shout out "Excelsior," "May the force be with you," "Team Edward," "Team Jacob," "Live long and prosper," "Free Corn Nuts" or "Look! Boobs!" I'll try to post photos and tweets from the show each day. And if you want to be annoyed by me in real time, follow me on Twitter right now!

Marvel Superhero Squad statues of Iron Man and Dr. Doom.

Upcoming Marvel characters to be added to the Superhero Squad series of toys.

10:19am @pantsarama: Is that Doritos, farts and Mountain Dew I smell? Then I must be at Comic-Con! I'll tweet updates until I find myself a slave Leia.


10:27am @pantsarama: San Diego Trading Co on 5th is giving away free GI Joe hats to press. Ugliest hats ever. Now you know, & knowing is half the battle.


10:35am @pantsarama: It seems the she-nerds at Comic-Con aren't used to my pheromones & are attracted to it. It's called "deodorant."


10:45am @pantsarama: Star Trek cologne. Smells kinda woodsy with a hint of mom's basement.

11:18am @pantsarama: If you wear a bikini to Comic-Con, guys will photograph you. As a red-blooded male, I guess I was asking for it by dressing that way

Cute version of Sora from Kingdom Hearts.


Batgirl as one of DC's Blammoids

He-Man prototype toys from Mattel.

Darth Vader's pimp helmet

3:22pm @pantsarama: I overheard someone talking about the "Dr. Parnassus" panel at Comic-Con debating whether Heath Ledger will show up. I really hope not

3:27pm @pantsarama: I saw David Faustino at the Sony booth. No, he didn't have a broom. He was signing autographs.

Coraline stop-motion figures from the movie.


Characters from the upcoming movie, 9

Toffee dolls from Huckleberry Toys.

3:30pm @pantsarama: Tyrese Gibson has a comic book and is signing them. I don't even need to make up a joke.

3:34pm @pantsarama: I'm in the looooong line for the Chowder and Flapjack panel. They're Cartoon Network shows not food, but now I'm hungry.

Slasher characters done up in the new style of Mez-Itz from Mezco.

Bioshock.


Silver paint Tokidoki show exclusives

6:11pm @pantsarama: Ziggy & Family Circus are criminally underrepresented at Comic-Con. In honor of Ziggy, I'll be attending tomorrow without pants.

Star Wars Chubby Series 2, due out in November '09, will include Princess Leia, Ewok and bounty hunter nesting dolls.


Beverly Hills Cop Minimates. Finally, a Minimate with a tiny mustache and a big banana.

Iron Man movie props

Brian Cox and Lauren Lee Smith from Trick 'R Treat, due out on DVD and Blu-ray this October. Anna Paquin was a no-show since it was her birthday, but the director called her voice mail during the panel and had the audience sing to her. Harry Knowles moderated the panel. At first, I thought it was a dude in a Jabba the Hutt costume.

12:00am @pantsarama: Saw Comic-Con screening of "Trick 'R Treat," a horror anthology w/ Anna Paquin. Not bad.Scariest part was Harry Knowles moderating the panel

DC figures with disturbingly realistic looking faces. Kneecaps, not so realistic.


Snake Eyes and Storm Shadow movie costumes from the upcoming debacle, G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra, the Lowering of America's Standards


Seth Rogen's Black Beauty car from the upcoming Green Hornet


New Transformers Mighty Muggs: Optimus Prime with flame detail and Shockwave

Spitting Images

Everyone's been told they resemble some celebrity, but most people probably wouldn't say that I could be mistaken for Eddie Murphy or Alyssa Milano. The Face Recognition demo at MyHeritage.com would claim otherwise, and the mug-matching program even suggests that I'm a dead ringer for Daisy Fuentes and Michael Caine, too. In reality, most people get me mixed up with the food delivery guy but that's another story.

A webwide sensation, the Face Recognition demo allows you to upload digital photos of yourself, and the program will scan its celebrity database to find the star you most closely resemble. The demo has people uploading photo after photo in the hopes it'll match their looks with Brad Pitt or Angelina Jolie, but instead it's a heartless ego-reamer, matching users' pics with the likes of such mirror-crackers as Frankie Muniz or the Snapple lady.

Once, the program actually thought a wrinkle in a shirt in one of my photos resembled Winona Ryder, so now I'm uploading photos of toast in the hopes of uncovering an image of the Virgin Mary so I can cash in on all those religious nuts and/or grilled cheese lovers. To abuse the Face Recognition program even further, I've uploaded photos of some various action figures and toys to see who their celebrity twins are. None of the celebrity toys matched their real-life counterparts, but at least that Malcolm in the Middle kid didn't come up either.

Lindsay Lohan = Elisha Cuthbert. The My Scene doll version of the 24-hour party queen resembles the 24 party pooper.

Jessica Alba as the Invisible Woman = Cate Blanchett. (Click each link to the see the actual Face Recognition results.)

The Rock = Lara Flynn Boyle. Fun fact: It takes 1,487 Lara Flynn Boyles lined up waist-to-waist to equal the circumference of the Rock's neck.

Sarah Michelle Gellar as Buffy the Vampire Slayer = Keira Knightley

David Boreanaz as Angel (in vampire/ass-face form) = Eddie Murphy

Wonder Woman = Joan Crawford, (wire hangers = bad)

Wonder Woman Baby = Madonna

Saturn Girl = Lucille Ball

Superwoman = Johnny Depp

David Hasselhoff = Natalie Imbruglia, (so by the transitive property of equality, Natalie Imbruglia = Super Awesome.)

Celebrating Black History--Nubia

Wonder Woman used to have a Black sister. Not just "sister" as in "sistergirl." Not just "sister" as in fellow Amazon. But "sister" as in when Hippolyte made Wondy out of clay, she also made another baby out of (duh) darker clay and they both came to life thanks to Aphrodite.

Her name was Nubia, and she represents all that was groovy and fantastic about comic books before the nerds got all obsessed with continuity and keeping superheroes serious and "special" (Wanting Superman to be the only survivor of Krypton, no Krypto or Supergirl, etc.) and whatever else. A sweet time in comics when it was okay--no--it was necessary for Wonder Woman to have a Black sister no one had heard of for years and years 'cause Mars stole her when she was a baby. How great is that? Freakin' great! Wonder Woman has a Black twin sister, hurray!

Nubia fought Wonder Woman for a minute, but when WW realized that Nubia was under Mars' control, the ladies worked it out and managed to call Mars out on his fear of woman. Take that, god of war! Ha!

Suffering Sappho!

DC didn't use Nubia nearly enough, but she did merit a doll from Mego, as shown with her sister doll above. I haven't seen her myself, but apparently there's a character in current WW continuity called Nu'bia or something who is a sort of tribute to the forgotten sister of Wonder Woman. That's nice, I guess, but you know, the world of comics could use a few more Black superheroes, and maybe some other nonwhites, just to keep things colorful. They don't have to be related to Wonder Woman, though that would be okay with me if some of them were.