Due to my somewhat exhausting week, I decided to only go to WonderCon on Friday. WonderCon is the Bay Area's much smaller version of the San Diego Comic Con which lacks a lot of the big corporate sponsorship of SDCC. It's mainly independent comic book stores that are retailing there, with a couple of the big comic publishers (DC and Dark Horse) having booths there.
A couple of the local comic publishers (such as manga publisher Viz) were surprisingly absent, which was strange, considering that they are headquartered in the Bay Area, while smaller independent presses like Slave Labor Graphics (SLG) did make appearances.
My impression of the show (at least this year's show) seemed to be structured more as a "how-to" than a PR blitz (which is what SDCC always seems to me now).
I didn't see very much manga on sale, which just seemed strange to me, given that anime/manga is what is attracting the younger crowd these days, but I did see plenty of anime/manga merchandise -- I suppose the profit margin is better on those. None of the anime/manga retailers seemed to be carrying recent stock of anime products from Japan though, I'd say the merchandise is around 4 - 6 months behind.
A good portion of the retailers at Wondercon also seemed to be selling Golden and Silver Age comics rather than modern age. There were a couple of Star Wars fan tables there -- 501st's Legion of Storm Troopers and the Bay Area-base fan clubs had their own little area across from Chase Masterson (Leta), and next to old Boomer, Lois Lane and Chewbacca.
Flickr: WonderCon 2006
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