Issue 1.10
GREETINGS FROM
ANAHEIM! Secrets revealed!
We take you through the sights and sounds of
Wizard World Anaheim!
LAUNCH PAD
Our mission statement... straight from the top!
WOW, what a show!
Lisa Rinna and Harry Hamlin – SWEET!
The most amazing parts of the Anaheim Comic Con this past weekend were the camaraderie and community feel to the event. Every exhibitor, retailer, creator, celebrity or fan I spoke to was so happy to take part and make Anaheim Comic Con fun and exciting. This week we take you on a visual tour of many of our costumed friends, so whether you’re into superheroes, Star Wars, Buffy or Ghostbusters, you had the chance to come out and be a star. We’ve also been deluged with praise and thanks from the comic book community for bringing together such a diverse and wealth of talent, literally over 230 creators in one place. So thank you for coming out and enjoying the experience. Next, we’re off to the Big Apple Comic Con, so stay tuned, we’ll bring it all here first. See ya! Gareb Shamus, Chief Executive Officer
MASTHEAD Gareb Shamus Chief Executive Officer Stephen Shamus Chief Marketing Officer Carlos Mejia Senior Associate Producer ART Errol Girvan & Roque Rodon Layout Artists Contributors TJ Diestch Chloe Dykstra E.M. Getlick Ken Goldstein Whitney Moore
$
EXHIBITORS, SPONSORSHIPS, PROMOTIONS & BUSINESS OPPORTUNITIES Peter Katz VP Business Affairs & Development (646) 801-5572 pkatz@wizardworld.com
page 2 of 35
UP FRONT 6 COSPLAYGROUND We take you through Anaheim Comic Con from Wizard World with this 15-page blowout!
FEATURES 24 DYLAN DOG We reveal the secrets behind this must see comedy-horror starring Superman himself, Brandon Routh! 26 Artificial Intelligence Bender. Data. R2-D2! They’re all here as we list the greatest tin men in pop culture history! 29 THE NEVER ENDING CAVALCADE OF AWESOMENESS We reveal what NECA has in store in 2011 with toys from Gears of War, Gremlins and so much more!
EAD R O T HOW a story
on rs: Click ontents e s u d a iP fc y table o on the it. Click on an p to to skip ring up the to b page to ation menu. g navi
Wizard World Issue 1.10 • May 6, 2011 page 4 of 35
COSPLAYGROUND A look back at Wizard World’s Con at Anaheim, CA!
W
e don’t want to toot our own horn too much, but we throw some pretty darn cool comic conventions. We do one a month! And this past weekend we rocked Anaheim, CA where Adam West (“Family Guy”), Ray Park (Darth Maul from “Episode 1”) The Avellan Twins (“Planet Terror”), Phil Jimenez (Astonishing X-Men), and a slew of other celebrities, actors, artists, writers and athletes appeared at the three day convention. So, just in case if you never been to a Wizard World Con—we decided to show you how awesome it is with this 15-page blowout! So sit back, relax and take a look at the show—including some awesome costumes from you—the fans! If you’re wondering when the next Wizard World Con is coming around—check out http://www.wizardworld.com for more info! See you in New York, next!
page 6 of 35
page 7 of 35
page 9 of 35
page 10 of 35
page 11 of 35
page 12 of 35
page 14 of 35
page 15 of 35
page 16 of 35
page 17 of 35
page 18 of 35
page 19 of 35
page 20 of 35
page 21 of 35
! N I T I D es SEN costum
page 22 of 35
emade ld.com to m o h r r ou Send y en@wizardwo round. You g to bullp ed in CosPlay showing ile ur be feat win prizes wh o knows, could ur skills. Wh xt great off yo ht be the ne n a g you mi me designer o costu ig movie! b
Dog Days Are Back!
W
e speak to Scott Mitchell Rosenberg, Producer of “Dylan Dog� (in theaters now, starring Brandon Routh) and he tells us how zombies are people too, how hard it is to collect an Italian comic book, and how our own Gareb Shamus is a zombie!
page 24 of 35
For those who live under rocks, becomes a zombie that doesn’t mean Dark Horse Comics published they go straight to bite someone’s head Dylan Dog, but the comic was please describe “Dylan Dog.” off. They’re dealing with that affliction. originally an Italian comic, Dylan (Brandon Routh) is an investigator We really wanted to take advantage of the which started in the late ‘80s. who works for the various undead as a whole, “zombies are people too” idea. Were you a huge fan of the detective. When they need something original Italian book? solved, they’ll come to this human and he How did our own Gareb gets that humans really are the monsters. Here is how much of a fan I am. It’s very There’s a back-story in how he’s brought Shamus weasel his way difficult in other countries, especially in into this world and there’s a situation into the movie? where something happen among the species of the undead because that’s unusual. So zombies just want fair treatment, but how do you get a job when you’re dead? There are a few things you have to do to not appear dead.
How did you get involved with “Dylan Dog”? I love horror. I love doggie movies. I love straight horror. I love vampire movies. I love all that kind of stuff. What I hadn’t seen was a movie where zombies could speak and were human. If someone
Italy to collect. It’s not like there’s comic stores stuffed with back issues. I have now assembled 95% of every Dylan Dog issue. I was so happy when I got all of the issues that I was missing like #1, #3, and #7 and I don’t think I’m missing more than a dozen issues out of about 300 issues. So yeah, I’m a geek. And I really wanted Dylan Dog #1 and I got it. Millions of that comic was made, but actually finding the early issues before it even became popular was not very easy.
(Laughs) Gareb and I are best friends. We’ve been friends since ’92 I called him and I told him he had to come down to New Orleans for this. He was great. It’s his first role! It was a blast and he had a blast. In fact, one of my favorite scenes in the movie is the one in which he’s in. He’s there. The people in that scene are costumed up, so you’re going to have to look hard for him. I wanted him in the scene that he was dying to play out in the movie. And he’s a zombie. You’re going to have ask Gareb if he survives in the movie. Check out Dylan Dog, in theaters now!
page 25 of 35
In the immortal words of Homer Simpson, “You gotta be pretty desperate to make it with a robot.” All ethical and biological questions aside, true pop culture fanatics could ruminate all day on the robots they love to love—even if it’s not strictly in the biblical sense (thankfully). Since Wizard World Digital boasts one million terabytes of useless, robot-centric info in our collective brain banks, we present our picks for the Top 10 Robots in all of pop culture!
#10: RED TORNADO DC Comics’ robotic blowhard may be a master of hurricane-force winds, but his elemental powers haven’t been able to save him from being destroyed more times than a grain silo in Tornado Alley. Still, he’s DC’s premier robot character, and we had to throw Reddy a bone—if only to appease admitted Tornado fanatic Brad Meltzer (see: JLA: The Tornado’s Path).
#9: ASTRO BOY This Japanese import has been a fixture on the pop scene for over 60 years, blazing trails in manga and anime. God of Manga Osamu Tezuka’s tech-y take on the Pinocchio mythos finds Doctor Tenma creating a powerful robot boy to replace his dead son. Considering the Japanese have since created actual working sexbots, this only seems slightly less perverse by comparison.
#8: ASH FROM ‘ALIEN’ What’s worse than a xenomorph biological entity sneaking onto your spaceship and wiping out the whole crew by sucking face and bursting through your chest? The fact that a sneaky robot invited it on the ship in the first place…and it’s programmed to make human expendable! The Alien was just a wild animal—a killer one with acid for blood—but at least it didn’t try and choke Ripley with a porn magazine.
page 26 of 35
#7: C-3PO & R2-D2 The Stan and Ollie of the “Star Wars” set have been on a cosmic road trip for six motion pictures and a galaxy of comic books. Admittedly, four of those movies absolutely sucked, and Threepio’s annoying, prissy manner often had us wishing he’d get eaten by a Sarlaac, but these two Droids have made momentous strides for robot rights—especially when it comes to mobile devices and tasty apps.
#6: THE TRANSFORMERS A race of robots—some good, some evil—that changes into all sorts of cool shiz like tractor trailers, F-14s, dinosaurs and boom boxes? What adolescent boy isn’t going to fall in love with Optimus Prime, Starscream and company? Action figures, cartoons or Michael Bay’s abominable movies, those Robots in Disguise have been transforming adolescent wet dreams into cold, hard cash for decades.
#5: ULTRON Founding Avenger Henry Pym’s biggest claim to fame might be shrinking and growing, but his biggest blunder has killed millions and vows to wipe out all biological life. Using his own damaged but genius brain patterns as the basis for Ultron’s intelligence, Pym imbued his creation with supersmarts and an indestructible adamantium body—no wonder it opted for “killing machine” over “personal digital assistant.”
#4: T-800 TERMINATOR In the role that made eventual California Governor Arnold Schwarzeneggar an international action movie mega-star and set James Cameron on the road to becoming king of the world, an indestructible robot from the future travels back in time to kill the mother of the would-be savior of humanity. The only conundrum stickier than the time-travel plot? If Skynet’s so smart, why did it program the Terminator with an Austrian accent?
page 27 of 35
#3: DATA (STAR TREK: THE NEXT GENERATION) Without Lt. Commander Data and his positronic brain on the bridge of the Enterprise, Captain Picard and crew would’ve never made it out of Farpoint Station alive, let alone survived seven years in deep space. Not only was Data programmed to save Starfleet bacon on a regular basis, this love machine was “fully functional” in the bedroom too, as we learned when he photon torpedoed Lt. Tasha Yar’s lady bits in the ep aptly titled, “The Naked Now.”
#2: CYLONS An entire race of sentient artificial beings, the first iteration of Cylons looked like menacing tin soldiers, and hunted Lorne Greene and company to the brink of extinction in the original cheese-tastic “Battlestar Galactica.” Cylons 2.0 were still manufactured, but looked totally human and worshipped a mechanical god-like creator. Of course, if machines all looked like Tricia Helfer, Lucy Lawless and Grace Park, we’d have gone to Lincoln Tech to study gynecology.
#1: BENDER An “alcoholic, whore-mongering, chain-smoking gambler” (courtesy of Leela by way of Wikipedia), Bender Bending Rodriguez has been boozing, shagging, puffing and betting his way around “Futurama” since 1999—and like any good robotic killing machine, even survived a five-year TV hiatus! A borderline sociopath, pathological liar and unapologetic thief, Bender transforms the phrase “artificial intelligence” into something of an oxymoron—and if you don’t like it, you can bite his shiny metal ass!
page 28 of 35
TJ Dietsch
T
hat might not be what NECA actually stands for, but that's what it means to us thanks to new toys based on Gears Of War, Gremlins, A Nightmare On Elm Street and Terminator!
NECA
holds a very unique place in the toy industry. While the larger companies continue rolling out wave after wave of superhero and movie figures with much bigger financial backing and smaller houses seemingly reigning in their output, NECA has continued to expand without sacrificing quality. Between acquiring new licenses that will be revealed later this year and expanding others, NECA continues to surprise and impress with their hyper detailed sculpts of everyone from Iggy Pop and Freddy Krueger to Gizmo and Marcus from Gears of War. Wizard World got the dirt on their plans for upcoming Gears of War, Terminator, Gremlin and A Nightmare on Elm Street action figures!
page 29 of 35
W
ith the Gears of War 3 beta going live earlier this month, the buzz behind the game set to be fully released on September 20th has been palpable. To get everyone even more excited, NECA has two series' of figures based on the new game to fit in with the ones they've created for the previous entries. The first series, which will be out just in time for the game's release, includes Marcus, Carmine and Baird while the November-debuting second series boasts Cole, Dom and brand new female character Anya. As always, the figures will be packed with enough weapons and gear to take on the Locust yourself.
page 30 of 35
A
t this year's New York Toy Fair, NECA got a lot of fans talking about the prototypes and previews they showed off, especially the ones based on the Terminator franchise. Taking characters from the first two movies, NECA has created a fantastic looking series of figures with two waves of three figures each planned. The first features the T1-based Tech Noir T-800 based on Arnold Schwarzenegger's likeness, the Motorcycle Cop T-1000 from T2 and a Terminator endo-skeleton. The second wave includes the Police Station Assault T-800 and Battle Damaged T-800 from the first movie and the Steel Mill T-1000 from the very end of the second flick. Those will be out in July and late September/early October respectively. Here's hoping that a tiny, whiny John Connor with voice chip from Terminator 2 is NOT planned for future waves.
page 31 of 35
O
ne of the great, untapped properties around, the Gremlins franchise spawned an impressive number of mini monsters in both their cute and cuddly Mogwai forms and lean and mean Gremlin visages. NECA will be rolling out waves of both this year into next. The first Gremlins wave of 6-inch scale figures features Daffy, George and the Flasher, while Gizmo, George and Lenny make up the first wave of 3.5-inch scale Mogwais and will be followed up by Daffy, Mohawk and the Rambo-esque Combat Gizmo. All the figures coming out this year are based on Gremlins 2: The New Batch, but NECA promises more figures based on the original flick to be revealed around this year's San Diego Comic-Con.
page 32 of 35
L
ast year, NECA released figures based on the A Nightmare On Elm Street remake version of Freddy Krueger played by Jackie Earle Haley in pre- and post-burnt looks. Now, though, they really get to have fun with the license by digging into the many versions of Robert Englund's Freddy from the original eight movies. The waves will come out in two figure bursts with each wave covering two of the movies. Wave one, which debuts in August, includes Freddy from the original movie with swapout skinless face and long arms to terrorize teens and the first sequel's version of Freddy with another head missing some skin. The second pair of figures will be out in October and are based on the third and fourth movies, better known as The Dream Warriors and The Dream Master. The former figure shows Freddy with the faces of his victims on his torso along with the model version of the house on Elm Street while the latter features Freddy's internalized victims fighting back. We have our hearts set on the robo-motorcylce version of Freddy from the fifth movie, but will just have to wait and see if that's in the cards.
page 33 of 35
COMING NEXT WEEK
IT’S ! E R HE
You asked for it – And it has arrived!
The first ever Wizard World Digital Price Guide featuring the comics from the Golden Age & The Silver Age! Issue 1.1
AVAILABLE FOR FREE DOWNLOAD MAY 11, 2011!