Wizard World Chicago Report

Hope everyone reading this had an enjoyable 4th of July weekend! I used the time to catch up on some much needed rest as I did two cons in two weeks - Heroes Con in Charlotte followed by Wizard World Chicago. Heroes is my favorite shows of the year. The whole hall is one giant Artists Alley! We did not have a booth, but still managed to spread the word about Scarlet.

Wizard World Chicago was a different story! Not only was it a convention I had never been to before, but it is held in Scarlet's place of origin. In many ways, it was Scarlet's homecoming! This was the first time the character had been promoted in the area in over 50 years! It was great to see how many folks at the con remembered the strip. We even met one fellow whose mother loved the comic so much, she named her son after the creator!

Once again, we found ourselves sharing a booth with Terence Bernard, still promoting Sophia:Awakening (why have many of you NOT bought the first issues yet?). This time he was with his lovely wife and they skipped out one afternoon to enjoy the Taste of Chicago festival also happening that weekend. Too bad they didn't bring any food back for us! Also in the booth was James Watson, who was promoting Atlantis Studios and his own character, Paula Peril. Between Scarlet, Sophia, and Paula, we had plenty of eye candy on our table! Russ Stamm Jr. was also in the booth, at least when he wasn't on the floor taking care of some Scarlet business! There are some AWESOME things in the works for Scarlet and if even half of them come to fruition, it'll be exciting time to be a Scarlet fan!

Pictured from left to right are James Watson, Russ Stamm Jr., and the Bernards. Thanks to Rick Rosko for the picture!

The weekend also saw the debut of the CBT (Comic Book Trailer) for "The Untold Origins of Scarlet O'Neil." The video promo can currently be seen at ComicBookTrailers.com and should be available soon at other video sites.

The best part of the convention was talking to friends and fans of Scarlet throughout the entire weekend. Writer Chuck Dixon revealed that he was a fan of the original strip. We had an insightful discussion with Charles Pelto of Chicago-based Classics Comics Press about reprinting the original strips in new volumes. If you haven't already see them, I strongly encourage any fan of Scarlet to check out the beautiful compilations he has created for Leonard Starr's "Mary Perkins on Stage" strips. And last, but certainly not least, we got a Scarlet sketch from Rebecca Whitaker. I've been a fan of her work and her blog, No Smoking in the Skull Cave for a while and hopefully she's now a fan of Scarlet's as well. We think she perfectly captured the fun side of Scarlet!

All told, we had a GREAT time at Wizard World Chicago and we will definitely be back next year!