Wondercon 2006

Brother! My brother, Louie del Carmen,is now a bonafide, self-published author! He and his partner in crime, Octavio Rodriguez, had exibited their respective books, "Random Anomalies" and "'Cano Scribbles" at Wondercon in the new building of the Moscone Center. My brood and I arrived late in the afternoon on Saturday (parking was a breeze, and that's saying something in S.F. with the parking structure right next door and across from the Metreon), found a healthy amount of fans at the entrance and inside the dealer's floor. More than I've been used to in recent Wondercons, I must say. Though, not being an exhibitor I'm not one to go by since I'm there only for a handful of hours.

All in all I was happy to be walking around and shopping for a change. How liberating! Enrico and I have no new books for the show and decided to forego this con in exchange for the novelty of being pedestrians this time. Pedestrians who make a bee line to Stuart Ng's! Man, I love these guys. They always carry books I would love to rave about (more about those finds on a later post. Pressed for time here). And they are the nicest people over there. I found myself just hanging around there over and over again making sure I'm not missing something cool.


I wish I can put more pictures of folks but I've run out of time. Time to prep for the Japan trip. I'll post more from Wondercon later.

I've nothing much to report other than it was a good time and I'm glad that this convention is here and continues to fill a crucial convention gap for us fans and exhibitors. San Diego has grown into insane proportions, perhaps so large that us smaller artist/exhibitors are being drowned out in all the noise and clutter of the giant players who are pouring into that convention in ever increasing magnitude. That's progress and quite welcome, so don't get me wrong. That kind of success is unheard of for a comic book convention. I mean, it's a comic book convention! It's amazing as it is that it's exploded into the mainstream the way it has.


Very recognizable duo, no? But let's make a contest of it, shall we? Who can name this unique and lovely power couple? Prize? Well, the chance to play is prize enough, right?

But then again, that's what we have Wondercon and Ape for. If the sociological experiment plays out the way I think it will, all this will organize itself naturally , leaving Wondercon to be more of a creator based convention (remember Pro con used to precede Wondercon?) and Ape being the independents' San Diego. We'll see. Kudos to the organizers for staying the course and plugging away.

Stuart Ng
Random Anomalies
The Cano Spot