Broken Frontier

With the hot summer months of the convention circuit creeping up just around the corner, Wizard Universe VP Rob Felton stopped by to discuss the history of the event and talk about this weekend’s 6th annual Wizard World Philadelphia.

BROKEN FRONTIER: Wizard World (not singularly Philly, but all of them) has now been around for a number of years. What were the original goals behind starting it, have those goals been acheived, and have they changed at all?

ROB FELTON: Wizard World Chicago was originally launched as a marketing tool for the company – we acquired an existing show and re-branded it. After five years of continuing success we decided to launch our first original show, Wizard World Philadelphia.

After that show’s resounding success, as evidenced by our return to Philadelphia for the sixth time this year, we created Wizard World Texas and Wizard World Los Angeles, spreading our coverage over the four corners of the country and the four quarters of the year.

What we do for all the shows is bring all of our award winning publications to life – with comics and entertainment from Wizard, toys and statures from ToyFare, gaming from InQuest Gamer and anime and manga from Anime Insider, along with a healthy dose of family fun.

BF: In line with that last question, as the comic industry itself has grown, so has the convention circuit. Where it was once only a couple of months in the spring/summer, nowadays it runs year round. How do you at Wizard plan to keep your own conventions fresh, new, and impactful?

RF: We work very hard to have what the fans want right now – so for example, this show we have the Cheerleader from Heroes, hot on the heels of the season finale of the great NBC show.

Another great example is Ed Brubaker’s appearance at Wizard World Los Angeles following his earth-shaking Death of Captain America along with the hot incentive book of Cap #25 with a variant cover.

It’s all about being on the cutting edge of what fans want.

BF: With the numerous new conventions coming around, and the aforementioned packed schedule comes some obvious planning and scheduling conflicts. This was most notable in the announcement and quick cancellation of Wizard World Atlanta a few years ago. This year, the issue arises again with Wizard World Philly taking place the same weekend as Heroes Con in Carolina.

What goes into the planning of the dates of the con? How are things planned and decided upon and is there a point when you just have to say, "This is when we're doing it because this is when it works best for us."?

RF: Convention planning for us begins over eighteen months to two years in advance with us booking dates. With that kind of extended lead time, we try and work with all of the convention organizers involved in putting on shows in every space, be it comic books, gaming, anime or any of the trade shows that intersect our worlds to make sure that we are doing our best to not have conflicts.

That said, there are only 52 weekends in a year, and once you take out major holidays and all of the things I listed above, the calendar gets very, very crowded, so there are always going to be some sort of conflict that affects some of our constituents. For example, a couple of years ago, this show was the same weekend as Book Expo – not a big deal for fans, but it was a huge issue for some of our exhibitors.

So, our planning always has a great deal of consideration for everything going on in the world around us, but we know the fans in the Philadelphia area are looking for us to come back, and we want to give them what they want.

BF: Getting more Philly-specific, a few years ago saw the height of the Philly show's impact - DC's Kubert signings and the Batman Begins showing, while last year the biggest announcement might have been Marc Guggenheim writing Blade.

With Chicago, San Diego, and now even New York creeping closer in time to the Philly show, how do you prevent those other cons from "stealing the Philly thunder" so to speak and keep this particular con important? What is it about Philadelphia that makes it a viable and important convention stop?

RF: It’s the first show of the Summer, and as such, is always going to be a huge stop of the convention tour. There’s lots of great stuff happening this year at the show, of course I can’t reveal anything yet, but you are going to want to be around to hear all the great stuff that breaks there.

BF: This year you have finally gotten Brian Bendis to come over to the East Coast for the show. How did this one finally come about? Was it years of asking finally paying off or just a lucky stroke to find this time in his schedule?

RF: We’ve been a huge fan of Brian’s for his entire career so we just thrilled that he’s making the trip east to come to our Philadelphia show. Brian’s got a whole slew of things going on right now, so the timing was just right for us and for Brian.

BF: One of my favorite recent additions to the convention circuit has been J. David Spurlock and his band of comic luminaries. What has it meant to Wizard World, the fans, and even other creators to be able to come and talk to the likes of Jim Steranko, Carmine Infantino, and Walt and Louise Simonson?

RF: Steranko, Infantino and Simonson are all legendary names in the comics community, so we are proud and honored to see them return to WW Philadelphia once again this year.

BF: Finally, to bring things full circle, what are the plans and goals for WWPhilly this year and beyond?

RF: Make it the best possible show that we can this year, and learn from everything that we do to make sure that the next show is better than the last.

Wizard World Philadelphia hits this weekend, June 15-17, at the Pennsylvania Convention Center. Click here for more information and check the links below for the show’s programming schedule.

Friday, June 15

Saturday, June 16