Back From WonderCon 2015

My mission for this past Easter Weekend was to, once again, get to Anaheim California for the annual WonderCon, the precursor to San Diego Comic Con.

I have been attending the Anaheim location of WonderCon for the past five years now and have enjoyed each trip. And like every convention of this type, it is a guessing game as to what you will encounter to and from the hotel to the convention center – in terms of the costumes worn by attendees, the lines to get into the building and the panel rooms as well as the general insanity that is involved when hundreds of thousands of people converge on one location. And don’t even get me started on the protestors who show up for every pop culture event, SIGH!!!

Regardless of the insanity and the routine of arriving at the hotel, checking in, settling in the room and getting “game ready”, the first day of the convention went smoothly. After picking up my press badge, I headed into the exhibition hall to see all the “sights”, snapping as many pictures as I could and conducting my own brand of retail therapy: thank you Jason Palmer and Holzheimers.

Thankfully my panel schedule for Friday was “light” with the first stop being the Wayward Pines panel. This is the new limited series that will debut on May 14 on FOX, based on the trilogy of books by Blake Crouch, and directed by M. Night Shyamalan. The cast also includes the likes of Matt Dillon, Carla Gugino, Toby Jones, Reed Diamond, Tim Griffin, Shannyn Sossamon, Juliette Lewis, Melissa Leo and Terrence Howard.

The audience was treated to a screening of the debut episode followed by a moderated panel with cast members Reed Diamond and Tim Griffin as well as executive producer Donald De Line. You can look for coverage of that panel here at NiceGirlsTV before the debut of Wayward Pines on May 14.

I then attended two smaller panels that afternoon, focusing on “The Most Dangerous Women at WonderCon”, which was a focus on the favorite villains in the pop culture world, and “The Writer’s Journey: Breaking into Comics and Hollywood Scriptwriting”, an ongoing panel conducted each year by a respected panel of writers, producers and actors, extolling their experiences.

Saturday, as usual, was the busiest day of the three-day convention with an overflow of fans wanting to get into one of the larger panel rooms to see the undisputed “Queen of the Cons”: Felicia Day. The multi-hyphenated actress, writer, gamer, producer was the focus of one of the first panels of the day where she talked about her upcoming projects, answered fan questions and talked about her upcoming book “You’re Never Weird on the Internet (Almost)”.

This was followed by panels for the TNT returning summer series The Last Ship, the new CW series The Messengers, the final appearance by cast members for the TNT series Falling Skies (which will air its fifth and final season this summer) and the much-anticipated return of the BBC America hit Orphan Black. Needless to say, it was a jam-packed day!

Sunday was, thankfully, the easy day for my schedule, as I had a couple hours to roam the exhibition hall (AGAIN!), checking out all of the booths, artists’ alley and snapping even more pictures. It really is amazing how many people dress in costume and how terrific so many of those costumes are.

As for panels, my schedule was very light with only two panels on tab. The first was called “Building the Modern (Super) Heroine” with writers and artists talking about powerful female superheroes; and the other was called “Psychology of Cult TV” with experts talking about (what else?) The psychology behind cult television shows like Doctor Who, Sherlock, Star Wars and Star Trek (just to name a few).

With the conclusion of that last panel my time in Anaheim came to a satisfactory end and I made the journey home. Now, the real test begins: getting all my coverage of these events written and shared with our terrific readers. Please be on the look-out for coverage soon.

Until next year…

Here are just some of the sights of WonderCon 2015: