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I’m going to have to rate this con two out of three… days.

Smudge and I attended the 25th Wondercon this weekend (which is really scary when you realize that it started just a couple years before we started attending Comic Con). We cruised through most of the main floor on Friday, and managed to look at it all in some detail on Saturday.

Friday was the main panel day, with about 5 panels we wanted to attend. Naturally, the most important one was the last one of the day, and was hit by an unannounced room change.

The main dealer’s hall was something of a step back in time. None of the manga or anime companies were present, and while there were booths that had translated manga graphic novels, it was not a focus at any booth, and anime was next to non-existent. However, I’d say booths selling just Japanese figures outnumbered booths selling just American figures (action and non) by a fair amount, though there were a fair number with both with an emphasis on the American side.

Most telling by its absence was webcomics. Looking for Group was there, and so was Shortpacked/Dumbing of Age, and Lackadaisy. That was pretty much it.

The only sign of any gaming industry was the large Nintendo booth.

Smudge and I certainly managed a fair amount of loot. I went straight for volume 3(A) of Age of Bronze, which gets me caught up to the graphic novels. I hope that Betrayal Part 2 (3B) comes out soon…. Thanks to the ubiquitous 50% off boxes, I also finally got a copy of Marvels; pretty good, but it just stops instead of really ending. My main ‘surprise’ purchase was Star Trek: Leonard McCoy: Frontier Doctor, since I liked the high concept of following McCoy around during the period immediately before the first movie, I gave it a try. Not great, but certainly not bad.

Smudge got a Winry (Fullmetal Alchemist) figure that she’s been meaning to get for years, and a very nicely done Mikuru (Haruhi) figure as well as a few of the small random-pack figures that have gotten popular (I also ended up with a small Yoko from Guren Lagan). Book-wise she got a graphic novel adaptation of The Last Unicorn (and got it signed by Peter Beagle), very pretty, but rushes through the story quite a bit; Bilile the Unicorn, a sweet children’s book, that has a supporting unicorn character named “Smudge” (instant sell!), and a nicely produced art-book for Serial Experiment Lain (1/4 price).

Sadly, while we were walking to the con on Sunday, Smudge tripped in a pothole, and banged herself up pretty good. Thankfully, we were still only a block away from the train station at the time, so it wasn’t too hard to go home, and then check into a hospital. A couple of lightly banged up knees, hands… a badly sprained ankle, and a broken bone in her right elbow. We got back to Sunnyvale around 2, but between the Emergency Room, and getting shuffled elsewhere, they weren’t done with her until around 1 in the morning.

*sigh*