Comic Con Talk (Renamed since LA Comic Con can't get it together) (2 Viewers)

[bonnjer]

Who?

George Newbern

George Newbern (born December 10, 1964 in Little Rock, Arkansas) is an American television and film actor, best known within the DCAU as the voice actor of Superman on the Justice League animated series and Justice League Unlimited replacing Tim Daly. Notes George Newbern initially replaced Tim...

dcau.fandom.com

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This guy.

 

[GrandAdmiral]

George Newbern

George Newbern (born December 10, 1964 in Little Rock, Arkansas) is an American television and film actor, best known within the DCAU as the voice actor of Superman on the Justice League animated series and Justice League Unlimited replacing Tim Daly. Notes George Newbern initially replaced Tim...

dcau.fandom.com

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This guy.

Oh, I know who he is. I was just messing.

 

[bonnjer]

So we're one month out from Wizard World NO and their only guests announcements has been the cast of Smallville? Seems a little weird that more haven't been announced by now.

 

[Sun Wukong]

So we're one month out from Wizard World NO and their only guests announcements has been the cast of Smallville? Seems a little weird that more haven't been announced by now.

WW is a shambling corpse at this point. Which is why I'd hoped BEC would be awesome. Instead they screwed it up every possible way along the road to their first show.

 

[Doug B]

So we're one month out from Wizard World NO and their only guests announcements has been the cast of Smallville? Seems a little weird that more haven't been announced by now.

Cary Elwes, Wallace Shawn, and Sam Heughan (the hunk from Outlander) are shown on the WW New Orleans site, too. But that's it, one month out.

Heughan's there for the ladies. And I think Wallace Shawn will have a fascinating panel. Elwes probably, too. But WW is seriously lacking anyone to excite the imagination, especially for young fans.

Compare the top end of the WW New Orleans guest lists from recent years:

2014 - Stan Lee, Elvira, Robert Englund, Matt Smith, Will Wheaton (shrug, but Wheaton had his own nerd-culture show that year)
2015 - Bruce Campbell, Karl Urban, Kevin Conroy (kind of a weak year)
2016 - Cast of Capt America: Civil War, The Russo Brothers, William Shatner
2017 - Carrie Fisher (passed away just before event), Robert Englund, Peter Mayhew
2018 - Stan Lee, Jason Momoa, David Tennant
2019 - Um ... the guys from Vampire Diaries, Jason Momoa again
2020 - Smallville cast

WW seemed to have done a pivot starting in 2018 to make dam-n sure they've got eye candy for the ladies among their guests (Momoa, Ian Sommerhalder and Paul Wesley from Vampire Diaries, Heughan this year, Tom Welling, etc.). Where are the folks from currently-popular TV & movie franchises -- especially the ones that resonate with young folks?

 

[Doug B]

Just out of curiosity, I went and checked on the guest lists for Wizard World's next two 2020 shows after New Orleans (Portland, OR in late January; Cleveland in early March).

Both of those shows list ZERO guests. The Portland show is less than eight weeks away -- zero guests announced.

In past years, the Wizard World website posted at least tentative guest lists for shows about 3 or 4 months out, and then adjusted for cancellations and late additions. So something very different is afoot these days.

 

[Doug B]

Several of WW New Orleans 2020's guests are carried over from the WW show in Austin, TX a few weeks ago. They might fill out the NOLA show from that lineup.

 

[GrandAdmiral]

Several of WW New Orleans 2020's guests are carried over from the WW show in Austin, TX a few weeks ago. They might fill out the NOLA show from that lineup.

It's really the same people almost every year at every show. With the exception of their huge shows (Chicago, etc.), you will find the same people pop up throughout the year outside of other commitments.

 

[Doug B]

It's really the same people almost every year at every show. With the exception of their huge shows (Chicago, etc.), you will find the same people pop up throughout the year outside of other commitments.

I've noticed that among the second- and third-tier guests. It still looked like up until 2018, WW was able to bring new top-tier guests every year.

In retrospect ... it seems like 2016 was kind of a luck-out for Wizard World New Orleans. That was a Murderer's Row of guests (esp before cancellations) -- and since that was our first WW con, we thought that was typical. 2017 wasn't too far behind before Carrie Fisher's passing. 2018 still had Stan Lee (who could be a one-man con, really). After that, though?

 

[Sun Wukong]

Wizard World has been in dire financial straits for several years now, going back to insane mismanagement of the brand and its finances when the Shamus brothers were still running the company at its peak. They were nearly insolvent recently. Like I said, a shambling corpse. They're staying afloat but at massive reductions of what they used to be.

 

[bonnjer]

Wizard World has been in dire financial straits for several years now, going back to insane mismanagement of the brand and its finances when the Shamus brothers were still running the company at its peak. They were nearly insolvent recently. Like I said, a shambling corpse. They're staying afloat but at massive reductions of what they used to be.

So we shouldn't be expecting much more in the way of decent announcements then? You think they're all tapped out with the Smallville crew? I'd like to get Welling's auto, but I'm not driving down to N.O. just for that.

 

[GrandAdmiral]

Bottom line, Big Easy Con forked up big time. They could've become the big dog here.

 

[Doug B]

WW NOLA has added three more background players from Outlander

...

In the run-up to the January 2019 WW con in New Orleans, they advertised heavily for their Outlander guests, including series author Diana Gabaldon. But now, when I look at reviews and news coverage of the 2019 event, the Outlander crew aren't mentioned at all. Did they pull out en masse before the con?

 

[Doug B]

Bottom line, Big Easy Con forked up big time. They could've become the big dog here.

No kidding. Especially had they stuck with their original date and guest list.

Perfect timing on the opposite side of the calendar from Christmas. Kids out of school, summer kicking off. Fit into a nice hole among the superhero movie releases: over a month after Endgame's release and a month before Spiderman: Far From Home.

With three weeks to go in mid-May, they didn't seem to have any huge cancellations yet among the announced guests (but I guess who knows?). Things were set up very well for BEC seven months ago -- or so it seemed.

 

[bonnjer]

WW NOLA has added three more background players from Outlander

...

In the run-up to the January 2019 WW con in New Orleans, they advertised heavily for their Outlander guests, including series author Diana Gabaldon. But now, when I look at reviews and news coverage of the 2019 event, the Outlander crew aren't mentioned at all. Did they pull out en masse before the con?

Ugh, this is not the update I wanted to hear. Looking more and more like I may just skip, which makes me sad.