Nemesis Presents WonderCon 2019

WonderCon is over and I’m sore and can barely walk.Â However, fandom takes a backseat to no one, so I’m here to share with you my experiences over the weekend.Â I’m David ‘Nemesis’ Howard and this is ‘Nemesis Presents WonderCon 2019’.

Although it was the week of spring break here in Southern California, WonderCon started a little slow on Friday morning.Â After fighting traffic from my SoCal home, I met up with Klepcx, @WeRusKlep, ofÂ Critix and we started our journey.Â Comic Crusaders and Critix partnered together for this event and I had a great time laughing, learning and lounging with my new found friend.Â If you want to check out the interviews we did I encourage you to head over to his site, they are amazing.

We managed to sneak into Hall A early and while wandering the area I ran into Neal Adams.Â We rushed to get the video equipment up and I sat down to talk to the legendary artist himself.Â Immediately, he downplayed his legendary status with a self deprecating laugh and said he was well traveled at best.Â We chuckled and I gave him my standard interview line, “So what are you working on?”Â I immediately knew this was going to be a different kind of interview when Neal, without missing a beat, looked at me and said flat faced “Aren’t you supposed to know that?”Â He then laughed and talked about his upcoming projects while chiding me for reading Justice League Odyssey and not Batman Odyssey, his book.Â I had a great time talking to him and when we were finished we discovered, to our dismay, that the video had not recorded.Â People were starting to enter the hall and so interview time was limited but Neal gave me one more gem as he clapped me on the back and with a twinkle in his eye said “You fucked up son, happens to the best of us.”

We then wandered some more and I had a brief encounter with a life-size statue of The Hulk before taking in the 1989 Batmobile and The Green Hornet’s sleek 1956 Chrysler Black Beauty.Â It was then time to make ourÂ Â Â way to the North Hall and our first press event of the weekend, an interview session with the stars of Marvel’s Cloak and Dagger.Â We had a limited amount of time but got some great interviews with Olivia Holt, Aubrey Joseph and Emma Lahana.Â The interviews segued nicely into the Cloak and Dagger panel where we were able to see the first episode of the new season.Â I can’t give anything anyway but I am willing to bet that you will enjoy it and the introduction of Mayhem into the series is guaranteed to leave bodies on the floor as she provides a challenge for the titular heroes.

Friday also saw us interviewing the fine people of Legion M, the world’s first fan-owned entertainment company.Â After talking to them in person we also attended their panel where they spotlighted some of their recent projects as well as new ones that will come out soon.Â Those include Mandy, Jay and Silent Bob Reboot, The Girl With No Name, Captain Smalls, Tolkien and The Field Guide to Evil.Â With our official duties done for the day we wandered the convention and took video and pictures of the cosplay before heading home tired but happy, looking forward to Saturday.

Saturday was a little later start and we wandered the various vendors and comic book sellers looking for good buys or comics we had to have.Â I found runs of Thor and Moon Knight I had been looking for for quite some time and also found a Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur #1 for my daughter.Â Then, out of nowhere, I found a pristine copy of The New Teen Titans Vol 1 #26 (The first appearance of Terra) by Marv Wolfman and George Perez.Â I had talked about this book on The C.A.P.E.S with Shawn Warner (@shawnwarner629) and The 13th Crusader (@13thcrusader) just a few weeks earlier and there it was right in front of me.Â I had to have it and I was flabbergasted when the seller sold it to me for 3 dollars.Â I couldn’t buy it fast enough.

Our browsing done, we went back to the North Hall and prepared to interview the stars of YouTube Red’s Cobra Kai.Â Meeting and talking to figures from my childhood like William Zabka (Johnny Lawrence) and Martin Kove (Frank Kreese) was surreal and their insights into the show and their characters was fascinating.

As that wrapped, it was time to make our way to the arena where we, and a few thousand others, were given the privilege of seeing the first episode of the new season of Marvel’s Agents of Shield.Â Jeph Loeb was hesitant to show it to us but relented as we sung ‘Happy Birthday’ to Clark Gregg.Â The show was outstanding and you will have a ton of questions after you see it.Â This new season promises to entertain and thrill.

Once again, that wrapped our official day and we took to the convention center floor again.Â There I had some great discussions with any number of fine folks at IDW, Zenescope, Boom! Studios and more.Â Hopefully you will hear more from them in the weeks and months to come on our family of websites.Â I also got a wonderful gift for my son from Alex Cormack of Rick and Morty and hopefully we’ll get to talk to him again soon.Â Thus Saturday ended.

Sunday was a relatively short day but we still put in the time for you, our readers.Â The day started with a press event with the stars of the Marvel Rising animated series on YouTube.Â Incredibly nice people who know their comics!Â I have to give a special thank you to Milana Vayntrub who voices Squirrel Girl.Â She sent my daughter, a huge Squirrel Girl fan, a special message which is sure to see her floating on cloud 9 for months to come.

That press session ended our official duties for the weekend and as I wandered the floor I made some more contacts while purchasing some amazing artwork.Â Once again, there are too many names to mention but here are some notables who I hope we can talk to at a later time.Â Donny Cates, Megan Hutchinson, Mike Miller and Leanne Huynh.

All in all, WonderCon 2019 was a tiring but amazing weekend.Â The whole experience proved to me that, no matter our differences, fandom in this thing we call geek culture is a weird and wonderful thing.Â It ties and, dare I say, binds us together (feel it flow through you padawan).Â It is a passion that is about love, empowerment, devotion and as the name of the convention states; wonderment!

Thanks everyone and stay geeky! NemesisÂ (p.s.Â there is a separate cosplay photo article coming soon!)

Author Profile

Nemesis

Nemesis is a poet, writer and author of the upcoming novel The Long Game. He is a writer of science fiction and supernatural thrillers. Besides novels and short stories he writes for UK based ASAP Comics developing new stories for Level 8 and OPSEC. Nem is a graduate of the United States Military Academy at West Point and tries to bring those experiences into his writing.

He lives and works out of his home in Riverside, California with his wife and three children. When not writing he enjoys reviewing comic books and graphic novels for ComicCrusaders.com and living the Southern California life with his family.