FAN EXPO Chicago 2023

FAN EXPO Chicago absorbed the show that was previously known as Chicago Comic Con, produced by Wizard World (also known as Wizard World Chicago).

Last year was the first year of FAN EXPO handling this show, which did bring with it some growing pains. It wasn’t FAN EXPO’s first year doing shows like this—they’ve been doing shows like this for years in Canada and elsewhere in the US—but their first time in this market and this space meant there would be issues. Heck, Wizard World had the market and space for years and still had issues.

I didn’t expect last year to be flawless (or as flawless as a show can be), and I don’t expect it this year. Last year, I heard a lot of talk about things changing this year, since they saw (what they felt) did and didn’t work. And I have reason to believe that it wasn’t just talk. But, with changes like that, there can be the same hiccups and growing pains, as it is the first time those things are being tested.

The only real way to know what works in an event like this is trial and error, and I’m looking forward to watching them settle into their new home and figure out the best way to move forward over the next few years.

It’s not like Wizard World didn’t make some…ahem…interesting…choices over the years. In fact, my favorite story about the show illustrates that point perfectly.

Settle in—it’s a long one.

The first year I attended the Wizard World Chicago show, I was credentialed as media as a member of my high school newspaper. It was August 2010. I had done C2E2, my first comic convention, that spring, and I believe I had covered the Courts’ Hollywood Show (not to be confused with the current Hollywood Show) the prior year.

So while it wasn’t my first convention, comic book or otherwise, I still didn’t quite know what to expect going in. But I do know that I didn’t expect what ended up happening. I don’t know that anyone did.

As you may or may not remember (it’s somehow so long ago that children born that day are starting 7th or 8th grade this year this year, meaning that, in about 5 or 6 years, they’ll be as old as I was at the time it happened), August of 2010 was pretty much immediately after Rod Blagojevich’s first corruption trial, which resulted in a conviction on 1 count and a hung jury (and, therefore, mistrial on the others).

A day or 2 before I was due to attend the convention, I’d told my journalism teacher that I wanted to try to do a piece on Blago (as he was known), but with original reporting.

Students on that paper had a habit of paraphrasing wire services and local media (much like how the “h/t” media blogs operate), rather than actually getting their own stories. I hated it. I still hate it. If a piece is worth writing and publishing, it’s worth researching beyond just reading other people’s work and paraphrasing it.

I wanted to hit the pavement. In those days, I had more of a more of a “Woodward/Bernstein” vibe, rather than the “entertainment reporter” role that I eventually settled into, and there was no bigger story in Chicagoland at the time than Rod Blagojevich. And I wanted in.

My journalism teacher responded with something along the lines of “Going to get an exclusive with ]Blagojevich’s wife] Patti?”, and I answered that, no, I wanted the man himself.

She gently suggested that I set my sights a bit lower to avoid disappointment.

I returned home from school that day to find an email from the convention I was going to be attending in a couple days’ time: Rod Blagojevich was going to be a guest, signing autographs and copies of his book on Saturday.

That may not sound that weird today, when the convention circuit is a lot bigger than it was in those days… Actually, no. It was weird then, and it’s still weird today.

The average show, especially Wizard World in those days, was a lot of WWE wrestlers from the 80s and 90s, as well as reality show contestants and the type of folks that Tom Wilson (a guest this year) sings about in this song, which I believe I’ve referenced before.

While that list has now expanded to include names like Michael J. Fox or Kiefer Sutherland or Dermot Mulroney (all guests at this year’s FAN EXPO Chicago), there’s still a common thread that’s noticeably absent from a former state governor fresh off his federal corruption trial (and gearing up for a second round of the same).

Weird then. Still really weird today. But really weird then.

Of course, that weirdness didn’t stop me from seeing my opportunity to get the story I was literally just talking about not even an hour before, and I immediately contacted the show’s PR/Media contact to request an interview with Blago…and received a reply shortly after that Blago wasn’t doing interviews.

When the day came, though, it turned out that nobody had told Blagojevich that.

There’s an old joke, often about politicians, that the most dangerous place in the world to stand is between [name] and a camera. The implication being, for those who don’t get it, that the named individual is so publicity starved that they’ll run you down just get in front of that camera lens and have it focused on them.

Anyone who paid attention knows that described Rod Blagojevich.

Even before, during, after (which was also before), during, and after his 2 corruption trials, when most lawyers would be screaming at their client to shut up, you didn’t want to get between him and a camera or a microphone.

“No interviews” was never going to happen. I think we all expected that. What we didn’t expect was a press conference, around a replica of the 1960’s TV Batmobile.

You can find pictures and videos of it online, if you don’t believe me. In fact, you might even see me in some of them, as I was quite prominently positioned. The cameras for the nationally televised Fox News Sunday got some of their footage by shooting through my glasses. (If you do find those old shots and are curious, it’s just as blurry to me, even though it’s my prescription.)

After the Batmobile press conference that I somehow ended up front and center in, Blagojevich went back to his table, where he was to sign autographs for $50 each.

If you look at this year’s pricing, you’d probably think “Yeah, $50 seems about right”.

In 2010, most of the floor was, again, not the caliber that it is today. And the general pricing was in the $20-$30 range.

The joke (which may not have been much of a joke at all) was that he had to raise money to pay the legal fees for his 2 trials.

But, again, apparently nobody told Blago, because I think he signed way more free autographs than paid ones. Actually, I don’t just think that; I know it. I saw it with my own eyes.

And then he left for lunch and that was that.

At the show last year, I spoke to an acquaintance that I first met that day. He’d been doing these for quite a while, but told me that day, with Blago, was probably his favorite memory of these shows.

If I’m being honest, that probably goes for me, too.

I don’t know what Wizard was thinking that year.

I also don’t know the ins and outs of what this year, next year, or any year after that will hold for this show.

But I do know that even if something looks like a misstep—even if something is a misstep—sometimes those can become the fondest memories.

And aren’t the memories what experiences like this are all about?