Wizard World: Chicago - Premiere Night

Thursday night's crowd was a little light and that was good. I was able to navigate the whole convention center very easily.

One of the most striking changes this year was the DC Comics area. Gone was the giant DC Bullet! And DC's area for some reason seemed smaller than the year before but that could just be because the big bullet was gone!

Doug Mahnke and Greg Rucka were DC's draws tonight and Doug drew a quick Captain Marvel sketch for me.

I'm loving those little Corgi Batmobiles and Corgi's booth had a nice display of the new ones coming up. I saw my buddy Sal Abbinanti over at the Alex Ross booth. What a great guy. If you're a comic book fan, you should really check out his ATOMIKA from Mercury Comics.

I got a chance to chat with Mike Carlin, executive editor of JLA and I'm hoping to catch Dan DiDio tomorrow.

I picked up a few things including a DC logo t-shirt and a copy of the GREATEST IMAGINARY STORIES EVER TOLD trade paperback that has a beautiful Brian Bolland Captain Marvel on the cover.

I got to chat with my neighbor Joe Sarno (a pioneeer of the Chicago Comic Book Club scene) and the infamous "Moondog"... and swell guy Gary Colabuono.

But most of all it was a time to see a lot of my old buddies that I've lost contact with including Frank Bonilla, Joe Soltas and Paul L. Hoffman.