Report on the 2022 WonderCon – Masks Required!

WonderCon was held Friday, April 1 through Sunday, April 3, 2022 at the Anaheim Convention Center. Below is a full report—click here to go straight to the photo gallery.

My wife and I had great fun visiting WonderCon at the Anaheim Convention Center on the third and last day of the show, Sunday, April 3! It was a nice change of pace to attend a comics convention as a regular attendee rather than be tied to a table as an exhibitor. I checked in with a bunch of friends and colleagues, including Christie Shinn, Rafael Navarro, Lonnie Millsap, and Bobby Breed, and also enjoyed meeting and introducing myself for the first time to people like Don Nguyen (who I discovered is a fellow UCLA alum!), Craig Miller and others.

A little sister to the San Diego Comic-Con (and run by the same folks), WonderCon has a different vibe from SDCC. While the San Diego show is a big umbrella for all things pop culture and feels like a big 24/7 party—partly thanks to the presence of big entertainment heavy hitters and IPs ranging from Warner Brothers (and DC), Marvel Studios (and Marvel Comics), Star Wars, the Walking Dead and more—WonderCon is generally more low key with a more “arts and crafts” feel (for want of a better term), with artists and vendors selling a variety of wares from original art, to prints, t-shirts, toys, cosplay costumes, as well as, of course, comics. All these, of course, can also be easily found at SDCC, but are a bit more subsumed by the bigger guns and nearly manic energy that dominate that show.

But if you’re more into comics, there's still plenty to be found at WonderCon (and San Diego) if you‘re so inclined!

And I took advantage of that—I spent most of my time leisurely walking through Artist’s Alley and the Small Press area, which were placed on opposite sides of the convention hall. Back in the day, I used to methodically walk up and down each aisles starting from one end of the hall to the other—as SDCC became more crowded (and way bigger), this became less feasible, with crowd congestion generally dictating which way I went. At WonderCon, however, I was able to take this approach to my heart’s content, checking out most of the exhibitors. (My wife cannily suggested we go off on our own to pursue our own passions and interests, and we would periodically check in with each other and of course met up for lunch.)

Unlike SDCC, the Anaheim Convention Center is sectioned off into adjoining but discreet halls; in contrast, the San Diego Convention Center can tuck away and collapse its hall dividers to create the illusion of one immense exhibition hall that has the more open and welcoming feel of housing everyone under one roof. I gathered from some conversations, however, that this layout somewhat had an impact on foot traffic and the number of people and sales in certain areas of the venue.That said, the open plaza entrance to the Anaheim venue helps relieve some of the crowd congestion in the convention center by naturally encouraging cosplayers and people to pose and offer photo ops outside—that still happens on the inside as well, but the outside area is a good place to eventually see all the cosplayers gathered in a central location.

Like I suspect many comics professionals, it’s often a challenge to read and keep up with comics these days while spending time producing them, so it was an enjoyable experience to stop and look at new stuff and particularly to talk shop with other creators and publishers. I actually even brought along old back issues of mine to hand out as freebies and use as “calling cards” as needed, and ended up giving them all away!

Of course, this also was the first WonderCon since 2019 due to the pandemic. I didn’t check the the health safety requirements for the show in advance, but we fortunately arrived prepared—as you may have seen in an earlier post which featured a selfie of my wife and me, masks were required and, of course, we always carry proof of vaccination on our mobile devices, which were duly checked when entering the convention center grounds. (I’d say about 90 percent of folks followed the mask policy.)

Since I was only there on the third day of the show, I can’t report whether there was a feeling of great release after several years of no comics conventions, but regardless everyone was happy to be there. (As I reported after the San Diego Comic-Con comeback “special edition” over last year’s Thanksgiving holiday, that show was noticeably less muted and low key, but it was a welcome way to ease back into the convention circuit following the COVID-19 lockdowns).

Below are additional photos from the show...click here to see the full gallery.