Where's the CON?

So the last couple of nights I've been stopping over at my Mom's, still watching over her after her surgery. So stop whining over a lack of consecutive blogs here. 'Cause I know there's a cold emptiness inside of all of you when I miss a day or two. Well, ok, that only applies to the three of you who actually admit to visiting this blog (Janet, Carlo and Goof).

At this writting we are at about 20 minutes plus a week 'til the big showing! But more on that in a blog later on.

Here's somthing for me to gripe about for a bit. Why aren't there any real decent genre conventions (Con's) here in Milwaukee? After the big gaming convention (GenCon) left the city, there hasn't been any real big gaming, comic, sci-fi or horror based conventions run here in the city. That's not to say that there haven't been any gallant efforts. Students from MSOE throw Concinnity every spring for the last 5 or so years now. Though they sometimes get big name celebs (one per con)and their hearts are in the right place, it's frightfully small, slightly unorganized and has very little if any promotion. Then there's Game Fair which attempts to fill the void left by GenCon at the Midwest Express Center. However, it too is quite small and lacks any real meaty celebs.

I was checking out a website on the net today that was a promotion for a comic book convention in El Passo, Texas being held this Saturday and Sunday. They have boatloads of celebs and Q&A sessions and seminars! They have a whole slew of Star Wars celebs, from Peter Mayhew (Chewbacca) to Amy Allen (Jedi master Aleeya Secura). There are other cons around the nation that have a ton of features that make them sucesses! There's Chiller Theater Con in Baltimore, there's Horrorfind Weekend in New Jersey (I think it's in Jersey?), there's Origins in.... wherever Origins is held and there's DragonCon in Atlanta. Now, why is it so difficult for someone to bring these people to something in Milwaukee?

Now you may be saying to yourself, "Zangz, you shallow snot, celebrities alone do not make a great convention! It is the people coming together to share ideas and stories of their mutual interests and loves, not if Bruce Campbel is there signing a bunch of screwheads' stomachs!" You'd certainly have a point. But, I think the caliber and quantity of celebs at cons certainly play a major roll in bringing more and more people to cons, thus letting the cons slowly grow and grow in popularity and success. So when is Milwaukee going to finally get a con that has loads of celebs, seminars, games, dealers and fun? It deosn't have to be the size of GenCon, but something that we Milwaukee fans can bite our teeth into.

I'm hitting the hay. We'll talk more tomorrow about the plans for Ep. III

Zangz