The 2013 Wizard World Chicago Comic Con ran from Thursday, August 8 through Sunday, August 11. This year's Comic Con was tremendous and thousands of fans turned out once again to meet their favorite actors, actresses, wrestlers, legends and celebrities. My experience at this year's convention was just as good as last year when I met the likes of John Cena and CM Punk among other wrestlers that attended the event. This year I went to meet WWE Superstars, Dolph Ziggler, AJ Lee, Ricky "The Dragon" Steamboat and The Shield which consists of Dean Ambrose, Seth Rollins and Roman Reigns. I also met NBA Hall of Famer Dennis "The Worm" Rodman who was a great guy to meet as well as Franky G who played Xavier in Saw II and Norman Reedus who plays Daryl Dixon in the wildly popular TV show, "The Walking Dead." I went both Saturday and Sunday, of course the two busiest days I'm sure, and for the first time I got the VIP passes which cost a good chunk of change, but was well worth it. My girlfriend and myself got to skip all of the general admission folks and get in front of the line for entry along with the autograph lines and photo opportunity lines for the people we met and had a VIP for. I had a VIP ticket for the Shield and my girlfriend had one for Dolph Ziggler and we got in and out of each line quickly due to the VIP badges we had.
The convention was on both the upper and lower levels of the Donald E. Stephens Convention Center in Rosemont, Ill., whereas last year it was just on the lower level. The upper level had all booths where you can purchase your favorite comic books along with other memorabilia. The lower level is where all of the artists were and the autographs and photo ops took place.
On the first day of the event for us is when we met The Shield, who I went there for, and Dennis Rodman. We waited in line for Rodman and at about 12:20 he showed up and began signing autographs for people. He got to me and shook my hand extremely hard, probably the strongest handshake I have ever received, and signed my ball and inscribed it Hall of Fame 2011 which I was thrilled about. After that, we walked around for a while and looked at all of the various vendors and all of the items that they were selling. I found a Saw II movie poster and was extremely excited because I am a huge fan of the Saw series. I know what you're thinking, Saw is disgusting and extremely grotesque, but I am a fan of movies with a good plot and that is exactly what Saw has, a great plot which I love. Back on track now, I purchased the movie poster because I knew there was a guy who played in that movie signing autographs at the convention for free. After searching for what felt like forever I found the booth where the guy was supposed to be and he had already left for the day which made me quite sad, but I did not let it get to me because I knew he would be back the next day. We then went and got in the photo op line for The Shield and let me tell you those guys are huge! They all wore their ring gear and brought all of their championships (tag titles and US Championship) which is always a plus. I am about 5'11" and those guys seemed to tower over me and my girlfriend felt extremely short because she is only about 5'3" and Rollins actually called her small which went right over my head because I was so happy to meet them. Following the photo op we went and got in their autograph line and got to skip all of the general admission people which made me feel a little special since I got to the front of the line. We had Reigns, Ambrose and Rollins each sign the photo that we took with them that day and we got to shake their hands which always adds to the experience as a fan. When you are a fan of something or someone it is always special to meet them and shake hands and get a photo or autograph from them. I love getting autographs, because I can always say to someone that yeah I met that guy or I met that girl, it's great! Following a long day and fighting the crowds we decided to call it a day around 5 p.m. and head home just to do it all over again the next day.
On Sunday, we met everyone else that I previously mentioned. My girlfriend had the VIP for Ziggler and we were both excited for that one. I walked around and found the guy from Saw II that I tried to meet the day before and I told him how much I loved the movie and he signed my poster I bought the day before along with a poster he had on his table which was super cool. He took a picture with us and he was a genuinely nice guy and I was such a happy guy, because of how much I love the movie Saw. I walked around and found someone else selling posters and I found all of the other Saw movie posters that I did not have and I immediately had to have them for my collection. I got all of the posters hanging in my basement now which makes me feel great! Now I just have to get them all signed by the cast of the movies which will be quite difficult since there is so many. I did not realize that right across the street was another horror film convention that had two others from Saw (Danny Glover and Betsy Russell) who I would have loved to have met. Now that I know it's there, I will be attending that convention as well. Back to the convention, we purchased autograph tickets for both AJ Lee and Ricky Steamboat and then got in line for the Ziggler photo op and we were first in line! We got the photo with Ziggler and jumped in the line to get autographs. All of them (Steamboat, Ziggler and Lee) were all very nice and signed anything you wanted them to which is great. I love the WWE and meeting the superstars is always a memorable experience. Following all of this we wanted to get an autograph from Norman Reedus who plays Daryl Dixon on the super popular TV show "The Walking Dead." They had cut the line off, but a very helpful employee took our photo and had it signed for us by him and Reedus even personalized it to us which was amazing. This was the icing on the cake as both my girlfriend and myself love "The Walking Dead." This convention was great and yet another fantastic memory of mine. I cannot wait until next year and I already know the dates next year, August 21 - August 24. I can't wait to see who comes next year, thanks for reading and be sure to follow for more great stories!
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