WonderCon

The younger sibling of San Diego's infamous summertime Comic-Con, the Bay Area's own WonderCon gets the jump—by a few precious months—on Hollywood's moneyed summer movie season. Since WonderCon moved from Oakland to San Francisco, the studios have taken to sending out talent to represent their slates of genre movies at increasingly frenzied panel presentations. Though the show folk threaten to eclipse the comics, WonderCon touts itself as the first big comic convention of the year, with representatives of the comic publishers and big-name independent artists. Official booths dole out freebies, and memorabilia dealers ply their wares in a giant marketplace. All manner of creative panels on the state of comic affairs, movies, animation, science-fiction, and fantasy fill three days of fun. For more information or to purchase tickets, visit www.comic-con.org/.