The Amazing Arizona Comic Con 2015 Recap

Last year I kind of wrote a love letter as a recap of Amazing Arizona 2014. That would have been more appropriate for this year as the convention fell on Valentines Day weekend and for many, it was a love fest between the attendees and the con. This was a special show of sorts for Amazing Comic Con as this was the 5 year anniversary of the show and how do you celebrate a 5 year anniversary? You give the fans a fantastic line up of guests!

Let’s start with what I referred to as “autograph alley” because the lines at time were long and jam packed. Kevin Eastman, creator of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles had a constant line that stretched more than half the exhibition hall and signed for every single person who waited and waited to meet the creator.

George Peréz also never had a lull in the action and he didn’t have a panel to break up his day either, just constant signatures and sketches. Greg Capullo, Rob Liefeld, Herb Trimpe, Adam Kubert, and Mat Nastos all had constant fans at their tables. The fans were hungry to meet some of their favorite creators and Amazing Comic Con gave them that chance.

Amazing featured a handful of media guests such as the Sailor Moon voice actors, various Power Ranger actors and cosplayers Chloe Dykstra and Jessica Merizan. All had panels and spent the entire weekend interacting with fans. Even the show has grown, it is still really easy to spend a few minutes with a guest chatting it up.

If I had one critique of the show it would be to expand and diversify the programming selection. That being said, I attended a handful of panels through out the weekend and enjoyed almost all of them. The set up for the convention was changed some this year. The large panel room from last year was opened up and became part of the exhibit floor and the gaming area occupied that space. A portion of the panel rooms that were used last year were closed off and the biggest change was the main theater room was right on the exhibit floor. They curtained it off and had less lighting on that side so the theater screen wasn’t hard to see. I came to enjoy the main room being on the floor because you were still right in the middle of things but it was never too loud that you couldn’t the guest speaking or you couldn’t really hear the panel when you were on the exhibit floor.

I’m not going to recap the panels I attended because that could get really lengthy and honestly a bit boring for an article BUT I did live tweet the highlights of each panel I attended so my tweets are available on my Twitter time line to read. I’ll also be posting links to a few videos I took in the coming days.

At one point on Friday, I wondered if it had finally become popular enough to move the convention over to the north building but that is a HUGE space and I’m sure very costly. Besides two or three intersections that were always packed, it was still easy enough to navigate the crowds.

You know what I really love about this con though? The never ending desire to put on a good show for the fans. I’ve never ever seen a con creator walk the floor as much as Jimmy Jay, constantly checking on his guests, talking to the fans, and just making sure everyone is having a good time. It’s no wonder why certain guests like Liefeld and Mat Nastos will only come to Phoenix for Amazing Arizona and not the other big con here in town, they treat guests like guests.

Happy guests = better interaction for fans