It’s the 4th of July! A day to relax, cook up some burgers on the grill and to celebrate our country with explosives. This week’s images have that nice cook out feeling to them. I shot them at my own family’s cook out for father’s day. In the top image is my grandfather who was nice enough to have his picture taken. In the lower half we have the grill.

Over the weekend was the Wizard World Chicago 2008 comic book convention. I decided to bring the camera along and take of photos of all the people who dress up for the show. There were a lot of great costumes so I’m going to need to break this up into several posts throughout the week.

Part 3 is here! This final part will cover movie characters, mainly Star Wars.

Darth Maul	Jango Fett
3-CPO	Obi-Wan
Violet Parr and Syndrome	Werewolf made my Miss Monster

Leia, Anakin, and Two-Face

Over the weekend was the Wizard World Chicago 2008 comic book convention. I decided to bring the camera along and take of photos of all the people who dress up for the show. There were a lot of great costumes so I’m going to need to break this up into several posts throughout the week.

Welcome to part 2! This entry will feature the people who dressed up as TV characters

Doctor Who	Doctor Who and Rose
Captain Malcolm Reynolds (Serenity)	Zoe and Inara (Serenity)
Green Hornet and Kato	Carmen Sandiego

Over the weekend was the Wizard World Chicago 2008 comic book convention. I decided to bring the camera along and take of photos of all the people who dress up for the show. There were a lot of great costumes so I’m going to need to break this up into several posts throughout the week.

Since this was a comic book convention I’ll start off by showing some of the comic themed costumes.

Spiral	Marvel villain Mojo
Rogue and Professor X	Mr. Sinister
Catwoman and Mary Marvel	Joker and Rogue
Thor	Superman
Colossus	Nightcrawler

X-Men : Wolverine, Storm, unknown, X-23, and a Raccoon City Cop

This past weekend one of the largest comic book conventions in the country took place in Chicago. I’ve attended the Wizard World Chicago convention for the last 9 years. 5 of those years I was attending as a fan and the other 4 I was attending as an exhibitor selling my comic book and photography. Most of my family and friends know I go to this show, but they don’t really know what goes on over the weekend. This past show I decided to take my camera with and take some images to help give an idea of what the Wizard World convention is like.

I’m going to start at the beginning. Here is an image of what you would see when first entering the show.

All of the big comic books companies (Marvel, DC, Image, etc.) set up booths right at the front doors to promote any upcoming movies, large comic events, and hold signings by some of the most popular artists and writers who work on their books. Farther in the distance are smaller booths for independent comic book publishers and an autograph area with minor celebs like Lou Ferrigno, Johnny Fairplay and any number of former pro wrestler and/or star wars actors.

The next major area at the convention are the vendors. Half the show floor is dominated by a variety of booths selling comic books, movie posters, toys, swords, knives, bootleg movies, patches, collectibles, t-shirts and much much more. The show tends to not focus on comic books, and covers pop culture, science-fiction, and cult tv/movies.

Fans looking through boxes of comics.

Variety of t-shirts on display.

Pez at one of the collectible booths.

The last section on the main floor is Artist Alley. This is where a variety of professional and aspiring artists come to sell their art, comic books, prints, and to do commissions and sketches. Personally this is my favorite area of the show. There is wealth of talent here, and a great opportunity to chit chat with the artists and find new things.

By now you’ve walked around for a couple hours. Hunger is setting in. There are several places around the show to buy over priced, poorly cooked food that’s been sitting out under the heat lamp too long. Best to bring your own food.

Ok, I’m bringing up the food just to show that photo of storm troopers eating. We thought it was amusing. At any show you can pretty much expect to see a small army of storm troopers walking the floor.

Along with the storm troopers there are lots of people in costume. Just an other reason I love to go to this show. I’ve gone in costume several times in the past. It’s a blast. Although it’s a bit difficult to get around the show if you have a really cool outfit because people will stop and take your photo every 20 feet. There are a lot of people dressed up this year. I took a ton of photos of people I saw in costume this year, and I’ll be putting those up in the next few parts.

After all of this we have more show! In an other section of the convention center there are a lectures, discussion groups, and movies held in a series of ballrooms. I didn’t take any photos of these, I don’t normally head to this area of the show. Outside the ballrooms is a signing area. this is where they hold signing for some of the top names in the comics business. The line of people waiting to get a signature from painter Alex Ross is below.

I missed the last couple Fridays, and I’m entering this one in the 11th hour just to insure that it is actually a Photo Friday. Today I was out at the Chicago Wizard World. Was my first time I wasn’t an exhibitor in 4 years. It was a nice change of pace to really take the time to walk around and see everything that was there. But massively harder on the feet. I’ll have more on that and some photos from the show next week.

This week have a double dose of photos to make for my lack in recent weeks. I’ve been meaning to shoot this series since I moved into my current building, but I was never sure on how since it’s rather dark the basement storage areas of the complex. But here is my buddy Noah as Chase Jenkins, the adventurer I just made up, in his search through the darkness.

USA Network has a new show, In Plain Sight. It’s a pretty good show. It’s only had one episode, but there seems to be a lot potential. One big reason I started watching the show is because of Paul Ben-Victor. Paul was the star of one of my favorite shows, The Invisible Man, So I’m glad to see him get some more work.

One of the things I was wondering after the first episode is “How long till they get Paul’s Invisible Man co-star as a guest star on the show?” The answer - the second episode. Vincent Ventressa makes an appearance right away on the show, and it’s aways great to see the two of them on the same show. Although the two actors don’t really share a scene.

More Invisible Man stuff with In Plain Sight, here is Paul Ben-Victor’s thoughts on his new TV Role:

Every character’s different and they’re also very similar in many ways. A while ago, I did a show called The Invisible Man on the Sci-Fi Channel, and a friend of mine said this now is like Bobby Hobbes older brother. It’s kind of like Bobby Hobbes has grown up a little bit, been given a raise, and now he’s working at another out-of-the-way, off-the-wall, obscure office in the middle of nowhere. It relates to that character I think a little bit. And the writing is terrific. It’s definitely something that suits me, I think. I’m looking forward to doing more of it.

Question- Can you tell us more about what you meant about Stan being Bobby Hobbes older brother?

Paul- Alright. You’ll have to see for yourself, but it rings true a little bit of Bobby Hobbes, a little bit of he’s not completely grounded all the time. But he’s definitely a good cop, he’s a good marshal, he’s a good boss.

To read more of the interview click here

To watch In Plain Sight online, click here

An older image this week. I brought this one back from the depths because it is a common favorite, inspite of it not being in my current gallery. I’ve always liked this fairy tale. It has a lot of fun that does along with it. Also Disney is working on a new hand drawn cartoon for this fairy tale. It will feature Disney’s first black princess.

Tonight (5/30) there is a fashion show at Shark City located at the intersection of Army Trail Road and Bloomingdale Road in Glendale Heights, IL. The Fashion and Rock Show is a benefit runway show, featuring several bands. Everyone involved works on a volunteer basis, donating their time and efforts all to charity. This year all the money raised goes to support PAWS Chicago. The show starts at 6. If you can come out to the show, and help support a good cause.

A couple weeks back I took some photos of a couple of the participants modeling the clothing of a show designer, Erika Hendrix. Images of the 3 models who I shot with are below.

First off before I go into all things Venture Bros., I need make mention that I missed the last Photo Friday. I was working on some projects and just never got around to it. A double Photo Friday will be up this Friday.

And now, On to the Venture Bros!

This upcoming weekend, June 1st, will be the start of the 3rd season of the Venture Bros. It’s currently one of my favorite shows on right now. It’s a ongoing and complex parody of Johnny Quest mixed in with general superhero and cartoon fun. An added bonus for me is that lot of people involved with The Tick work on the show including Tick creator Ben Edlund, The Tick actor himself Patrick Warburton.

As a special promotion the show will be selling weekly T-shirts. Every week a T-shirt will be available online that specifically coincides with that week’s episode. Seems like a fun idea for me. For more information on that, click the link below.