LA Comic Con 2021

LA Comic Con has always had a special place in my heart because the very first convention I ever attended was the 2013 event—although back then it was known as Stan Lee’s Comikaze. While I wasn’t there for LA Comic Con/Comikaze at the very beginning, I was at least there in the early days and I have to say it’s an amazing feeling being able to say that I was able to see it evolve firsthand over the years. Not just going from Stan Lee’s Comikaze to LA Comic Con, but also just seeing it grow bigger and better over the years.

With that being said I have to unfortunately say that the 2021 iteration of LA Comic Con was pretty weak. The quality of the ‘con just seemed a bit poor. I don’t blame the organizers for how it turned out, I know they tried to make it as great as possible, but considering all that’s going on, they were just fighting an uphill battle that just seemed too much for them. One: COVID is still a thing and with all the hoops the CDC is making people jump through made a lot of people reluctant to attend. Two: And I doubt this was on purpose and was just a really bad coincidence but LA Comic Con was held on the same weekend as Emerald City Comic Con so a lot of con-goers and vendors had to decide where they wanted to go and I guess a lot of them decided that they’d rather go to ECCC instead.

Another issue with LA Comic Con 2021, and this was something I heard about from a friend after the con, and honestly it affected vendors more than con-goers, but supposedly it was a bit of a free-for-all when it came to booths. I guess with so many vendors having pulled out this year and also with the organizers being forced to use both halls of the LA Convention Center to ensure that there would be adequate spacing so people could maintain social distancing some vendors thought they could take over other booth spaces without paying for them, and in some cases the booth spaces they were taking weren’t vacant.

I’m a bit bummed at how the 2021 iteration of LA Comic Con turned out. Between having to sit at home for almost two years due to the pandemic shutting down a lot of events and also with the last major convention I went to being San Diego Comic Con where I accumulated so much content that I needed to figure out the best way to release it, I really thought I had figured out a decent content strategy when it came to releasing my coverage from conventions—but like I said with so many vendors having pulled out and with so few noteworthy attractions and activations I wasn’t really able to find enough content to fulfill my strategy—I mean I was still able to find enough content to squeeze a few posts out of, but it’s not as much as I hoped it would be. On the flip side, you could probably say part of that was my fault for not looking hard enough for content. I’m sure if I looked hard enough I could have found something noteworthy to mention or at least, relaxed my standards a little, but in the back of my mind I keep telling myself that I need to show that my blog has grown over the years.

When I first started my blog and was doing writeups on my trips to conventions I was taking pictures of anything and everything that caught my interest. In my mind I thought I was being thorough, but in reality all I was doing was showing what an amateur I was when it came to blogging. The entire idea was to find cool and interesting stuff to get pictures of and I’m getting pictures of random crap no name vendors were putting out. Looking back that was a dumb move on my end. One because it meant more pictures to go through, and two, because I was so adamant of putting up as much content as possible, I was throwing up a lot of dumb stuff that was just turning people away from my site.

Anyway, this post might seem a little light compared to past convention coverage, but don’t worry, it’s just an overall look at the convention. I was still able to pull out a few extra stories from it.

Walking into the exhibition hall the first thing that I’m sure caught many peoples’ eyes was Sideshow Collectibles’ booth. Sideshow has been a pretty consistent vendor at conventions I’ve been to not just here in California but also in some of the ones I’ve been to out of state. I’m sure congoers who recognize them will be glad that they chose LACC over ECCC that weekend, although considering how much stuff they bring out with them to conventions I won’t be surprised if they decided to split up their displays and go to both conventions. Despite having a pretty small activation/display compared to what I’ve seen them bring out in the past, they still had a lot of stuff, in fact so much stuff that I thought it might be best if I gave it a standalone post so stand tuned for that.

Legion M was on site with their Cadillac. I’m a bit surprised this is the backdrop they brought out rather than one promoting whatever current project they had in the works. Although considering how Legion M is basically just an entertainment-based crowdsourcing platform. I guess they didn’t have the money in the budget to get something printed they were only going to use once.

This is Bubbles and she is the mascot of Tworgis, a vendor who sells corgi-themed bags, wallets, belts and other accessories.

Sideshow Collectibles wasn’t the only company that had a significant presence at the con. Cryptozoic was on site with a fairly decent display of their stuff.

Some cute little monsters from the Cryptkins Unleashed line.

Here are some Batman Returns Catwoman figures and a Gal Gadot Wonder Woman. I looked up on their website and supposedly that Jamie Fraser figure is like some super limited release figure that’s only limited to 3000 pieces.

Some Queen Mera’s and a Wonder Woman from their movie collectibles line.. Seeing these, it’s pretty obvious the style Cryptozoic was going for was like some Betty Page-esque pinup x Paul Dini mashup. Personally I’m not a big fan of this style because it just makes them look really deformed.

A few more from the Cryptkins Unleashed line. I’m really digging that Ogopogo on the right. I’m a bit curious why they brought that particular piece out to LACC if it is an Emerald City Comic Con exclusive. I guess the plan was to generate interest in it in case they had some leftover.

Some pieces from the DC Lil Bombshells Series 2. Maybe it’s because I’ve seen so many companies do this or maybe it’s because I think they’re a bit disturbing but I really feel the whole juvenile/dwarf styling of characters is really played out.

LA Comic Con had this giant inflatable Godzilla and Grogu/Baby Yoda on site to promote the at the time upcoming Anime Pasadena convention which was supposed to be held the following week. The Godzilla I can understand using to promote an anime convention since Godzilla is Japanese but I don’t’ get Grogu. I

These very realistic Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle statues were next to the Anime Pasadena area. I’m pretty sure I’ve seen these things before at Long Beach Comic Con.

There was quite a bit of space on the floor devoted to displaying some movie tribute/replica cars. Honestly, these cars were more tribute than replica so I almost just passed on this whole section because I thought it wasn’t worth taking a look at. I did end up taking a picture of this Herbie VW Bug because it was 1 of the only 1s that looked even remotely right.

Another somewhat accurate replica/tribute car is this Toyota AE86 Trueno done up to look like the one driven by Takumi Fujiwara in Initial D.

A DUM-series pit droid built by I assume the same guys from the R2-D2 Builders Club. I remember these things first appeared in Episode I: Phantom Menace before resurfacing in The Mandalorian 20 years later.

Some Funko Pop-inspired artwork on the LA Convention Center’s staircase.

Speaking of the R2-D2 Builders Club here’s an R2 and R5 droid that some of the members were walking the exhibition hall with.

Found this guy walking around dressed as Spider-Man.

I’ll end the same way I’ve ended all my LA Comic Con posts and that’s with a parting shot of the farewell banner they had hanging in the atrium.

Sorry for how brief this post turned out. Like I said in the beginning there just wasn’t that much noteworthy stuff to get pictures on or report on. Stay tuned though I still have a write up on what Sideshow Collectibles brought out with them as well as my cosplayers pictures.

Also WonderCon is coming up, with things opening up and gradually returning to something that at least resembles a pre-pandemic state hopefully that convention will have some more stuff I can report on.