Wizard World have yet again postponed (aka cancelled) their Los Angeles comic con show. This isn’t the first time it has happened and it took Wizard a few years before they even returned the show to California in Anaheim instead of L.A. Alas, many have already bought their tickets and even worse, some have said they’ve paid for non-refundable hotel rooms. Ugh!

For one, I do hate to see a comic convention get canned at any level… even though there is going to be other local conventions that will fill the void. The most unfortunate part is that they’ve decided to cancel at the last minute. I can’t imagine how many peoples’ plans got fucked up over it.

Alas, what can we do at a time like this?

Fortunately for all of us SoCal residents, our geek ally, Comikaze Expo have stepped up to the plate. Last night, they’ve announced on twitter and facebook that attendees can redeem their Wizard World LA ticket for a $5 admission ticket to Comikaze in November. Pretty sweet deal, right? Not only do you get your WWLA ticket refunded (I hope) but you get a giant discount to attend a different show.

Below is Comikaze’s official statement from their blog.

One of my favorite convention is Wizard World Los Angeles, and I’ve had much fantastic memories of the convention from all the years I attended. This year was full of good memories and fun, but I must admit, it wasn’t the best Wizard World I attended. The convention moved from the Long Beach Convention Center to the Los Angeles Convention Center. Although, the L.A. center is a nice one, it’s location in the downtown area is pretty inconvenient and less inaccessible. Plus, $15-30 for parking?… I don’t think so. I took the metro train up, thanks.

I didn’t attend the first day of the convention, but I was told by many that it was pretty much dead. Saturday had a nice turn-out, but it was still missing the energy it had when it was in Long Beach and the first two years that I attended. I can’t attest what WWLA2006 was like because I missed that since I was studying abroad.

Many of the more familiar artists I got used to having in Wizard World were missing, and so were a lot of the more celebrity figures of the geek world (i.e. neither Stan Lee or Kevin Smith showed up this time. Not to say that the convention was lacking in big names! I did get to take my photo with James Kyson Lee who plays Ando in Heroes. Still, the presence of Heroes stars didn’t up the energy of the convention at all. It was extremely mellow and strangely quiet for the most part.

Still, I got to hang out with one of my favorite artist, David Mack (Kabuki, Daredevil), and his girlfriend, Mandy Amano (model and actress). They’re always good with putting up with me– since there were less people for me to bother this time, they had to deal with me 90% of the time! I got to meet people like Stuart Sayger (Shiver in the Dark) and other many talented artists. I hope that this year has not turned them off from attending the convention in the future. I definetely plan on attending again, and hope that it improves next time. I do believe they should move it back to Long Beach, though!

To see more photos, visit the gallery.