Tag: Comic Con

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Not that I saw anyone dressed as Thor, but it seemed an appropriate description for a Thursday at Comic-Con.

[Picture of Carmine Infantino]No earth-shattering news so far, but then it was only a Thursday. Katie went to the voice acting panel and the Animaniacs panel (mostly in connection with next week’s DVD release. I went to the Carmine Infantino retrospective. Other than that, we both roamed the floor.

Be sure to check out the back of the Snakes on a Plane booth. There’s a wonderful flight safety card on “what to do in the event of snakes on a plane.”

When I was in high school, I remember there being tons of comic book retailers. They aren’t gone, but there are a lot fewer, and listening to people at the booths, they have the same feeling: not only is the percentage of the con focused on comics shrinking, the number of comic sellers is shrinking too. I managed to pick up a couple of leads on my back-issue hunt. I also sold a couple of random Golden Age and Silver Age books I had picked up, freeing up some space in my backpack (though there’s plenty of stuff left that I didn’t bring).

I spoke with Phil Foglio briefly, and got him to autograph the remaining three Girl Genius volumes (amazingly, volume 5 showed up the the mail the day before we left) and got a photo of Sergio Aragonés holding up a little Groo statuette.

[Picture of Kelson with magician Misty Lee]At one point I started to take a picture of a woman in what I thought was a good Zatanna-style costume (though it evoked the look rather than copying the look). As I was setting up the shot, I realized that it was magician Misty Lee. I told her I’d seen her show in Burbank a few months ago, and she insisted on posing for a second photo with me in the shot. The guy who took the photo? Paul Dini. We talked for a few minutes (“You weren’t there on Saturday, were you?” “Uh, I don’t think so…”)

We ended up leaving around 6:00, went back to our hotel, showered, changed, and went out to dinner at the Indigo Grill (which we had walked past on our way to and from the con two years ago). It turned out to be very good. Highly recommended.

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We made it to San Diego around 1:00. After spending an afternoon in Old Town, and a self-guided tour of the Whaley House (which we missed last year), we dropped by the convention center to pick up our badges for Comic Con.

It was around 8:00, and it was Preview Night (only open to guests and pre-registered attendees), so there was basically no line. Only one problem: no one seemed to be willing to give us our badges!

We walked up to the first open window at the line of pre-reg booths. “Hi, we’re here to check in. Last name…” “Try those two guys over there.” “Oh, OK.”

So we walked across the way to the two guys she seemed to be pointing at. “Hi, we’re pre-reg, we’re here to pick up our…” “Try over there,” they said, pointing to a booth further along in the original line of booths.

So we walked across to that window. “Hi, is this where we actually pick up badges, because we were over there, and they directed us over there, and they directed us over here…”

It was, so I handed him the bits of paper from when we signed up, a whole year ago at last year’s con. I gave him my name, he didn’t seem to be able to find it, I gave him Katie’s name, he couldn’t find that, and eventually I had to dig out the receipt (which I had just ripped off of the sign-up sheets, since we usually have to go to separate windows), show him that yes, we paid, and somehow he was able to dig up our registration info, because the badges had the right city any everything.

So we got in, checked out the floor, and I got a few leads on Golden Age Flash books (though again, people seem to be bringing mostly the good-quality expensive copies), and we left when the hall closed at 9:00. Along with everyone else on the planet, as far as we could tell. It wasn’t nearly as crowded as any day last year, but it was more than either of us expected.

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The Beat remarks that maybe Padres games during Comic-con WASN’T such a hot idea. [archive.org]

The Beat asked [the cab driver taking them to the airport] how traffic had been during the Comic-con/Padres game confluence.

“Oh, that was a fiasco,” she told us.

Having had to skip several trolleys that were indistinguishable from large moving sardine cans, I have to agree. On the other hand, the fireworks display over Petco Park on Saturday night was breathtaking!

Edit: The trolley system is working on untangling the mess for next time:

It was the first time the agency was called upon to overlay its special-event service, which runs between Qualcomm Stadium and the Gaslamp Quarter, with the new Green Line between Santee and Old Town.

Besides a steady stream of passengers at the San Diego Convention Center on what is traditionally the busiest day of the annual comics convention, trolleys carried 8,000 to 9,000 Padres fans. Some fans said they waited far longer than usual for the special-events trains, which normally provide speedier passage to and from the ballpark by bypassing downtown.

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Ah, Comic Con! The show doesn’t seem much bigger than last year (and they’ve already filled the convention center floor), but there are more people. Last year, Friday was quite comfortable, but this year it was more crowded than I remember.

Let’s see… News from panels so far. Serenity and Mirrormask are apparently opening the same weekend (September 30), so I’ll be spending an entire day at the movies. Sergio Aragones and Mark Evanier are working on a script for a CGI Groo the Wanderer film. They apparently held out for years for a deal that gave them enough creative control to satisfy them. And early next year they expect to release the 4-part comic book, Groo vs. Conan.

The Jim Henson Co. 50th anniversary panel was great fun. In addition to seeing some early experimental muppetry, we learned that they will be producing a sequel to The Dark Crystal that takes place several hundred years later, and a prequel anime series.

Katie went to the big Warner Bros. movie panel, featuring Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, V For Vendetta, The Fountain (from Darren Arenofsky), and The Corpse Bride, all of which look promising.

And if you have a chance while in San Diego, don’t miss Fellowship!, a musical parody of The Fellowship of the Ring. With the exception of one running gag that got old very fast, it was a great send-up of the movie (and it was also fun looking for tropes and in-jokes from musicals).

This year is absolutely crawling with Jedi costumes. So many that we didn’t bother to take pictures, except for one Anakin & Obi-Wan pair where the former actually looked like Anakin. There’s also a booth selling high-quality light sabres with removable, light-up blades that are sturdy enough you can duel with them. The cheap ones run for $120.