What we found was a surprisingly big show, with a wide variety of exhibitors, though I’d hesitate to call it a “Comic-Con.” More of a general geek pop culture show. There were certainly comic book artists and dealers (a few of whom I recognized from last week), but it reminded me a bit of the last Wizard con I went to (Anaheim 2010). There were actors & celebrities, artists, indie publishers, authors, dealers, T-shirt and nerdy craft sellers, costumers, fan groups for everything from G.I. Joe to Firefly, tattoo artists (that’s a new one), a giant card game area, a giant tabletop game area, and a video game demo trailer. All in all, it was somewhere between Wizard and San Diego without the big names.

The facility itself left a bit to be desired: Kentia Hall, below the South Hall, is technically convention space, but it doubles as a parking garage. Everything was concrete, you could see faded lines marking out parking spaces on the floor, and there were enough support pillars to rival Dwarrowdelf (many of them right in the middle of aisles). The high ceilings, dim lighting, exposed air ducts and just the fact that everything was gray gave the place a really dismal feel, and the noise echoed horribly. To make matters worse, all the panels were held in the main hall in curtained-off “rooms” around the edge. Even with microphones, it was hard to hear the panelists over the noise.

I much prefer the other large halls in the Los Angeles Convention Center that I’ve been in (South and West): they both provide for more…cheery venues.

On the plus side, the line to get in moved. When I got there, they even had staff walking up the line with wristbands looking for people who had all their paperwork and just needed to hand it over.

As it is, I didn’t make it to many panels. I kept getting to a room, checking the schedule and finding that the panel I was interested in had started 40 minutes earlier. (It didn’t help that they didn’t provide program booklets, but I’m sure that’s one of the ways they kept the cost down.) I caught a few minutes of a Star Trek cast panel (by which they meant Garret Wang (Harry Kim) and two guest stars from the original series, though a lot more of the actors had appeared for signings earlier in the day), and about 20 minutes of a panel on the “Evolution of the Modern Zombie,” led by the author of The Zombie Survival Guide and World War Z. I missed the DC New 52 Q&A panel entirely due to a mixup and the fact that I didn’t check my text messages frequently enough.

Some highlights: amazing Jack-o-Lanterns carved by The Pumpkin Geek using a Dremel tool. Optimystical Studios’ Zomb-Alert pendants, so that your loved ones will be able to honor your wishes in the event that you’re bitten by a zombie. The Starbucks buzz. The worst ice cream I’ve ever tasted. (OK, that’s a lowlight.) Walking up to a crowd of people taking pictures of someone I couldn’t see, asking what was going on, and learning that everyone was taking pictures of Stan Lee playing a video game.

And of course all the costumes: The woman who had painted Trill spots on herself. The three Johnny Depp characters who ran into each other. An actual Donna Troy/Wonder Girl. Several Ramona Flowers, one of whom was walking around with Scott Pilgrim. Lots of steampunk outfits.

There was a lot of stuff there, but unfortunately I was only interested in a fraction of it. Long Beach was, I think, a smaller con, but it really felt like a full day of entertainment. I think my Comikaze experience would have been better if if I’d managed to catch a couple of panels on time, or if I hadn’t just been to another con with a lot of the same artists, or if I’d actually found the two artists I was specifically looking for, but as it was, I felt done about two hours before the floor closed for the day.

I might go again next year, but if it’s right next to Long Beach again, or if I have to choose one over the other, it’ll be Long Beach.

» Photos on Flickr.

Of course, Halloween and horror did make their presence known, starting with the signs for zombie parking, and continuing with programming, guests and costumes. (Jump straight to the photos.)

Getting In

I’ve never had a problem getting into Long Beach before, but this year the line to get in stretched all the way to the end of the lobby. Or rather, the line for people who had pre-registered stretched that far. When I arrived, there were only a handful of people in line to buy tickets at the door, and I was kicking myself for the last-minute decision to buy my tickets ahead of time this year. It took 45 minutes to get through the line, but only 20 seconds to hand over my paperwork and pick up my wristband. They were efficient, just understaffed.

Still, it’s nothing compared to the time I went to San Diego without pre-registering — back when you could still do that — and I waited in line from 8:00am until noon.

Around the Con

The floor never got too crowded, but the only place it ever felt empty was way in the back by the fan groups and the wrestling ring. And there was nothing going on in the ring at the time. (The first time I saw wrestling at a comic con I thought it was weird – until I realized it was a bunch of guys in garish costumes fighting each other, often with code names and dual identities.) I think the longest line I saw was for John Carpenter.

Most of the well-known small publishers were there: Aspen has been really involved in the con from the beginning, and I saw BOOM!, IDW and Top Cow. There does seem to have been some drop-off. I can’t remember seeing Dark Horse or Zenescope, for instance, and either would be a shoo-in with the added horror theme. DC’s never had a booth here, but they held panels at the first two Long Beach Comic Cons, and they didn’t seem to have any official presence at all this time around. (They have a panel at Comikaze Expo this weekend instead.)

At the back of the main floor, the con had set up several event areas: a Laser Tag arena, a wrestling ring, and a stage. I wandered by the stage while Captured Aural Phantasy was performing a staged reading of an 1940s crime comic book: melodramatic, tongue-in-cheek, over the top, and thoroughly fun. I didn’t catch the title of that story, but they followed it up with “Revenge Can Be Fatal (The Mad Hate of Dr. Zart)” – a sordid (if sparse) tale of vicious betrayal and revenge gone wrong.

I didn’t make it to any of the panels this year, though I was glad to see they’d managed to get rooms close to the main hall this time. (Last year the programming was all the way around the other side of the convention center.) I kind of regret skipping out on the masquerade, though.

Artist/Writer Encounters

The first booth I went to was the Aspen Comics booth, and Joe Benitez was there. He signed my copies of Lady Mechanika #1 & #2, and while I didn’t talk with him very long, he said that issue #3 should be out within a few weeks.

I caught Marv Wolfman at the Hero Initiative booth (he was actually behind me in line for lunch, but I didn’t want to bother him while he was trying to eat), told him that his and George Perez’ classic run on The New Teen Titans is what got me into comics in general and DC in particular, and asked him to sign The New Teen Titans: Games, the long-delayed graphic novel that finally hit the shelves last month after nearly 20 years.

He asked me if I’d had a chance to read it.

And I had to admit that no, I hadn’t.

He suggested that I try to read it all at once, which is just as well, since that’s exactly why I haven’t gotten to it yet. He also said that this was the first work of his in a long time where he hasn’t found things he wanted to change after it was published.

I spent at least half an hour talking with Brian Buccellato, co-writer and colorist on the new Flash series. We’d talked on Twitter before, and met at a signing he did at The Comic Bug the week that Flash #1 was released. He was kind enough to give me a sneak peek at Flash #3 — which looks awesome! — and drew me a sketch of Impulse.

Swag

I didn’t buy much this year (lightest backpack ever, even with the stuff I brought for autographs), though I was seriously tempted by Absolute Sandman for 40% off. One of these days, I’ll buy it.

I did discover a new webcomic, Rock Paper Cynic, and picked up the first collection. The strip that convinced me was a reference to Chekhov’s Gun. What can I say? You can take the theater major out of the theater, but you can’t take the theater out of the theater major.

Try saying that three times fast.

I also picked up a two-issue indie book called Prodigal, which looks like an Indiana Jones-type adventure, and the Coffee: It’s What’s For Dinner collection from Sheldon. (This one pushed me over the “must buy” threshold.)

And when I went back to the Hero Initiative booth to link up my Ralphs card for their community charity program, I discovered that they were offering incentives to do so — one of which was the Transmetropolitan art book. I guess it makes sense: they get a lot more in the long run from an ongoing percentage of grocery purchases than they would from a one-time sale. But it still felt like a steal.

Outside the Con

I always try to get outside at least for a walk and a look around. The convention center’s right by the ocean, and while I didn’t explore as much as I did the first year, I did wander out on the deck/bridge past the Hyatt hotel next door. It turned out there was an event going on there as well, though much more sparsely attended: Over the Edge had city council members and other people rappelling down the side of the hotel to raise money for the Special Olympics. There were a few lunch trucks up on the bridge by the info booth, but in the end I decided to just go back to the convention center and grab a panini.

I went out again later on after I grabbed some coffee, and ran into a group of four or five guys who were out celebrating Halloween with what sounded like a costumed pub crawl. One of them wondered what was going on at the convention center, and someone said it was Comic-Con, and he said, “No it’s not! Comic Con is in September!” I told him that it was Long Beach Comic Con — “No way! There’s a Long Beach Comic Con now?” — yes, in its third year. I told him how much it cost, and let him know about Comikaze Expo next week. They moved on, and when I headed back toward the convention center a few minutes later, I saw Jabba the Hutt stopped at a food truck. People were stepping over his tail to get past. Later on I saw the same group in the lobby. I guess they’d decided to check it out.

I wonder if they ended up coming back for Sunday.

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»Take me to the photos!

Some guy asked me, “What’re you dressed up as?” And I said, “…a Muggle?”

(Full photo set on Flickr.)

Planning a trip to Comic-Con is always about trade-offs. It’s so big that you can’t see everything, and there are so many events going on that you can’t attend them all. With four days, there’s some wiggle room. With just one, it seemed like I was constantly thinking about those choices.

One of the first choices I made: No news panels. I could get that the next day online (and did). I wanted to focus only on what was unique to the con: exhibits, meeting people, the art show, etc. Basically, I wanted to experience as much of San Diego Comic Con as I could in one day.

Katie decided to pick two things and build her day around them: visiting The Field, an Irish pub our friend Sean introduced us to a few years ago, and seeing the new Thundercats screening.

The Main Floor

With just one day, I ended up doing several circuits of the exhibit hall instead of a thorough, aisle-by-aisle search. It seemed less crowded than I remembered, though that may have been because it was Friday.

I hit some of my usual targets: Stop at the Studio Foglio booth & get Phil & Kaja to sign my copy of the latest Girl Genius volume. Check out the displays at the DC Comics booth and Sideshow. Look for signings by artists and writers that I want to meet.

Unfortunately, my haphazard approach meant that I never made it back to Artist’s Alley after my initial pass to make a list of people I wanted to talk to later in the day. (I had the idea of trying to start a new Flash jam sketch and get Francis Manapul, Todd Nauck, and a few others.) And I forgot to come back to the BOOM! Studios booth for Mark Waid after buying a copy of The Unknown TPB for him to sign.

I did, however, finally pick up a copy of Boilerplate (a steampunk robot, photoshopped into historical photos, with stylistically appropriate articles written about the events) after walking by the display for several years running. And I stumbled across the Union of Superlative Heroes in the small press section.

I was also lucky enough to get a wrist band allowing me to buy the limited-edition convention exclusive Flashpoint: Reverse Flash action figure for Devin at Speed Force. It went about like this Gutters strip, except that there were fewer costumes and they hadn’t sold out when I got to the booth. Also, the line went very fast. I went through five times in about as many minutes (they were encouraging people to try again) until I drew a winning ticket.

Meeting People

It still amazes me that in a crowd of ~150,000 people, you can randomly run into people you know. I ran into my parents at the DC booth. I ran into our friend Wayne (whom we’d been planning to meet up with later anyway) in the lobby.

At one point, I was waiting to ask a question at the Mimobot booth when I looked over at an X-wing pilot and recognized a college classmate whom I hadn’t seen in over a decade. We talked for a bit, then I went back to the booth. As I left the booth, I spotted someone dressed as Ramona Flowers and walked up to ask for a photo. She turned out to be another college classmate from a completely different circle!

One of those trade-offs I mentioned earlier: Catching that day’s big DC Comics “New 52″ panel (not for the news, but for the chance to ask questions) or catching a meet-up of people in Flash costumes. I went for the meetup. Unfortunately, only two cosplayers showed up, but I did get to meet the people organizing it. I also got to meet @BitterWallyWest, and we talked about Flash and other comics (but mostly Flash) for a good 20-30 minutes or so.

The two of us, @SpeedsterSite and @TheFlashReborn had been trying to set up a meeting with all of us at once, but that didn’t work out. At the time, they were both in the New 52 panel. I finally caught up with them mid-afternoon, not long after @SpeedsterSite’s talk with Dan Didio.

Thundercats and the Plural of Apocalypse

Thundercats has since premiered on Cartoon Network, so if you catch a repeat of the pilot, Katie highly recommends it. This goes double if you’re among the child-of-the-80s crowd for whom it’s nostalgic. The audience for the panel was mostly this target demographic, and enough were habitual congoers that the preceding two panels were crammed. For the panel immediately preceding, a new thriller-genre ABC show called “The River,” this wasn’t much of a problem. But the one before that was “SpongeBob SquarePants,” and the campers were crowding out some kids. Katie let a family of first-time attendees cut ahead of her in line to get escorted to the last few seats.

The show itself is not just an update of the original cartoon, but also a reimagining. The characters have different backgrounds and relationships to one another, and the premise has been tweaked. They’re still on Third Earth, but rather than having crash-landed there, it’s their original home. Some plotholes have been plugged, and a lot of the cheese has (mercifully) been picked off. We haven’t yet seen all the major players from the previous series, and not all of those we have seen have met each other yet. And the original voice of Lion-O is in the cast…as his father. Worth standing in line for, and will be going on the DVR.

I only made it to one panel: “Writing the Apocalypse,” and while it was full, I mad no problem getting in just a few minutes before it started. Most of the guests were authors of zombie-related apocalypses, and I came away from the panel with two thoughts:

1. Mira Grant loves virology.
2. The premise of Soft Apocalypse sounds scarier than zombies.

Out in San Diego

We ventured outside the convention center twice: Once for lunch, and once for dinner. We’ve developed a tradition of hitting The Field, an Irish pub in the Gaslamp District, at least once each convention. Since I wasn’t sure exactly what I’d be doing, we figured we’d both aim for it, but not worry about getting there at the same time. As it was, we did manage to catch up briefly while Katie finished her lunch and I ordered mine.

The crowds around 5th Street weren’t as bad as I remember from last year. Maybe there were fewer people handing out fliers (though there was no shortage of women in skimpy outfits with stacks of postcards), or maybe the offsite events were just spread out better. Last year, the area between the Hilton and the trolley tracks had a bunch of tables and booths set up for the Scott Pilgrim promotion. This year I think it was just people until you actually walked into the exhibits. That alone may have helped immensely.

For dinner, we met up with Wayne after all our late-afternoon panels and final passes through the floor were complete. One problem: We hadn’t made reservations anywhere, and we had deadlines: Wayne needed to be back at the convention center by 8:00, and Katie and I needed to be on the train by 8:20 (or so we thought — more about that later). We ended up at the Broken Yolk Cafe (which I still want to call the Burnt Toast Diner for some reason), which was decent enough, but I like their breakfasts better. (That said, the next time I’m in Downtown San Diego for breakfast, it’s going to be Cafe 222.)

We wrapped up the day with stops at two more of our San Diego mainstays: Heavenly Cupcake (on 6th), and the Ghirardelli shop (on 5th). We were too stuffed for dessert, but cupcakes and chocolate both travel well.

The Journey Home

Neither of us had expected the longest line to be for the train ride home. We’d been advised to arrive early, and got to the station around 8:00 for our 8:20 train, but the train was delayed coming into San Diego. We didn’t even board until at least 9:00. (That this was the worst line either of us experienced has a lot to do with the choices we made about what to see at the con.)

Part of it was all the extra cars they’d added to cover not only people leaving San Diego after Comic-Con, but people leaving Solana Beach (the next stop north) after the evening’s races at Del Mar. The passengers who boarded in San Diego, for the most part, were exhausted after a day at the con, and quiet. If they talked, it was quietly, within groups. Those who boarded at Solana Beach had just finished an evening at the races, and they were excited, drunk and loud. It was an interesting contrast.

The train delay meant we got home around midnight. Definitely too late for a daily commute, especially with the hour drive to and from the train station. If we go more than one day next year, we’ll have to stay in town (or at least closer).

It’s sad that next year is an “if,” though. This was my twenty-second trip to Comic-Con, and Katie’s ninth or tenth. It’s never been a problem to get tickets ahead of time before, but they’d capped the line for the day’s 2012 pre-sale before we even arrived, and if online sales are anything like they were this year, it’s going to be a Hoteloween-level madhouse when they go on sale.

» Full photo set on Flickr.
» More convention write-ups and photos.

(No, that’s not us.)

I’ve posted my 2011 San Diego Comic-Con photos at Flickr. Actually, they’ve been up for a week, but I was so focused on coverage at Speed Force (when I had time for blogging, anyway) that I forgot to post a notice here.

I’m still working on a con write-up. It’s going to be a lot shorter than last year’s extensive coverage, probably a single post, mainly because we were only there for one day this year.

Enjoy the photos, and check back for the write-up. I’m hoping to have it done by the end of the weekend. We’ll see how that goes. Update: It’s done! The write-up is online!.

No doubt it would have tie-ins, side stories, spinoffs, and a bunch of extra tie-ins added to plug the inevitable gaps in the schedule. Check out my full list at Speed Force!

• SMBC: Where does the time go when you play online games?
• XKCD: Server Attention Span
• The Joy of Tech: The Internet is running out of tubes. (via @brionv)
• Classic Spamusement: They hold a whole lot of it. I had no idea….
• Bizarro on Facebook slacktivism (at Failblog).

Sci-fi and fantasy:

• Keeping Up With the Cardassians. For months, this is what I heard every time someone mentioned the Kardashians. (What can I say? My brain is more attuned to Star Trek than to reality TV.)
• Author Robert J. Sawyer answers pointed questions about Flashforward and the TV adaptation, including what went wrong. I have to agree that it was really hurt by focusing too heavily on the conspiracy arc.

Coolness!

• Discovery spacewalk seen from the ground (Thierry Legault, of course!)
• Majestic Snow Batman towers over Vermont
• Ultra hi-res moon. The full-sized image is 24,000 x 24,000 pixels and half a gigabyte!
• Flash Coffee is a product tie-in just waiting to happen! (That F’ing Monkey). It would fit right in with the Central City Track Team shirt.

Tech stuff:

• Gmail accidentally reset thousands of accounts last month. (They got it back — this is Google after all.) I’ve come to rely heavily on Gmail, but I still keep a local copy of all my email in case something like this happens. (Engadget, via @pobox)
• 6 ways to use public Wi-Fi hot spots safely (C|NET).
• Mobile Content Is Twice as Difficult (Jakob Nielsen’s Alertbox)
• Map of smartphone marketshare by OS & manufacturer. It’s a 3-way split between iPhone, Android and Blackberry. iPhone & Blackberry are of course one manufactuer, while Android is divided mainly among HTC, Samsung and Motorola. (via @androidandme)
• Things Real People Don’t Say About Your App or website (via @brionv)

For the past decade, Phil & Kaja Foglio have been spinning the mad science/gaslamp fantasy adventures of Agatha Heterodyne in the award-winning comic book-turned-webcomic Girl Genius. Now they’ve stepped into a new medium, adapting the first story into a prose novel: Agatha H. and the Airship City.

The Industrial Revolution has escalated into all-out warfare. It has been sixteen years since the Heterodyne Boys, benevolent adventurers and inventors, disappeared under mysterious circumstances. Today, Europe is ruled by the Sparks, dynasties of mad scientists ruling over – and terrorizing – the hapless population with their bizarre inventions and unchecked power, while the downtrodden dream of the Hetrodynes’ return. At Transylvania Polygnostic University, a pretty, young student named Agatha Clay seems to have nothing but bad luck. Incapable of building anything that actually works, but dedicated to her studies, Agatha seems destined for a lackluster career as a minor lab assistant. But when the University is overthrown by the ruthless tyrant Baron Klaus Wulfenbach, Agatha finds herself a prisoner aboard his massive airship Castle Wulfenbach – and it begins to look like she might carry a spark of Mad Science after all.

The comics are great fun, and I’m really looking forward to seeing how they’ve filled in the details in the novel version!