The shuttle route from our hotel to the con passed by this mural, which plays with the nature of the constructed reality. The wall is a newspaper page. The face is a sculpture, a painting. The hands holding the chisel and paintbrush, of course, are just as artificial as the face being created.

We noticed an interesting coincidence at Horton Plaza. Just a few doors down from the Post Office was an Aeropostale clothing store:

This bench was in front of a hotel, probably the Hilton San Diego Gaslamp. I suppose that makes the pun on dog training more appropriate, since it’s a block away from Petco Park stadium.

I’ve always figured standing out on a street in a mascot costume must be miserable, especially in summer. But how much worse to be dressed as a giant soft drink? I suppose this would go with last year’s walking sandwich.

Now, you have to wonder about AMN Healthcare. It’s clearly a set of initials…but how often do people complain about health, insurance, and the healthcare industry? It’s just one letter off from “Damn Healthcare.”

Back to the shuttle route, next to (or possibly connected to) the Martini Ranch spotted in a previous installment of this series, was this nightclub that made no pretensions about what people are going there for. Also note that it’s a “niteclub” — is that a nightclub with fewer calories?

Then there’s this place, which employed the ultimate euphemism:

That’s got to be the most convolutedly delicate way of saying “sex shop” that I’ve ever seen.

Stormtrooper Elvis has become such a fixture that I almost didn’t bother taking a picture of him when I saw him this year… but then I noticed his pose, and the Sauron statue in the background.

There were a number of people walking around with “Free Hugs” signs, most of them women, but a few men. I never actually saw someone take one of them up on the offer, though.

On the subject of “Free” signs, I found it amusing that the Bantam Dell booth was trying to attract people with a hand-lettered cardboard sign proclaiming, “FREE!”

At one point I looked upward at the ceiling of Ballroom 20. With The Dark is Rising being made into a movie, I saw this lighting fixture and cross-beams and immediately thought of the Sign of Fire.

This guy had the ultimate cheap costume: A roll of tape. He just took every freebie flyer that was handed to him, and taped it to himself.

There’s apparently a band called CKY. Some of their merchandise manages to work the name into a rather rude saying…

There was a group of women in identical red dresses, with identical hairdos, and identical shoes. I saw a few of them wandering the floor on Saturday, but didn’t realize just how many there were until we left the convention center for dinner, and saw them crossing the street.

Edit: Mystery solved? The Resident Evil panel featured 17 Milla Jovovich doubles wearing her iconic red dress. This looks like more than 17, and the dresses don’t seem to be ripped in the right place, but this could be them.

Continued in Strange Sights of San Diego.

Yes, we found both Waldo and Carmen Sandiego—twice! We didn’t even need a GPS! (And who would have guessed that she’d be in San Diego?)

Now if we’d only found them together…

Edit: a CBR thread pointed me to this piece of fan art that simply must be seen!

It’s amazing that out of (reportedly) 140,000 people, you’re virtually guaranteed to run into people you know. For instance, I knew in person 8 people besides the two of us who were definitely going to the convention. Without planning, I ran into 6 of them, as well as 2 people who I didn’t know were attending. Katie and I even accidentally ran into each other once. I’m sure I ran into people I’ve met online, but just didn’t recognize them on sight.

Overheard near a coffee shop one morning in San Diego:

20ish man #1: I’m so wasted. I can’t work like this.
20ish man #2: Dude, you make coffee!

Nothing as drastic as Aeire’s story of nearly getting trampled, but I sustained a number of minor injuries over the course of the event:

• Left knee, bruised while walking into a traffic barrier concealed by the flow of people (Wednesday).
• Right forearm, bruised twice catching a backpack strap (Thursday).
• Left hand, bruised (unknown).
• Also, Katie: Left thumbnail pulled back and bleeding, catching a backpack strap (Friday).

Conclusion: Backpacks are dangerous

I walked out onto this balcony Friday afternoon and took some pictures looking out across the street. At the time, there were some teenage girls sitting on that ledge off to the left. It’s maybe 4 feet deep, and some of them had scooted out past the balcony, one of them standing up. When I came back later to get a picture of the ledge (how creepy would I have looked taking a picture of a group of teenage girls?), the door to the balcony was locked. I’m guessing security wasn’t happy.

When eating out at a restaurant, ask about the portion sizes before you order. The food at Bandar was very good, but we were each served enough food for three people. With no refrigerator or microwave in our hotel room, we couldn’t save the leftovers. The waste was saddening.

Panels I attended:
Thursday: TwoMorrows, Paramount Pictures, Lost.
Friday: Spider-Man cartoon (2nd half) and Neil Gaiman Spotlight. Babylon 5: The Lost Tales.
Saturday: Quick Draw, Buffy 10^th Anniversary Screening. (edit: fixed link)
Sunday: My Dad Makes Comics (2nd half), Fables.

Panels Katie attended:
Thursday: Making Fiends, Paramount Pictures, Lost.
Friday: The Mist/Halloween, Jim Henson, Babylon 5: The Lost Tales.
Saturday: Pushing Daisies, tried to get into Heroes but got locked out, Battlestar Galactica, Buffy screening.
Sunday: Cages Talk Comics, Right at Your Door/Dragon Wars, Pathology.

*whew!* Almost done. I just need to post quotes and oddities. Well, and finish labeling the photo gallery.

I dropped by the Studio Foglio booth a couple of times, with the intent to get my latest Girl Genius trade signed. (It arrived in the mail earlier that week. How could I pass it up?) After collecting the individual issues to start with, I ended up buying the first two or three books direct from the source at Comic-Con a few years ago, and Phil Foglio was kind enough to sign the whole set as he sold them to me. So as the newer books have come out, I’ve brought them to cons to get them signed.

This year I managed to find Phil Foglio on Friday. He was talking with someone about site issues (which I assumed were about last month’s downtime), and apparently it’s banned in China as being “too racy.” His assistant encouraged me to just interrupt, and I got him to sign volume 6. I made sure I linked to them in that night’s con report, without realizing that the site had gone down that morning due to bandwidth issues. *sigh* Of course I took the book out of my backpack that night… but on Sunday, I wandered by the booth again, and this time Kaja Foglio was there. If I’d still had it, I could have had both of their signatures. Again, *sigh*. We talked for a bit about the switch from pamphlet-to-book to web-to-book, and about some of the T-shirt designs, and about how far ahead they had story material (years).

I also kept looking for Joshua Middleton, since I wanted to get his All-Flash cover signed and show him the wallpaper I made for my cell phone, but I never saw him any of the times I went into Artists’ Alley. His table was there, but he wasn’t, and all I could think of was walking past his table at Wizard World LA back in March. Not that I had anything to get signed at the time, but still…

Of course there are always tons of booths run by small press trying to promote their works. The only one that stands out in my memory is Alcatraz High by Bobby Rubio. I talked with him, he showed me a preview issue which was funny, and I bought the first issue of the comic (figuring I’d get the next two if I liked that one), which he signed with a sketch. Unfortunately, this being several days into the con, my brain had turned to mush and I didn’t think to ask whether the story I had read was actually in #1.

They were still working on the lobby when we checked in, so they had moved the reception desks onto little plywood stands over on one side. One of the clerks accidentally knocked the power cord out while we were checking in. By Saturday morning they were done. The painters and plastic tarps were gone, the desks and furniture were in their places, the fountain was running.

Meanwhile, we kept coming back to our room to find that yet another item had had its Radisson logo removed or replaced with a Doubletree logo. And then there was this bulletin:

Hotel Plusses:

• Near trolley stop (Little Italy/County Center)
• Shuttle stop
• Near coffee (It’s a Grind)
• Near restaurants
• Nice rooms
• Free wireless internet (though the wired port didn’t work)
• Just remodeled, so everything’s new

Hotel Minuses:

• Shuttle has to go through traffic
• Trolley requires transfer unless you get the red line (special event service)
• Won’t be an issue next year, but we were there during the transition

Factor in waiting for a shuttle or trolley, and you can figure on 40 minutes to get to or from the convention center.

I’d stay there again, though I think next year I’ll try to get something a bit closer. Of course, I tried that this year, and by the time I got through, everything closer was either full or way too expensive.

• Comic-Con International 2007 Photos

I’m still adjusting the descriptions and titles and such, so the text will change a bit over the next day or two, but all the photos are up! 293 pictures of costumes, convention sights, San Diego and more!

She did the makeup from scratch, using latex and fake blood, and got a lot of attention. In fact, while waiting in line two hours to get into the panel, series director Allan Arkush walked past, stopped… and took her picture!

Sadly, even after waiting two hours she wasn’t able to get into the room, which was about half as big as it needed to be for the audience. Lots of people left at that point, but she was among the group that stayed hoping to get into the Battlestar Galactica panel afterward (which she did). While bored in line, she and the fan next to her posed as Sylar and victim. Edit: we have a copy of the photo, and permission to post it!

So you can see the result of the traumatic experience of the day:

She got her revenge, though. After we went to see the Buffy the Vampire Slayer 10th anniversary screening of “Once More With Feeling” (described in my Saturday guest post at Comics Should be Good), we went out to the Ghirardelli shop in the Gaslamp District. She got a dark chocolate raspberry sundae, and the raspberry sauce was dripping around the edge of the glass, just so…

While all four of the major Flashes have been men, DC has published a number of female speedsters, including several alternate-reality Flashes and two who have worn the Flash symbol in-continuity: Lady Flash and Jesse Quick.

I also found it interesting that both costume designs incorporated sunglasses, reminiscent of one of Jesse’s later costumes and of the Kingdom Come version of Iris West II.

Update August 3: Wallyoeste and West both pointed out CBR’s 3rd Photo Parade, which includes two pictures of a couple in Flash costumes. Part 4 has a picture of a DC group with a fifth. This brings it up to at least 5 Flashes at the convention: 3 women and 2 men.

We’ve got tons of photos between the two of us, and we’ll post them (including the weird stuff) when we get back. (Edit: photos are up!) And I still hope to post more here, like the two perspectives on Wednesday, if I can get a chance when I’m not totally exhausted.