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.

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!.

Sunday morning at Comic-Con International in San Diego. We got up early (though not as early as Katie got up on Saturday) to check out of our hotel, store our baggage, and move the car to another lot. I suspect the Sheraton would have let us keep the car there an extra day, since it was self-parking; but I’d already prepaid for Sunday through the convention, and as it turned out the other lot was cheaper anyway. Of course, since pre-paid parking was new this year, it wasn’t entirely clear what we needed to do other than leave the printout where it was visible. (More on that later.)

After eating rolls and fruit from home for most of the con, we went out to breakfast at the Broken Yolk Cafe. (I keep wanting to type Burnt Toast Diner.) They’d decorated for the convention — including thematic T-shirts on some of the servers — had good food (more varied, if not as good as Cafe 222), and were very busy, but we managed to beat the rush.

Then we walked through the streets of San Diego to the convention center one last time.

Castles

I figured there would be a line for Castle (especially since they had the entire cast present, and Nathan Fillion by himself is a big draw at Comic-Con). I wasn’t expecting it to run down the hall from the larger 6 rooms, out onto the balcony, zig-zag a bit under some tents, then head back along the convention center and wrap around the end, next to the gigantic air conditioners. At least the morning cloud cover hadn’t burned off yet, so we weren’t out in direct sun.

It took a long time before the convention started letting people in, but when we finally got to the front, I decided I’d head out and make Sunday the day I finally really explored the main floor, while Katie went in for Castle and then Merlin.

Frustrations

The staff directing traffic didn’t seem to know what to do with someone who left a line, though, and treated me as if I was trying to cut through it. This was the only time I ran into this kind of problem, fortunately. The rest of the time, traffic management was a lot better than it has been over the last few years!

First I figured I’d try to pick up the No Ordinary Family T-Shirt for which I’d gotten a ticket at the preview the day before. Sometimes events will hand out freebies as you walk in, or will go down the aisles passing them out to the audience. Sometimes they’ll give you a ticket, which you then take to the “fulfillment room” to exchange for swag. It’s usually somewhere out of the way, and since actual programming has expanded to fill more of the rooms in the convention center itself, this year it was pushed out into a room in a small convention center at the Marriott hotel complex. The line for the fulfillment room stretched out the building, down the hill, and through a parking structure — and wasn’t moving, as far as I could see. I decided I didn’t want the shirt that much. (I went back later and there was no line at all. My best guess: it had only just opened, and the line was the backlog.)

The Floor

Once I shook that off, I headed to Artist’s Alley. I hadn’t quite made it there yet this year, probably because it was shoved all the way to the far end of the convention center. My goal: to find Flash artist Francis Manapul and ask him for a sketch. There were only about five or six fans ahead of me, but it takes time to do a sketch (unless you’re Sergio Aragonés), so it took the better part of an hour.

Around noon, I started my final exploration of the exhibit hall, the first systematic tour I’d attempted all weekend. The plan was that I would start at one end and work my way to the other, where I’d meet Katie and we’d head out for lunch and then home.

I checked out displays by artists and toy sellers, skimmed the movie and game studios, worked my way through the comic book publishers’ area, and finally decided to call it quits with a good fourth of the floor left to go, figuring I’d covered that part well enough on my earlier passes.

Leaving San Diego

We ended up having lunch at Bareback Grill, the land of burgers and double entendres (yummy, but be sure to order your burger at least medium, even if nobody asks), then went to pick up the car. The structure was mostly automated, with a gate to get out, and there was no apparent way to trigger the gate without getting a ticket — and no way to get the ticket without feeding money into the machine. Money that we’d already paid ahead of time. Fortunately there was a button to call for assistance, and after we showed the guard our printed receipt we were let out with no further problems. Still, prepaid parking could have been handled much more smoothly. (Maybe by not including structures with this kind of payment system?)

Then a quick stop for coffee, and we were on the road, returning from another year at Comic-Con!

This was Sunday, July 25, 2010.

Conclusion

So, it took a lot longer than I intended, but this wraps up my coverage of this year’s Comic-Con International. Well, almost. We’ve both got notebooks with funny quotes, and we’ve only posted the ones from Leverage, “Twisting Genres” and “Once Upon a Time (Epic Fantasy)” so far, so you can expect a humor post or two at some point. Other than that, we’re done!

I hope you’ve enjoyed this series!

»Full index of Comic-Con posts and photos.

As usual, Saturday was the big day for big presentations. Katie got up early to wait in line for Harry Potter (and incidentally Sucker Punch and Green Lantern), figuring on taking the first shuttle to the convention center…which didn’t show up. After 30 minutes, it became clear that there wasn’t going to be room for everyone on the shuttle when it finally did show up, so she made the trek on foot. She picked up a spot on the lawn, out where they had canopies (not that they needed them with the morning gloom).

I slept in a bit longer before heading down to stand in line for Leverage, which was, well… Leverage was an experience in its own right.

Afterward, I took the opportunity to do a little exploring over by the Hilton now that the sun had come out. Mostly I checked out the views of the convention center, but I also went up to the top of the parking structure to get a look at the pedestrian bridge that San Diego started building two years ago. That’s where I found a portable cell phone tower, showing that at least one network had made an effort to increase coverage for the event.

Experience the Epic

After another brief pass through the main floor, I headed out into the Gaslamp again. My plan was to go through the Scott Pilgrim Experience, especially since I’d heard that Saturday was the last day, but the line was hideously long. The line for “Stuff” wasn’t long at all, however, and it took me about two minutes to pick up a T-shirt and some download codes related to the soundtrack.

So I wrote off the Scott Pilgrim Experience (Cinematical describes what I missed) just like I’d written off the Hall H Experience, and kept going. Though I should have stayed a little longer: they were just setting up the truck with free garlic bread as I was leaving!

Lunch

I had some time before Katie and I planned to meet at a shawarma place for lunch, so I figured I’d get some iced coffee first.

The convention always spills out into the city. Even beyond the Gaslamp crush of official and unofficial offsite activities, there are ads and banners everywhere…and convention attendees walking to and from restaurants, hotels and parking lots. At one point I walked by a couple dressed as Wonder Woman and Ash from the Evil Dead movies. Wonder Woman was drinking coffee or a smoothie or something, but I asked Ash to pose for a photo. I turned around and saw a couple dressed as Drusilla and Spike from Buffy the Vampire Slayer on the other side of the street.

So we met up at lunch, showed off swag (my Leverage: Mastermind shirt, her Harry Potter: Undesirable No.1 shirt), caught each other up on what we’d missed (the Green Lantern oath, Parker’s thoughts on Comic-Con, what the heck Sucker Punch is about), and showed each other pictures. Digital cameras have really changed the immediacy of photo sharing!

Back at the Con

We each went our separate ways for the afternoon programming. I caught the No Ordinary Family preview, which looks promising, then figured I’d try getting into the discussion on Scott Pilgrim Vol.6. It was at least 20 minutes into the panel by the time I arrived, the series has been extremely popular, and the final volume had just come out a few days earlier; so I wasn’t really expecting to get in, and I wasn’t terribly surprised to find that it was full. I took the opportunity to dash off my first impressions of No Ordinary Family. Katie, meanwhile, caught a group of science-fiction authors discussing: “Welcome to the Future. Are you sure you want to stay?”

Winding Down

With no specific plans for the evening, but memories of Thursday’s cattle drive, we left about a half an hour before the floor closed so that we could catch a shuttle before the rush. We didn’t really need to, since the driver waited until it was full anyway, and didn’t pull away until almost 7:00. On the plus side, we spent that time in cushy seats instead of standing in a crowd, shuffling along. On the drive back to the hotel, we first heard vague rumors of the stabbing in Hall H earlier in the afternoon.

By the time we got back to the hotel and dropped things off, neither of us wanted to deal with getting back to the Gaslamp, or out to another part of town. Easy route: the hotel restaurant. It had a fixed menu for the evening, but at least it was food we could eat, and as I recall the steak was pretty good. The reason it had a fixed menu was the live music event…which had just wrapped up. Which was also why the restaurant was almost empty when we arrived. (And probably why they offered us extra parfaits for dessert.)

It was the most low-key experience I’ve ever had at a Comic-Con. And that was not a problem!

This was Saturday, July 24.
Next: Sunday. Castle, Merlin and Artists’ Alley.

»Full index of Comic-Con posts and photos.

Over time, though, I filled in my back-issue collections. Ebay and Mile High Comics took care of any new/old discoveries. As the exhibit hall expanded to the point that I couldn’t really explore it all in a single day, I also started to get more interested in watching the events and presentations. Switching from a one-day trip to a four-day trip drastically changed my experience, because for the first time in years, I could do both.

Looking back at this year’s con, though, it almost seems like I was avoiding the main floor. I explored a few small areas, and when I had extra time, I’d walk slowly through on the way from one thing to another, but until Sunday, I don’t think I spent more than an hour at a time in the real heart of the convention.

I think a lot of it is a sense of familiarity. There are always a lot of new displays, and the mix of costumes changes every year, but a lot of enough elements stay the same from one year to the next. DC’s booth looks largely the same. Square-Enix still has that Fullmetal Alchemist statue from four years ago. The LEGO Buzz Lightyear is still cool, but I saw it last year.

At one point I walked past a line of people in the middle of one of the larger aisles, and wondered what they were waiting for…until I realized they were waiting for a signing at a bookseller’s booth. That booth was in roughly the same spot and looked exactly like it did last year when I waited in line for a Peter David signing. It was actually kind of eerie — and it was hardly the only booth that seemed to have stayed put all year.

In a sense, the exhibit hall is starting to feel like a city, with an illusion of permanence and (dare I say it) continuity from year to year. You can’t explore an entire city in one visit, and if you come back on any sort of regular basis, you don’t take a general city tour every time. You start developing regular hangouts, like the restaurant or park or bar that you visit every time you’re in town. You specifically look for things you haven’t already seen. And then you ignore a lot of what you’ve seen already.

So I hit my hangouts: Studio Foglio, DC, Sideshow. I did some exploring, making a point to check out the small press, webcomics, and artists’ areas. But those aisle-by-aisle sweeps are a thing of the past.

»Full index of Comic-Con posts and photos.

The plaza near the Gaslamp Trolley station, 5th Street and L, bracketed by the Omni, Hard Rock Hotel, and Hilton Gaslamp, has become the main hub of off-site Comic-Con activity over the last few years. It’s the most direct route between the convention center and Downtown San Diego. Unlike the crossing at 1st, there’s enough space to set up displays and businesses willing to undergo a SyFy makeover…so they can set up the Green Hornet Car (and the Green Hornet girls), the Cafe Diem, and the Scott Pilgrim Experience (with free garlic bread!). The city has started blocking off the area to cars to make room for pedestrian traffic, but since people still need to cross two trolley lines, a railroad, and a street, the crowds are a captive audience.

As a result, the place is packed not just with people attending the con, but also with promoters handing out flyers, postcards, temporary tattoos, comic books and goodie bags. The Beat describes it as the “heart” of the con, or possibly some less savory body part. It’s sort of like walking down the Las Vegas strip, only instead of sketchy-looking men handing you trading cards* with pictures of hot women and phone numbers, there are hot women handing you cards with pictures of spaceships and sketchy-looking men with website addresses.

Well, mostly. One promoter shoved a movie postcard and a condom packet into my hand with the URL of what I hope was a viral marketing website slapped onto it.

Stay classy, San Diego!

And then there are the people there not to give you stuff, but to be advertising. The ones in promotional costumes, like the Fandango paper-bag puppets or the Chik-Fil-A super-hero cows. Zombies promoting The Walking Dead.

This year, a new group joined in: those who weren’t really here for the convention, but just wanted to get the attention of a large number of people: Vegan activists. The “God Hates Everyone But Me” scumbags. (The con crowd fired back with a creative counter-protest.)

I never could figure out whether the man with the “CIA Is Evil!” sign was serious, or part of the same viral marketing campaign that had a legion of Men in Black handing out “confidential” envelopes to everyone who walked by.

»Full index of Comic-Con posts and photos.

*Go ahead. Tell me they don’t look like stripper trading cards. Though I remember some webcomic where the cast decided to use them for a collectible card game a la Magic: The Gathering.

Sketches and Signings

• Tongues of Serpents (latest Temeraire novel) signed by Naomi Novik with a sketch of Iskierka
• Girl Genius volumes 8 and 9, and the newly-colorized volume 1, signed by Kaja and Phil Foglio.
• Scott Pilgrim’s Finest Hour signed by Bryan Lee O’Malley.
• The Flash #1-3 signed by Francis Manapul.
• Flash sketch by Francis Manapul.
• Lady Mechanika mini-poster signed by Joe Benitez.

Stuff

• Scott Pilgrim vs. the World T-shirt
• Leverage: Mastermind T-shirt
• No Ordinary Family T-shirt
• Harry Potter: Undesirable No.1 T-shirt
• Castle water bottle

»Full index of Comic-Con posts and photos.

Neither of us had anything early or popular that we were trying to catch on Friday, so we slept in — which I’m sure really helped after the exhausting first day. Katie went for the design panels, with talks by TV costume designers and TV & movie production designers, while I roamed the middle of the floor where all the comics publishers had their booths.

I stumbled onto the tail end of a Brian Lee O’Malley signing with only about five people in line, and still had Scott Pilgrim’s Finest Hour with me. Then I made it to the Studio Foglio booth just before Phil and Kaja Foglio left for an event, so I was able to get them to sign the new Girl Genius books that I picked up.

Exploring Downtown

On the shuttle ride to the convention center, I’d noticed a building with comic-book themed window art all over its first-floor windows. I wanted to get back to it for a closer look at some point during the con. I also wanted to drop off the new and newly-signed books so that I wouldn’t be carrying them around the rest of the day, so I figured I’d try to find the building while walking back to the hotel.

I also found some more window art at the Gaslamp Garage across the street from the Old Spaghetti Factory (one Flash and one Wolverine), a souvenir store flanked with Green Lantern and Sinestro, and, eventually, the building with all the drawings: Batman, R2D2, Scott Pilgrim and Ramona Flowers, The Monarch and Dr. Mrs. The Monarch, etc.

Strangely enough, the con had even spilled into the historic Davis House: Alienware had set up a demonstration tent for their gaming systems on the lawn.

At some point during this trip, I stopped in at the Chuck Jones Gallery on 5th Street. In addition to Looney Tunes–inspired art, they also had quite a bit of superhero and Disney-inspired art on display, including several Alex Ross pieces. I’m not sure what their usual exhibits are, but it’s worth stopping by if you’re in the area.

Art Afternoon

Originally I’d planned to return for the Francis Manapul/Whilce Portacio art demonstration, but as I wandered downtown it became clear that I wasn’t going to make it back in time. So I stopped hurrying, grabbed lunch, and when I reached the convention, checked the schedule to see what I might do instead. I settled on the Comics Arts Conference panel on action heroines, specifically: where are they? It was an interesting lineup of female fans, scholars, actresses…and JMS, who was there because he’s just started writing Wonder Woman. (He and Cindy Morgan both left early for other commitments.)

From there I visited the art show. The wide range of both skill and subject really struck me this time for some reason. Also, there were a few pieces I recognized from Westercon. From there, I decided at the last minute to catch the second day of DC Nation. I’m glad I did: Geoff Johns announced a second Flash series to launch next year (though considering I watched him announce both a Kid Flash series and a Wally West co-feature, neither of which actually went into production, I’m not letting myself get too excited).

Meanwhile, Katie had spent the afternoon first watching an artist’s presentation on drawing animal anatomy, then waiting through Teen Wolf (yes, they’re remaking Teen Wolf…as a TV series) for Falling Skies with Moon Bloodgood and Noah Wyle.

Evening

We left the convention center a bit earlier than the day before, hoping to avoid the closing crush, and met up with my parents (who were also attending the convention) for dinner at Sevilla, a tapas restaurant on 4th. Great food, but very dim and very noisy. It’s the one with the suit of plate armor in front of it. It was on the way to dinner that I lost my badge briefly; fortunately it hadn’t fallen too far back, and was still there when I looked.

Afterward, Katie and I returned to the convention center to make use of the wifi for some internet catch-up. We were aiming for the tables and chairs in Sails, but they had been put away for the night, so we settled in on a bench in the Ballroom 20 lobby. The Batman: Under the Red Hood premiere had already started, so the area was mostly empty.

It’s always strange to see the convention center when it isn’t crowded, especially after a full day of Comic-Con. It was quiet, the windows were dark, and most of all there was space. A few small groups were scattered around the lobby like we were. Stragglers wandered through, including three guys singing “Masquerade” from Phantom of the Opera. And over near the corner was a group of twenty or so people in costumes dancing the Macarena. Katie looked up from the computer and wondered if there was a world record for that.

If not, there should be!

This was Friday, July 23, 2010.
Next up: Saturday! Leverage, Harry Potter, No Ordinary Family and more.

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