Absolutely floored that 4-day passes for Comic-Con International 2010 have sold out.

I mean, it’s the first week of November, and the convention isn’t until next July!

Tickets with access to Wednesday’s Preview Night sold out a few weeks ago, but at the time, CCI didn’t provide any information about how many regular 4-day passes were left. This Monday, they posted a progress gauge at 70%. The last time I looked yesterday, it was up to 89%.

Today? Sold out completely.

I can’t help but think it would have taken longer if they hadn’t provided a gauge to let people know just how scarce a resource memberships were going to be. There’s nothing like the fear of a shortage to get people to run out and buy up what’s available (and create a shortage). But I also can’t complain, because without that feedback, we might have kept putting off plunking down the $200 for the two of us, and we might have missed our chance.

Single-day tickets haven’t gone on sale yet, so it’s still possible to go if you haven’t already bought your tickets. You can of course buy more than one, it just means standing in line each morning to pick up the next badge. (Even the more relaxed WonderCon, run by the same organization, doesn’t let you pick up a Sunday badge on Saturday, as we discovered last year.)

If you’re planning on going to San Diego next year, keep an eye on the website. Four-day passes went insanely quickly, and I would expect the one-day passes to do the same.

(Cross-posted at Speed Force)

Around the Con

• Photo set on Flickr
• Friday Night: Running Through Downtown San Diego
• Flash Costume Sightings at Comic-Con

We saved most of our long-form writing for panel and costume write-ups (see below), but I made extensive use of Twitter during the convention. These are auto-generated digests of each day’s Twitter activity, presenting a view of the convention as I experienced it.

• Wednesday Tweets
• Thursday Tweets
• Friday Tweets
• Saturday Tweets
• Sunday Tweets

In Costume

On Friday we attended in costume as Yomiko Readman from Read or Die and Jay Garrick, the original Flash from the Golden Age (1940s). On Saturday Katie attended as Kate Austen from Lost.

• Making the Flash Helmet
• Making the Flash Boots and Shirt
• Costume component photos on Flickr
• Yomiko and the Flash
• Flash Costume Sightings at Comic-Con

Panels

• Thursday: Geoff Johns Spotlight (live blog)
• Thursday: Mad Science: The Science Behind Science-Fiction with reps from Fringe, Eureka! and Caprica
• Friday: Flash Forward Looks Incredible
• Friday: DC Nation (live blog)
• Saturday: DC Universe (live blog)
• Saturday: Lost Panel Made of Win

Reflections

• Tips for Comic-Con
• The Other Ten Essentials of Comic-Con
• Hotel Review: Holiday Inn On The Bay
• Why Las Vegas is a bad idea for Comic-Con
• New Heroes Speedster Trained in the Jedi Arts
• Flash News from San Diego

That covers all the major posts we’ve written from the start of the convention onward. There are a few minor bits, like the initial round-up that’s mostly duplicated here, or the “We’re here!” post from when we arrived in San Diego, and various posts about the build-up to the con. You can find these by looking further back in the Comic-Con 2009 category here and in posts tagged CCI 2009 at Speed Force.

Except only one of us made it onto the bus.

Missing the Bus

We’d thought about going back to the restaurant for dessert later (they had Bailey’s cheesecake), so I did something stupid and went back to check the hours. (If they were going to be closed, we’d go somewhere in the Gaslamp area like Ghirardelli.) This took longer than expected, and the shuttle arrived in the meantime.

The shuttles only run every 20-30 minutes at night, and we had barely 30 minutes to the screening. Chances were if I didn’t catch this one, I wasn’t going to make it.

I fought my way upstream through the crowd that had just gotten off the bus, saw that Katie wasn’t at the stop, and ran halfway down the block as the shuttle pulled away…and immediately stopped at a red light.

I ran to the front of the bus and knocked on the door. The driver gestured toward the back of the bus. I looked back to see if there was another door. Nothing. I knocked again. He glared at me and pointed toward the back of the bus again. It became clear he was not opening that door for anything.

Words Exchanged

So I pulled out my cell phone and called Katie, who was in the process of calling me to ask where the hell I was. Whichever call connected, I started out with something like “The &@^#*& driver wouldn’t let me on the bus!” We each fumed a bit, the light turned green, and the bus pulled away.

I wasted a precious minute trying to decide whether it was worth trying to catch a trolley or something. I figured their schedule was about as bad. Driving didn’t even cross my mind — it probably would have taken me long enough to park that it wouldn’t have helped anyway. If I’d really been thinking I would have walked around to the front of the hotel and hailed a taxi.

Maybe it was that I’d spent the day dressed as the Flash. I decided to run.

Dash!

I knew the route to get to the convention center. We’d walked it the previous morning, and it took about 25-30 minutes, so I figured if I ran part of the 1.2 miles I might make it.

View Larger Map

This photo shows roughly the first half of the route I had to take, from the Holiday Inn where I was standing, down almost to the water’s edge near that last tall building, then a turn to the left for about the same distance.

So I ran from the back of the Holiday Inn down along Pacific Highway. I passed a long block of dark, utilitarian buildings (warehouses? customs offices?). Their half-empty parking lots were surrounded by 12-foot-high chain link fence and gates labeled “This is not a gate” (seriously). I dropped into a jog or walk from time to time, and rested anxiously while waiting for traffic signals to change.

I didn’t see many other pedestrians, which might not have been a great sign. I seriously considered hopping a pedicab when I reached Harbor, but thought, “Oh, I’m close enough, I won’t need one.” And promptly got stuck at the next three lights.

Somewhere around the Hyatt I began to wonder if I’d make it in time, and when another pedicab driver came by and offered a ride, I had to ask.

“How much to the convention center?”

“10 dollars.”

“Great!”

I hopped in, and we took off at a much faster speed. Fast enough that, looking back, I really should’ve been worried about the fact that I was only a few feet from the asphalt with no seat belt. I barely had enough time to pull out my phone and text Katie to verify what room I needed to go to, when we reached the Marriott–

–and the bicycle chain broke. Or at least slipped off the gears. As if this trip needed any more obstacles! At that point, though, I was basically across the street from the convention center, so I handed the driver the cash, jumped out, and ran the rest of the way, pulling out my phone to let Katie know I was there.

I made it on time. There was even enough room that Katie had been able to save me a seat. And enough time to catch up…

Because that’s when I found out what had been going on on the bus.

Cranky

I, Katie, had an equally hair-raising, if less sweaty, experience. I’m filing it under “you get what you pay for” and hoping I never repeat it. I should have taken the hint from the departing passenger who remarked, “This guy is an awesome driver,” but his tone made it not entirely clear just how sarcastic he was being.

I got on the bus despite lack of Kelson, hoping that either he’d make it after I boarded or the driver would wait a few seconds if he saw someone running for the stop. No such luck. I heard the knock on the door at the red light, and along with everyone else did as much of a prairie-dog maneuver as I could manage, but couldn’t see what was happening. I had a suspicion that it was Kelson, which was confirmed when he called me. I told him that if I’d seen him I’d have asked the driver to let him on, but I couldn’t. I felt really dumb for getting on the bus in the first place.

Now, I’ve seen drivers of free shuttles, municipal buses, charter buses, and school buses let passengers board in odd places if it was clear to the driver that they just didn’t make it to the exact stop in time. And the bus in question was less than half full. To me, it didn’t make much sense from a service standpoint to deny passage to someone who could have boarded and sat down safely by the time the bus would be moving again. And, I admit, I was mad that the driver had pissed off Kelson. So I said, loudly enough to be sure he heard me, “That was my husband you wouldn’t let on!”

All I really wanted was to let him know he’d split a party, which most of the other drivers we’d seen had tried very hard not to do. I wasn’t expecting an answer, beyond a possible “Sorry” or “Hah, too bad.” However, someone had clearly emptied several specimen trays over this guy’s cornflakes, because he wasted neither time nor volume in responding.

“They’re called STOPS, lady! The bus STOPS at the STOPS and if you want to be on it you better be there! Don’t you yell at me! And if you give me any more trouble I’ll put you off right here!”

As this was essentially “STFU biatch,” I decided saying any more would just be labeled “trouble,” and kept quiet. But he didn’t. “If you can’t get on the bus, you don’t bang on the door, you wait for the next one! And if you have a problem with me I’ll gladly give you my card and you can take it up with Transportation.” And when I thought he was done, he went off again. I was a little shaken up by the violence of his reaction. Eight words that don’t include any curses don’t usually merit half a minute of haranguing someone you’ve threatened with substantive retaliation if they defend themselves. And dude, you’re a head taller than me and twice as big around. What kind of size do you think I need cutting down to??

When Kelson called back to report that he was making his way on foot, I answered in my Perky Customer Service voice, hoping the driver wouldn’t realize it was me. It was only as we got off the bus that I saw the observation mirror; apparently he did have a sense of what constituted “trouble” and what didn’t. He exited first, as the drivers always do (in the hope of tips, I presume, if SD shuttles are anything like Vegas ones), and announced loudly to a uniform-shirted woman standing at the curb with a clipboard, “There’s a lady on here with a complaint.” This must be Transportation. I hadn’t decided what to do until that moment, and I decided to make his characterization of me as a troublemaker look as wrong-headed as possible. As sweetly as I could, I apologized for being out of line when he was only trying to do his job, and assured him it wouldn’t happen again. He looked…confused. Which was a damn sight better than satisfied. I did consider that it was the “weak” thing to do, but what with the state I was in, I figured I wouldn’t give a very good account of myself in an official report.

Aftermath

Kelson again. Fortunately, the panel was worth it. Yes, “The Worst Cartoons Ever” were exactly what it said on the tin, but in that sort of train-wreck way that grabs hold of the brain with utter fascination.

We cleared out before Spike and Mike’s Twisted Animation and caught a shuttle back to the hotel — thankfully with a different driver (though we’d planned to simply ignore him and hope he didn’t pick a fight).

The restaurant was still open for drinks…but the kitchen had closed. They weren’t serving dessert anymore.

Costumes

For the first time in six years, we both wore costumes during the con. Back in 2003 we went as Riff and Gwynn from Sluggy Freelance. Since then, Katie’s picked one or two days to go in costume (pirate, Sylar victim, and Yomiko Readman from Read or Die), but I’ve stuck with shorts and a t-shirt every day.

So this year, on Friday, Katie repeated her Yomiko costume from last year (only without the trench coat), and I went as the Golden-Age (1940s) version of the Flash (a.k.a. Jay Garrick). On Saturday, Katie went for subtle, and dressed as Kate Austen from Lost.

Liveblogging

I did a lot of posting through Twitter and my other blog, Speed Force, where you can find write-ups of three panels:

• Thursday: Geoff Johns Spotlight
• Friday: DC Nation
• Saturday: DC Universe

There’s more running commentary on the posts tagged CCI 2009 at Speed Force.

Coming Soon

Over the next few days we’ll both be posting about the trip, about some of the panels we attended, and about interesting things that happened while we were there.

It’s located on the bay (of course), near the San Diego Maritime Museum where they have several classic ships permanently anchored and available for tours. If you happen to have an upper-floor room, the views are quite nice. (We were on the second floor, so our view was of the roof of the hotel’s conference center. It’s funny how quickly we got used to the sound of the air conditioner.)

It’s an easy walk to Little Italy (we went out to one of our favorite San Diego restaurants, Indigo Grill, on Wednesday) or the trolley, and on the convention shuttle route.

The rooms were nice, clean and spacious (absolutely huge, compared to the last few places we’ve stayed in San Diego). The bed was comfortable, and they had pillows with two different levels of firmness, so neither of us had any trouble getting to sleep. The hotel restaurant/pub, the Elephant and Castle, is quite good. There’s also a Ruth’s Chris Steakhouse in one tower, and a deli next door. And for those looking to save money on breakfast, the in-room coffee service is a single-cup disposable-basket setup, so that if you want plain hot water for tea or oatmeal, it won’t taste like coffee! Wireless internet access is complimentary, and easy to set up. Our room had locked doors to adjoining rooms on both sides, so a large group could presumably link together at least three rooms into a suite.

The only annoyances were:

Internet access during the convention was absolutely swamped. Sometimes pages just wouldn’t load, and the Flickr uploader actually gave up several times. This would have been less of a problem if I hadn’t been so determined to post photos and blog during the con, though at least with photos it turned out I could (usually) start them before going to bed and let them run overnight. The one night that it just gave up, I tried when we got up at 6 AM and they posted extremely quickly.

The bathroom had a sliding door that didn’t seal. Like the room at the Omni, it blocked light but not sound or airflow. On the plus side, it was actually big enough that we could brush our teeth at the same time.

Overall, though, we really liked it, and agreed that it would be near the top of our list when it came to hotels on the shuttle route. Though if possible I’d really prefer something close enough that we wouldn’t have to rely on the shuttle or other transportation.

It was the chair in our hotel room (the converted bank office with the impressive lobby). Fortunately it wasn’t nearly as scratchy as Viridian Dynamics’ “Focus Master.” (Incidentally: more Better off Ted episodes are starting up in a couple of weeks for the summer!)

Some graffiti on plywood in the Gaslamp District area:

And then there was this “You Are Under Surveillance” sign. Something about the combination of the sign, the stairway, and all the posters on the walls just looked interesting.

Historic San Diego

We drove down after lunch on Saturday and hit Old Town San Diego on the way in. (More Highlander Grog!) I could swear I don’t remember having trouble finding it before, but the last few times it’s been hard to get to even following a map. At least we managed better than we did in December, when we ended up several miles inland before we could find a place to cross the inlet.

I don’t remember much going on the last time we were there, but this time Old Town was in full-on living history mode, complete with tour guides dressed up in 1800s outfits and a horse-and-buggy ride.

I’d booked the Courtyard San Diego Downtown because it’s literally next door to the House of Blues. It took a while to negotiate the one-way streets, but once we arrived, we stepped inside and were blown away by the lobby. It turns out that the hotel used to be the building for the San Diego Trust & Savings bank. After the bank closed in the 1990s, Marriott bought it and converted it to a hotel. The vault, safe deposit rooms, and other rooms on the first floor became a conference center, and the offices on the upper floors became guest rooms. They’ve preserved as much of the old look of the place as possible, down to keeping the mail slots on the former office doors. (Don’t worry, they’re blocked.)

We ate dinner at Chopahn (6th Ave. near F St.), an Afghan restaurant we first visited during last year’s Comic-Con. It was empty when we got there, which I hope was just because we were there on the early side, because the food is great. Another couple arrived while we were eating, but they were the only people we saw other than the waitress. She had started pushing tables together as if they were expecting a larger party later on.

After dinner we wandered the Gaslamp district for a while. I kept making notes of where various hotels or restaurants were located. Eventually I realized I was basically scouting for Comic-Con next month.

Around 7:00 we made our way to the House of Blues.

Concert

That’s when we discovered that we’d been under a misapprehension about the nature of the venue. The only House of Blues we’d been to before was the one in Anaheim at Downtown Disney. It’s a big room with a stage, a balcony, and bars around the edges. I expect the main hall here was probably the same, but Butterfly Boucher was playing the “small room.” I assumed that meant a smaller room of the same type, but really it meant there was an 8-foot-wide stage in the dining area of the bar (the “Voodoo Stage”). Which would have been great if we hadn’t just had a huge dinner. So we ordered drinks, sat and talked, and eventually ordered some sweet potato fries and nibbled.

Note for next time: Arrive at the printed time, grab a table and order dinner there.

From the back of the stage to the edge of the bar can’t have been larger than our living room, and we don’t have a very big living room. It was like listening to someone play at a coffee house, only with better acoustics and most of the people were there to hear them sing. It was a huge contrast to the last time we saw Butterfly Boucher live, from the top section of what was then the Arrowhead Pond (primarily a hockey stadium).

The first opening act, Dawn Mitschele, played a half-hour set starting at 8:00, and the second, Derek Evans, started after about a ten-minute break. They both had a more country-folk sound, which kind of surprised me, since Butterfly Boucher is more rock. They’re both locals, and I wondered whether they might be following her up to LA.

All through the evening, teenagers in formal wear would come walking down the hall past the stage. It turned out that a high school was holding its prom in the main room at the House of Blues. At one point one woman in the audience (of two who did quite a bit of dancing later on) shouted out, “Hello prom people!”

Butterfly (yes, that is her real name) came out around 9:30, spent a few minutes setting up her equipment (including the loop pedal she jokingly referred to as her backup band) and tuning her guitar, then launched into about an hour-long set of music mostly from the new album — though she did break into “Another White Dash” (with an audience participation section) and “I Can’t Make Me” in the middle.

She clearly hadn’t expected to do an encore, but we all kept applauding, and she came back out to sing “Life is Short,” explaining that she hadn’t rehearsed it in over six months and might need help on the lyrics…

After the show we waited in line to meet her, bought a copy of the CD which she signed, talked to her for a few minutes and posed with her for a photo.

Nightlife

After the meet-and-greet, we headed down to the Ghirardelli shop. Ever since the one in South Coast Plaza closed, I have this thing where if I’m in a city with a Ghirardelli store, I have to go there. Neither of us was up for dessert, but they do have a wider selection of their chocolate than you can find in the grocery store.

As typical for a Saturday night, 5th Avenue was absolutely packed with people of all ages and levels of dress going to and from clubs, bars, and restaurants. We dodged over to 6th street on the way back up, but even then ran into a huge crowd around Sin Niteclub [sic] and the Double Deuce. Through the latter bar’s windows we could see a guy trying to ride a mechanical bull. Some of the women we saw walking around had given up on their shoes and were barefoot. Though walking barefoot on the streets of any major city doesn’t sound like a great idea, no matter how much your feet hurt. Eventually we made it back to the hotel.

Sunday Morning

Cafe 222 (2nd Ave. and Island) has quickly become one of our standard spots for breakfast in San Diego, at least when we’re staying downtown. Afterward we hit the farmer’s market (every Sunday morning at 3rd Ave. and J St. — take note, Comic-Con attendees) where we picked up some blueberries and cherries to bring home. Nothing much in the way of stores were open yet, and we had make it up to the LA area for lunch, so we checked out, made another quick stop at Old Town to look for a store we’d stumbled on last December, and got back on the road.

More photos at Flickr, mostly Old Town and some weird stuff in the Gaslamp area.

The weird thing about the phone reservation system is that I don’t actually know which hotel we’ve gotten yet. They took my name, contact info and top 3+ choices (I gave them 5), then handed the info to their processing center. They’ll call back (later, I assume, after the rush is over) to let me know which hotel I got. I do have a backup that I reserved directly, but the convention discount is significant, especially when you add up four days.

It was interesting watching commentary streaming by on Twitter (search for “comiccon,” “comic-con” or “comicon”) as people started out commenting, then complaining, and eventually celebrating (after about an hour) when they finally got through. Or really letting loose when the system dropped them.

Update: Got an email confirming our reservation. It’s farther out than the backup, but it’s ~$100 cheaper (over the course of 4 days – possibly more, depending on how much the other hotel charges for internet access) and there’s a shuttle. Now to weigh ~$100 vs. walking distance and figure out which room to keep and which to free up for someone else who needs one.

Cross-posted at Speed Force

This time last year, they’d already gone on sale and sold out.

As recently as three (or maybe four) years ago, they’d have sent a postcard by January. They used to include a full list of hotels in the winter newsletter with distance and prices. I could swear I remember them going on sale in January.

Of course, five years ago you could still book the Little Italy Super 8 only a month in advance. Now the discounted rooms are in such demand that they sell out in a matter of hours.

Like last year, they are only selling tickets in advance, so if you plan on attending, you should order them online.

We had lunch at El Fandango in Old Town, then wandered around the shops for a bit. By now we’ve seen most of the exhibits and museums. But the San Diego House of Coffee and Tea is a must-visit stop, if for no other reason than to pick up some Highlander Grog. We also grabbed some hot coffee to walk around with, since it was gloomy with occasional drizzling. (I later noticed a sign in the Gaslamp area that said “Umbrellas $9.95. When Raining, $19.95.)

They had set up period tents and wagons around the grounds, mostly in the courtyard with the flagpole made from the ship’s mast. One of the shops we visited was the mineral & gemstone store, which I’ve always liked visiting even back when I was a kid. And right up front, they had the hugest trilobite fossil I’d ever seen, around a foot long.

After a few hours, we drove into downtown San Diego and checked into the Omni Hotel. I’d never stayed there before, but it’s highly sought-after among attendees at Comic-Con because it’s right across the street from the convention center. Our room had a view of the end of the convention center, which will shed a little light on the size of the crowds.

The building at the lower right, with the sideways cylinder structure, is one end of the San Diego Convention Center, near Hall H. See that courtyard/sculpture garden between it and the Hilton? Imagine it full of people, in a long line snaking back and forth, waiting to get into a mega-major-media event like Heroes or Twilight.

A few notes about the Omni: The rooms and view are very nice. The staff is very helpful. The person arranging everything had set us up with late checkout, and I couldn’t remember what time it had been set for, but when I called, they just asked me what time I needed. Amenities are quite nice: there’s a DVD player, a well-stocked minibar fridge, a safe in the room, even a spare ethernet cable in case you forgot yours.

But there are some things that just don’t make sense. For instance: The bathrooms have no towel racks, so you have to set your hand towel in a clump on one of the shelves, where it won’t get dry. And the bathrooms have wooden blinds which can be opened to let in light — but they don’t close tightly enough to muffle sound.

Anyway, Sunday morning we slept in. The sun had come out, though it was partly cloudy all morning. I started out on a quick trip to Ralphs (10 minutes each way) with a sweater and jacket, had removed the jacket by the time I got back, and tossed the sweater when I got back to our room. When we went out to eat later, I just took the jacket, and as the sun passed behind clouds and wind kicked up and died down I kept wanting to put the jacket on, take it off, put on the sweater I’d left at the hotel, stick with the T-shirt, and so on.

I couldn’t help but compare the Gaslamp District today with the way I’ve seen it during conventions. It was a lot less crowded! We stopped at a Farmer’s market on Third St., where we picked up some fresh bread, raspberries, and a companion for a hair stick that Katie had found at a glass-maker’s shop near Old Town.

We caught a late brunch at Cafe 222, which we’d discovered this past summer. (Side note: your Flash-only website, however stylish, is completely useless when viewed on a mobile phone — even a modern one like an iPhone or G1. Have you considered putting at least your hours in plain old ordinary HTML?) I ate way too much, but it was basically two meals.

After brunch we stopped at It’s a Grind to pick up some coffee for the road and went back to our room, narrowly missing a parade if the signs on Fifth St. were to be believed. I took a couple of photos out the window now that the scene was better lit, then we grabbed our stuff, checked out, and headed back north.

1. Take the following Monday off. Comic-Con is not relaxing. Even if you don’t go out to parties every night, it’s still exhausting. It wasn’t so bad when we left early on Sunday, but the last two years we’ve stayed all the way to the end of the show. Two-plus hours of driving, plus a stop for dinner, meant we weren’t home until Sunday evening. You’re supposed to be a zombie at the con, not after you get home. It would be much better to take a day to sleep in and recover a bit. (Plus it would allow extra time to do things like sort through photos and post them quickly.)

2. Take the whole week off and make it a vacation. We missed maybe a grand total of 4 hours of daytime programming this year, and still didn’t catch everything we wanted to. (Admittedly, a lot of that involved choosing between simultaneous events.) That doesn’t leave much time to just be in San Diego, except for nighttime. It would be nice to head down the previous weekend and spend a few days as tourists. Maybe hit the Wild Animal Park or something. Then switch hotels on Wednesday and do the con. Certainly our trip to WonderCon earlier this year benefited from taking extra time to do other things.

It’s mainly the TV and film studios (except for the flyers), and it ties into something that author Robert J. Sawyer mentioned at his spotlight panel: Convention-goers are nexuses (well, nexi). We’re the people who are so into movies, TV, games, comics, etc. that we’ll put in the effort, time and expense to go to this kind of event, and we’re likely to talk about it. They’re counting on us going back to our offices or dorm rooms, hanging out with friends, blogging, posting on Twitter, or otherwise telling everyone we know about how cool this and that new movie is going to be.

In short: It’s an advertising blitz designed to kick off word-of-mouth hype, aimed at the crowd that’s both most primed to receive it and most likely to spread it.

With the massive convention floor and unbelievable crowds, they’re doing everything they can to stand out. So we get the viral marketing, like the ads for TruBlood, the Humans-Only Restrooms signs, the army of people in Quarantine outfits, the Neighborhood Watch–style sign for The Spirit. We get the swag. We get the celebrity appearances. We get displays of terra-cotta warriors to advertise The Mummy and replicas of the Owlship from Watchmen.

All that brings in more people, which of course makes the event more attractive to the studios, so they put in more effort, which brings in more people, and they start promoting movies that have nothing to do with comics, sci-fi, fantasy or horror, the genres that used to be the main focus for the con. (I remember thinking that Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle was an odd choice to promote at Comic-Con. This year, the sequel blended right in.)

The con seems to have reached an upper limit in terms of the number of people it can handle at the current venue, which is contracted through 2012. I wonder whether Hollywood will demand bigger crowds — which would probably be best handled by spilling into neighboring hotels — or be satisfied with the numbers it’s got.

But it got me thinking: What if it had happened during Comic-Con?

The quake was felt in San Diego, though there haven’t been any reports of injuries or damage, well, anywhere. Now consider 120,000+ people crammed into an already overcrowded building, many from other parts of the country who have never experienced an earthquake before and aren’t accustomed to them. Some of them would undoubtedly freak out.

Now imagine a hundred or so people in the middle of that Comic-Con crowd panicking and deciding they need to get out, now.

Yeah. I’m thinking stampede. Not a pretty thought.

I’ve only got the first page or so labeled for now, but the photos should finish uploading by the time I post this. I’ll fill in the captions and titles over the next few days.