This was originally posted to VOX on July 29, 2009
Comic Con 2009 has come and gone. It was quite an amazing experience. Here's a summary of what I experienced.
PREVIEW NIGHT
Not much went on for preview night. I spent the night browsing with my N97 tethered to my new at&t 3G account.
THURSDAY
The day started with walking the floor and scoring one of the big Warner Bros bag. I also got a Star Trek foam finger from the Paramount booth.
My first panel was The Middleman. This panel was a lot of fun with the whole cast of the show reading a lost episode.
I went on a wild goose chase to find an improptu Amanda Palmer performance, but never found her. I tried to get into the Psych panel, but didn't get in after 60 minutes in line.
I tried to get into Hall H for Avatar but was far too late. I did get to see a preview of Terry Gilliam's The Imaginarium of Dr Parnassus, which another in a long line of surreal and visually splendid Gilliam films.
Later in the day, I got to see the Green Lantern animated movie, which was really great. I'm a big fan of DC animation.
I then headed into downtown San Diego for a free metal show headlined by GWAR. My roommate got me VIP passes, so I could watch from the balcony and get free drinks.
FRIDAY
Batman: Brave and the Bold was my first panel. I sat next to writer Jim Krieg, we talked about local comic shops and I took a picture of him with his son. The panel opened with the BatMite comic con clip. Then showed the Music Meister episode featuring Neil Patrick Harris. EPIC episode.
I then checked out the Disney panel in Hall H and got to see some of their animation in 3D. The highlight of the panel was to see Hayao Miyazaki present his movie Ponyo.
I missed out on the TMNT25 panel. I did get to see the Marvel animation panel, but it turned into a snooze.
The DC animation panel followed, which was awesome with Clancy Brown and Kevin Conroy present.
Next up was a panel for the movie Stan Helsing. The movie was crap, but the stars of the movie were interesting, mainly Leslie Nielson, Kenan Thomspon and Steve Hewey.
The best part of Friday was the big animation block that started off with the WORST CARTOONS EVER. The highlight of this panel was a clunker called Rod Rocket, which featured Space Niggers with Russian accents.
Next up was the Spike and Mike Festival of Animation. It had some great stuff. This was followed by the Spike and Mike Sick and Twisted portion of the show. The climax was the new Dr. Tran short: Fruit Hat
SATURDAY
The day kicked off with a celebrity sighting. I caught up with Ryan McPartlin, who plays Captain Awesome on the show Chuck. He said my Nerd Herd t-shirt was awesome.
I went on to wait in line for room 20 and the Chuck panel. This was quite an amazing panel, opening with Jeffster performing Queen's Fat Bottom Girls.
Next up was a Seth McFarlane double shot of Family Guy and The Cleveland Show. The Cleveland Show looked pretty good and I'll be watching it in the fall. There was a great clip shown where Cleveland is trying to make his son more of a man, so he takes him to Comic Con and shows him how not to act.
Next up was the Matt Groening double panel of Futurama and Simpsons. Matt gave out lots of weird prizes to the questioners. A really well made Nibbler costume was a complete series box set encased in Bender's head. Others won a Homer Simpson doll signed by Seth McFarlane and a Peter Griffin doll signed by Matt Groening.
I then proceeded to wait 3 hours in line for the Venture Bros panel. While waiting, I had an epic Tetris DS marathon with some people seated in front of me. The Venture panel was a lot of fun. I was so disapointed missing it last year.
After wards, I checked out the Masquerade, which turned out to be quite boring. I checked out the Heroes Carnival, but that sucked as well.
SUNDAY
The day began with a Doctor Who panel followed up by American Dad. I walked the floor a bit and then attended the talk back panel.
This years chief complaints: Twilight ruined Comic Con, lines, the meeting rooms are too small and the security were rude, stupid and useless.
I took the train home and had a very pleasant ride. Looked out one window and saw the freeway jammed with cars while I looked the other way to see the sun set over the ocean.
I sat behind a producer from Psych and he showed an upcoming episode.
The final stretch of a bus ride featured a major geekout with all the guys next to me.
MOBILES
The N97 did its job as a twitter phone and media player while the N82 handled pics. Videos I tried shooting on the N97, but whenever I zoomed, it ended up looking terrible. What I really need is a phone with qwerty, xenon flash and optical zoom. Maybe I should just get a dedicated camera to complement my N97
Comic Con was a ton of fun and I already have my pass for next year.
