Comic-Con 2013 - Friday

Nokia 808 Pureview | It's not Comic-Con without lines

I couldn't sleep.  I tossed and turned all night. Too hot, turn up the air.  Too cold, get an extra blanket from housekeeping.  I maybe got 2 hours of sleep Thursday night. Finally around 5am I rounded up my buddies so we could get into the Adventure Time panel.


Nokia 808 Pureview | Summertime lovin, lovin in the summertime

We walked past the Hall H line and got to the Hilton Bayfront around 5:30am.  The line was about 100 deep. The end of the line was in a study/lounge type area with couches and tables.  I had a nice chair to sit in for about an hour until the hotel staff crunched the line.  A few minutes later, they cut off the line at 100 people, forcing me to go wait outside.  It was cold and breezy outside.  I didn't remember to bring a sweater this year, so I used the cape from my comic-con bag as a windbreaker.  It barely helped.  Luckily I was second in line so I kept going inside the hotel to warm up.  I was tempted to buy a sweater from the gift shop, but I balked at the $70 price tag.


Nokia 808 Pureview | Henchmen

They let us inside the Indigo Ballroom around 9:15 and the AC was blasting.  Yay, more cold.  The first panel was for Regular Show.  Lots of great montages shown.  There was a joke in the show about eating a 12 egg omelet.  It seemed like the breakfast burrito I had that morning had as many eggs in it.  Next up was Adventure Time, which was a lot of fun.  Donald Glover showed up for this panel, but not Community.  This was followed by the Venture Bros panel, which has never disappointed. 


Nokia 808 Pureview | Parking lot at Petco Park

Afterwards I headed over to the Wired Cafe.  Along the way, I stopped at Petco Park to see what was going on in the parking lot.  There was so much to see, yet so little time.  I only checked out the DC We Can Be Heroes tent.  Inside were a bunch of Kia cars with Justice League artwork.


Nokia 808 Pureview | The Justice League

I made my way over to the Wired Cafe and got some lunch.  I didn't catch any celebrities but I did see some cool telescopes from Celestron.  I left a little early to get my Batusi Batman from Matty Collector. That line moved pretty quick.  I dropped off my purchase at the room and took a break before heading back to the exhibit floor.


Nokia 808 Pureview | Friday cosplay

No luck at the Bandai booth, they ran out for the day.  I walked the floor and took bunches of pictures.  On the way back to the room, I managed to get the last hot dog from a vendor as they were closing up shop.  I took my hot dog to the con suite to get some free chips and a soda for a dirt cheap dinner. 


Nokia 808 Pureview | Power Rangers

Cheap food tip: cheapest hot dogs were at the Hilton Bayfront in front of the Indigo Ballroom for $3.  The vendor on the garage level at the Marriott is $5.  Upstairs at the Marriott bar, the hot dogs were $7.  I have no idea how much they were inside the con.  Never eat food inside the con.  If you exit the Sails Pavilion towards the marina, the convention center will have food for sale with some tables available.  Go past that and look for the elevator.  Go down to street level and there should be a regular food truck.  Freshly prepared food and good prices.  Best to find this truck for a late breakfast, lunch or early dinner. 


Nokia 808 Pureview | Adventure Time

Despite all the cool parties I signed up for, I went to bed early.  I missed out on the cast of The Amazing Spider-Man 2 at a tumblr meetup, free food at Joe's Crab Shack, giveaways at the Engadget party, the Geek and Sundry party and the Worst Cartoons Ever panel.  The biggest bummer was yet to come.

VOX Archive: Comic Con 2009

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.