San Diego Comic-Con 2007

Note: this is a play-by-play recount of my one-day visit at Comic-Con, so if you're easily bored by these kinds of things, you need to lengthen your attention span :)

It's come and gone, and it's taken me forever to write about it. I'm not a convention newb, and because I've ridden public transit applenty I figured that I could get by at San Diego Comic-Con just fine. Hah!

I drove 7 hours down from San Francisco to my grandma's in Oceanside. Driving through LA is unavoidable, and unless you know where to stop, you don't want to. Being as that I was driving alone, I couldn't take advantage of the luxurious carpool lanes :evil:

It took me about 45 minutes of searching about 5 different websites with my grandma's AOL DIALUP connection to figure out which commuter train I had to take to get down to the convention center (Coaster).

I show up at the train station the next day, and there are no signs telling which machines are for the Coaster train or which platform it's on. Following some nerds in Naruto cosplay finally yielded results. I finally get on the train and get settled in, and start falling asleep and drooling all over myself. Yes, that was all part of my costume.

I finally get down there, figure out which trolley I get on. I'm surrounded by Pirates of the Caribbean watches and Spongebob backpacks, but thankfully the ride is short.

The pre-reg line doesn't open until 9:30, but I figure that I'll go up there already.

Maybe it's because of where I live, but I should have been impressed by the size of the place. It took about 10 minutes of walking and going up escalators to get to the pre-reg line, and they were already letting people in! I got my badge at 9:00, grabbed a $7 breakfast of pretzel and Coke, and set my butt down with all the other butts of various sizes sitting outside the panel halls.

After devouring my flour and sugar, I made my way into the art show. I honestly breezed through it - I found kyrn's art right away, and glanced at some really cool Ouija boards etched from wood and what looked like granite. Some stuff was really good, and some stuff was really really bad - like Tupac tribute art bad.

Bored with that, I called up my con-buddy and I guess woke him up. I stood in line with the throngs of eager fanboys (where were the girls?) and one of them started hitting on me. Thankfully the line started moving...and I walked down the wrong hallway. Oops. I had to go downstairs and through some turnstiles to get into the exhibitors' hall.

I started at the far-right end of the hall. I was hoping to find some figurines that I had found at Fanime last year, but didn't have any luck. I cut through to the Small Press area of the hall, then cut over to the Udon table and met Jen_C. She is so cute! I unloaded some OCAD books on her, stuttered out some words and scurried away.

While waiting for my friend, I saw Lou Ferrigno sitting at his table, all muscle-y and stuff. At long last my friend got there and we tried to sit down and plan out the day...tried. We finally agreed to go see the American Dad episode-reading panel later that afternoon.

Fast forward through much walking single-file through throngs of con-goers, through lunch and to the American Dad deal. It was so hilarious! And even though the line to get in seemed incredibly long, it was easy to get decent seats. Note: get seats close to the exit doors, so you can escape quickly. Also, don't bring your f'ing babies to the panel! Christ!

During my trips (literally) through the exhibit hall, I picked up a weiner dog toy which I am too embarassed to have a photo of yet, and an Evil Icecream. I also picked up a copy of LavaPunch 2, the only comix I bought for myself. I bought my grandma a Roy Rogers comic. My budget wasn't low by choice, but I just didn't feel like carrying around alot of stuff.

Trying to get out of the place and back to the train station proved to be a the most trying part of the day. I couldn't figure out which trolley to take, and ended up missing the earliest Coaster train. I had to wait an hour and 45 minutes for the next one, and didn't get back to Oceanside until pretty late. I was finally able to hit the pillow close to 1am.

All in all, I had a great time. I'm somewhat glad that I was only there for a day this time. Next year, I may go for 2 or 3 days, depending on how much guilt my family will lay on me for not staying with them instead. Tables are too expensive and my connections are horrible, so that's probably out of the question for next year.

Oh, and I forgot my camera ._.