San Diego ComiCon 2006  − 19 July, 2006

For me, this was by far the best ComiCon ever. Even better than the Comicon when I saw a movie with Darth Vader. Better than running a booth in small press and being a panelist on stage. This year, my goal at ComiCon was simple: take as many awesome pictures as possible.

The person who made the con experience so incredible for me is my boyfriend, Remy, a freelance journalist who is one of the most talented writers I know. He had been covering the convention for several years for various sites, and this year was conducting interviews (both audio and video) for Popcultureshock. Camera in hand, I went along as he spoke with some of the biggest names in comics, previewed movies and new tv shows, and experienced a bit of local history in the making.

I was shooting pictures mainly to be sent to Comic Book Resources, Anime News Network, and the Weekly Geek podcast. I'd just gotten a Canon Digital Rebel XT for Anime Expo, and was excited to be using it at ComiCon. I'm really proud of my photography at the Con this year.

Wednesday I went to work with Remy, which for me was awesome cuz I like doing stuff like that. I got to meet a lot of his coworkers who I'd heard so much about. We then got on an Amtrak train for a scenic and entertaining ride to San Diego, joined in part by about a hundred silly-hat-wearing Del Mar Racetrack enthusiasts.

I hadn't been to San Diego in a while, so it was really refreshing to pass my old work (Zoovy), see the sparkling beaches, and even watch familiar hillsides scroll by. We arrived on time Downtown, and took a shuttle to our hotel. Brick Mickasso, creator of AACMAW, was staying with us, so he met us at the hotel as we settled in.

Soon after, we wandered to the Convention Center, and after a zero-person wait in line, Remy and I had press passes. We went to the deli in Horton Plaza (i had sushi!). We bought a camera bag too because I'd banged it against a couple things and dropped it that day already. Then we went back into the convention hall.

The first thing I noticed was that there were more cosplayers on Preview Night than I'd seen before. There weren't really that many, but the fact that there were any suprised me. Preview Night was for saying hi to people and finding toys, so we went down our list of places we needed to go to, and started buying stuff. Top on our list were the Dharma trading cards from Lost. We oogled lots of toys at Diamond, McFarlane, Lego, and Hasbro, and picked up the new Clerks graphic novels at Graffiti. We ran through artist's alley to say hi to people, too.

There was a press screening for a french movie called "Renaissance" that Remy and I attended. It was a sci-fi story that featured bleeding-edge animation. Actors were equipt with motion-capture, then the models were flattened to a 2D animation that had an elegant Sin City feel to it (but more like reading the comic). All of the sets were virtual, and the views of Paris and a rainstorm were some of my favorite parts. It's an amazing film that I hope does well in the United States.

Thursday we got up pretty early and wandered the con floor saying hi to people. I suck at recognizing people.. sometimes even people I know. So Remy was pointing out who I should get pictures of, which totally rocked. I was getting really awesome pictures cuz of him all week :) We went to the Rosario Dawson panel, which was pretty awesome, since she was talking about Clerks II and how she got into comics. Soon after, we went to the Marvel Civil War Panel. Earlier I met this really enthusiastic Italian artist named Simone and got some really great shots of him. At the Civil War panel, Simone went up on stage with Jeph Loeb as it was announced that they'd be working together on Wolverine starting at issue 50. I couldn't get them lined up right on stage for a pic, so Remy suggested I find them after they left the stage. I got an awesome picture of them that ended up on CBR as they were leaving the room, and Simone remembered me from earlier.

I have a sketchbook full of penguins, so I got Jim Mahfood to draw one for me! It turned out soo awesome. We wandered the floor a bit more after that, then Remy and I met up with David Hine to head over to a Chinese place called Red Pearl Kitchen.

We walked in, and there was some sort of Naruto party going on, but we were led to a darkened booth in the back. The place was so awesome looking. The food there was super yummy too- totally recommend checking the place out. Mark Guggenheim and Greg Pak joined us for dinner. All were writers that Remy had interviewed over the past year, and all of us had a really wonderful night. We spent like 20 mins trying to figure out *exactly* what a chocolate soufflé was. Our crew headed over to the Marvel Vault Party next.

I should have remembered that there was a club in San Diego that was an old bank. The party part was upstairs, and downstairs was a vault with Spiderman guarding the door, perched atop. There was a line, and you couldn't bring cameras in. Inside the vault were toys that hadn't been released yet. There are definately some awesome looking toys that I need to buy soon.

We arrived as they were playing a large chunk of the Ghost Rider movie (looked awesome). A girl walked by with a platter of sushi. Yay! They played a trailer for "who wants to be a Super Hero" which featured Man-Faye shaking his ass. Amplify that with a giant projector screen *shudder* So of course, we had to explain who Man-Faye was to everyone. Stan Lee stepped out on stage so I got some incredible pictures of him. Then they played a clip from Spiderman 3 that had a lot of Bruce Campbell in it. I got a shot of the Sabertooth actor before we went downstairs to check out the toys.

By the end of the night, everyone had homework assignments. I forget who got what but Buffy, Battlestar Galactica, and Lost were deemed "must-watch."

Could ComiCon get any more amazing? Friday morning Remy, Brick, and I went to the Hellboy Animated panel. I've never read Hellboy or seen the movie. I want to see this animation. There are Japanese folk tale ghosts in it (unless I’m remembering it wrong and mixing it up with something else). The clips we saw were beautiful, though the voice acting on the girl bugged me. I heard it’s the same girl as from the movie, but I didn't think it matched the cute animation on the screen cuz she sounded really really bored.

We wandered the con floor some more, and Simone did a beauiful portrait of my penguin backpack, Pedestrian. We took pictures of a Robin and a Thor whose only action pose was a knee to the groin. Remy interviewed Tad Stones, the producer on Hellboy and I took lots of cool pictures. We got some awesome Hellboy shirts.

Next up was the panel for Heroes, another project that Jeph Loeb is involved with. It's a tv show about superheroes that from the pilot, looks simply amazing, and I can't wait to watch. It's made by NBC (I work at NBC Universal) so I keep hoping that maybe when it hits DVD they let me do webstuff for it! They wouldn't let press in, so we hopped in line with Heather and Ross (Flippersmack writers). The place was packed.

The pilot was really really good though. I think my favorite characters are the doctor, the asian otaku, and the crazy artist guy. The Q&A was really entertaining, but even better was a press conference that Remy and I were able to go to afterwards. He ended up interviewing half the cast! I totally can't wait to hear these interviews- I was listening in to some of them and they sound awesome. While he was doing that, I was running around the chaotic room getting some of the coolest photos I'd ever taken. My favorites from the whole con were from this room. I took pics of Remy interviewing tv stars. Some of the closeup shots made him look like he was on tv. He had video for most of the interviews too, and these were the first video interviews that he's done. I hung out with the asian guy and talked about anime in America.

After that, we wandered around on the floor and at TokyoPop there was a girl playing Mario on a keyboard. She was part of Video Games Live. My camera started flipping out, but it turned out to be me accidently hitting the timer button. I'm still not used to the camera. Remy figured out how to fix it.

Next, Remy and I headed over to the Palm resteraunt, a pretty fancy place where artists draw on the walls. Most of the art is by a house artist. They asked Marvel to have some pieces on the wall as you come upstairs, so John Romita Jr and Sr, and Billy Tan (X-men artist) were all there drawing. This wasn't well attended by press. Aside from me and Remy, there were three people from Fanboy Radio (fun people who do a comic book podcast.. Remy listens to it) and three other press people who left early. So somehow I was the only one with an SLR camera present. It was amazing, hanging over the balcony and watching great artists at work. John Romita Jr drew Captain America, with his dad watching from the balcony, calling out to him. Billy Tan drew Wolverine. Then John Romita Sr. drew Spiderman. He messed up on the webbing and was fairly upset, and ended getting wall-paint to erase the line later. It's a lot different drawing on a wall when you're used to paper in a studio setting. I got some amazing shots, and after the event talked to their PR person. They ended up sending my photos out to a handful of San Diego newspapers to potentially be printed. The thought that kept running through my head is that if ComiCon ever moved cities, this art will be there as long as the resteraunt is there.. and that it would be really cool to come back in like 5 or 10 years and say "I was here when they drew this."

There was a Marvel dinner scheduled after the painting, and while we were waiting for John Romita Sr to finish, Shola from Popcultureshock showed up with a video camera. Remy interviewed Billy Tan and John Romita Jr. People started coming into the area for the Marvel dinner, and most were people Remy had interviewed before. Oddly enough, most of them didn't know each other, so he started introducing them. Greg Pak was there, as were the Knauffs, and Simone. Remy and I got introduced to Joss Whedon, who mentioned that he liked my hair. yay!

It was hot outside, and Remy and I walked back to the convention center, text-tagging Brick til we tracked him down to the stairs outside. We walked around a bit looking for food, and ended up in a lounge restaurant called Visions that took a billion years to bring our food. I got a cherry encrusted salmon atop purple potatoes that was amazingly yummy. Brick got a strogranoff. Remy had raw fish for the first time when his Ahi tempura turned out to be seared. I hadn't seen the place before so I think they're pretty new.

Saturday was the day where we actually had less "scheduled" stuff to do. I didn't make it to the Lost panel in time, so I met Remy at the Viper booth to say hi to Javi (Middleman creator), then we wandered the con floor. It was getting fairly claustrophobic and crowded. We went up to the "Cup of Joe" panel, and I hopped into a couple of the anime panels to take pictures while that was going on. Afterwards, we caught a shuttle bus to Sony Online Entertainment's corporate offices (SOE), where they were hosting the SOE Block Party. It was 20 mins away, out by Miramar Airforce Base. I used to live near there, and had always wanted to check out the SOE offices. The party mostly took place out in the parking lot, where they had shaded structures with computers demoing all the MMORPGs, including the much anticipated Vanguard game. If you had like an Everquest 2 account, you could login.

It was so hot that the computers kept overheating though. There were free burgers and hot dogs, as well as the yummiest brownies ever. There was a dunk tank where you could dunk the president of Sony Online, and other employees. There were also tours of the offices. They pretty much look like any IT office, except that most people had toys on their desks and there were gaming posters everywhere. It was pretty big, split into three buildings. The marketing floor kept their lights on, but the web and programming floors were kept dark.

After the tour, we went back to the con. We got in line to see the new Teen Titans movie, and Lark Pien and Brick found us. I loved the movie. It took place in Tokyo and was really funny. Remy wasn't feeling good so he went back to the hotel, and Brick and I headed up to the Sails pavilion. We met up with Orion (Flippersmack writer and the old manager of Mile High Comics in Anaheim). When the Masquerade started and I realized it was a lot of people up on stage spinning in circles, we went to the Masquerade press photo area and hung out there. Even though I had a press badge, I didn't sign up to be there so couldn't get very close. There were some stunning costumes this year. My favorite was a mech that took multiple people to put together, that was probably made out of cardboard. The person wearing it had to climb into it from a chair and have all his limbs put on.

Towards the end I wasn't feeling good, so Brick and I went to Ralphs. I got some rolls so I'd have some to bring back to Remy, and got deli meats and cheese. I tried the new Diet French Vanilla Cherry Pepsi and totally loved it, though by this point was burnt out of drinking soda. I took some medicine and felt a little bit better, so we headed over to the Hyatt.

I took pictures of some cosplayers on the way, and when we got there ran into Tommy Castillo and Chris Moreno. A girl with a penguin bag took pics with me and my penguin backpack. My friend Royce found us so we hung out a bit, then we said hi to Sharon from Golden Apple Comics. She introduced us to Brian Pulido (creator of Lady Death). Brick finished his overpriced beer and we took a taxi back to the hotel. Sunday morning was spent packing. I could barely fit everything into it. I got a lot more swag than I'd anticipated- free shirts from the SOE Party, Toy Vault Party, and Hellboy panel. We had amazing Spiderman 3 lithrographs printed on fancy handmade paper. SOE gave us lots of game demos. Between giveaways and stuff I'd bought, I had a good sized stack of comics. I also bought a Satanic Chicken from Jon (Goats) and a pixel penguin shirt from rstevens (Diesel Sweeties). I'm glad that I usually save my shopping for the last day, because I wouldn't have been able to get everything home.

We got to the con and Remy interviewed the director of the French movie we saw, Renaissance. It was a roundtable style interview. There was a girl from Rotten Tomatoes there, and a guy from some cartoon website. Remy asked the coolest questions though, and it was fun to listen to.

We went down to the con floor and I tried to pick up some copies of the Maddox book for my friends, but they were completely sold out. Plus there was a line to say hi to Maddox. ComiCon is pretty huge but that suprised me. We got more sketches for my penguin book from Billy Tan, Kevin Altaire, Skottie Young, Greg Pak, and Paul Jenkins. Paul Jenkins didn't want to draw at first but I showed him the penguin that the writer from Aria did and he relented. We hung out at the Marvel booth, and met up with Popcultureshock. Remy interviewed a couple people, then Popcultureshock sent me around small press to get people to do short introductions to their books on video. That was really really fun. I did my first one with my friend Rafael from Sonambulo, because I was really nervous. I got the hang of it after that.

ComiCon has always been one of my favorite times of the year. It has a very family reunion feeling for me. I love running around and seeing old friends, and checking out what they've been up to. I love the bustling energy and life that the convention holds, and as tired as I was by the last day, it's always sad to see it end. The other comics and anime conventions can't compare to the insanity and pure awesomeness that is ComiCon.

Comments:

jcolman (September 18, 2006. 05:31am)

Am super-jealous that you went to this and it's great that you had so much fun. I'm a huge "LOST" fan (and I like comic as well) and as I watched videos of the event and caught some of the coverage on "Attack of the Show", ComiCon just seemed like a great, high-energy event. Thanks for sharing!