Comic Con Day 2

I woke Friday morning and prepared to meet my friend. Bill was coming to SDCC as my guest. I put on the costume du jour, Captain John Hart from Torchwood. It's a series that spun off of Doctor Who back in 2006. Bill has a spot on Captain Jack Harkness, and I made a Captain John that even the actor who played the part was impressed with when he saw it0 at Comic Con 2 years ago.

I waited for Bill to call me and tell me where to meet him. He had to park first and during Comic Con that isn't easy. At Comic Con something happens. A $100 hotel room goes up to $300. Shocking? Price gouging at something that gets 150,000 people.

I met Bill and we went to get his badge. We wandered around looking at stuff and having our picture taken by Torchwood fans. When I wore the same costume last year I did not get the same reaction. Why? Because without Captain Jack, most people don't make the connection to Torchwood. So I just get mistaken for Adam Ant during his Ant Rock days. Side by  side you can see what I mean.


I think it's the jacket. The buttons and braiding confuse people. I don't have a stripe across my face nor do I have dangly bits in my hair. I also have 2 guns and a sword  but I left the Samurai sword in LA. Try to move thru the convention floor with a full size katana.

People kept stopping us and telling me what I already knew. John Barrowman the actor who played Captain Jack was signing at a table. I wanted to go by. Not to get him to sign something for me, but to have him look at the costumes and say they are awesome. Yep. I wanted validation. The first time we swung by the table the line was huge and there was no easy way to get his attention. So we wandered a bit more and then went by his table again. He saw the costumes and said, "Those are great!" He chatted with us briefly and said he was at Dragon Con again this year.

So I got validation from Barrowman and Marsters on the costume. Which is nice. Yeah. When you costume you think something is good and rarely ever get the people who wore the costume to look at it and say, "Good job."

As for specifi c things that happened, well, that was maybe the highlight of the day. It was cool to hang out with my friend and chat. We see each other about twice a year. So it's good to catch up on his life and what he's doing.

After he left around 6 pm I went and changed into civilian clothes and met up with Zack and Joanna again. We went looking for dinner. On the way we ran into Neville Page. He's one of the judges on Face Off . We stopped him just to say we like the show, but then he hung out and chatted for about 5 minutes. Which for someone who is well know to take the time out is very cool.  He was interested in us and what we were doing at the con.

After dinner Zack there was a party from one of the comic companies he works with. It was down the street from the restaurant. Problem was the party ended at 10 pm. We got there about 10:15. We were still allowed in, but there was virtually no one left. Zack talked with the owner of the company and we had a drink. It was fun, but we didn't stay long. The bar was being broken down and the employees were wrapping things up. 

I left them and went back to the hotel to go to bed. The panel for Film School was the next day. I need to be sharp.

Comic Con Thursday- Day 1

I woke at my friends house about 40 miles away from the convention center and proceeded to get on my way. Everyone works earlier than me so I showered, packed and set the alarm on their house and got on the road. I stopped at Vons and got a breakfast sandwich and some groceries. I drove to San Diego and went to the area my hotel was in. I stayed at the same hotel last year and know the few places you can park for free. I found a spot and took my stuff to the hotel. I couldn't check in, but I could drop the bags off and go on my way.

I went to the Marriott first. This was where the Film School was taking place. I have never actually seen the first day since I normally go down to SD on Thursday and arrive in the afternoon. So I sat and listened to Sean Rourke tell all about pre-production with the help of Jack Conway, Vera Vanguard, and Valerie Perez. I chatted with them a little bit then went off to find my friend Zack and his wife Joanne. Zack writes comics and had signings at the company publishing the comic he writes all 4 days.

We hung out and looked at stuff in the dealer hall. I left them around mid-afternoon and went back to the hotel. People had checked in and I was able to make a costume change. I made the new version of the Scarlet Spider recently and wanted to wear it. I like wearing costumes that make me anonymous. Spider-man or some derivation thereof is a great costume for being anonymous. But not great for seeing.

I wiggled into the costume and had the mask safety pinned to the body. In my haste I didn't quite get the finishing touches on it. Like snaps  to hold the mask in place.

 I called Zack and told him to meet me in a certain place in 30 minutes. I would not have a phone with me because, well, no pockets. And to carry a phone around ruins the costume.  I did learn that the gloves were thick and I was not able to use the touch screen on the phone anyway.  I went and wandered to the convention center. I waited around for Zack but he never showed up so I walked around. I could see well enough for when people wanted to take my picture. I would pose but I didn't go inot some of the typical spider-man type poses where your legs are around your ears or crouched on the floor. I'll let younger guys do that. Little kids were very excited to see spider-man. They knew the genre but not the character. Which is fine. I had my picture taken with lots of kids and some adults. After 3 hours or so I went back to the hotel to change. Funny thing about superhero costumes, how do they pee?
 
 After I changed I caught up with Zack. He left messages on the phone I told him I would not have with me, but we met up for dinner. We went to a Mexican place. I don't know the name. The food was good. Margaritas worked. After that we went to a place that was having a industry party. I was the one with the invite this time. It was thru Jack who I do the panel with, he was my hook up. We got to the club. he was working the door. I go this attention and he gave us wrist bands to get in. I thought we would get in immediately as VIPs, but we were directed to a line. It took about 30 minutes to get in the Fire Marshall was a real stickler for capacity. When we got inside it looked like the pictures below.

There were hot girls dancing on platforms to super loud techno music. They were wearing costumes from a video game I didn't recognize. Some apocalyptic first person shooter. And they had bits of steel attached to the costumes. In their hands they had grinders painted silver, apply grinder to steel and you get a shower of sparks. It made for a interesting show.  We found a place near the bar where we could watch the crowd and stayed there for an hour listening to the music and gyrating to the beat. Someone gave us glowsticks and we waved those around. Since we were not on acid the effect was lessened, but it was still fun to wave them ironically.

After midnight we left. I walked back to the hotel and crashed on the fold out bed in the front room. In the bedroom on 2 queen sized beds and an air mattress were 6 other people. 6. That kind of occupancy I had not put up with for years and years. We used to pack 6-8 people in a room and take turns sleeping ont the bed in some combination of people. Thank god I had the front room to myself.

Comic Con Preview Night

So I missed the entire month of July without posting. Oops.

I went to the San Diego Comic Con preview night. In the past this was an exclusive thing. It was meant for the pros and insiders and vendors. It was really exclusive.

Now, not so much.

I got there Wednesday afternoon. I got my badge and met up with friends. Because it was preview night and that started at 6 pm, there was milling about trying not to stand in one place for too long because security would come by and say, "You can't stand there." So we would move 30 feet and stand again. The LINE to enter was upstairs. Comic Con loves lines. Huge ponderous never ending lines where common sense would do something different.

We thought that they would open the doors at the front of the 1/2 mile long building and let people into the room. Nope. The line to get in is upstairs. And a mile long. So much for exclusive. Fine. "Can I cross over there 50 feet to go to the bathroom?" "No." "I can piss on your shoes."

So we had to go upstairs to the line that was longer than the length of Disneyland. Fuck lines. There are 50 door on the front of the building but we have to go thru a mile long line. As we were winding our way thru the stanchions, I noticed a guy behind me in line. He had ONE LEG and was going thru the line on crutches!

Are you fucking kidding me?!? This guy is obviously disabled and they make him go thru a long line? If I was him I would have gone to the security guards and said can I get in without going thru a mile long line? And when they said now I would call over their supervisor and ask if they ever heard of the Americans With Disabilities Act. If they said I had to go in the line I would pull out my phone and ask them to tell me that again, and ask if they cannot accommodate a one legged man. Then I would call a lawyer in front of them and sue their ass for 35 million dollars.

I am not litigious. I don't generally like lawyers and think a lot of things could be fixed with a fist fight, but this was a stupid situation. If I was a lawyer I would have given him my card and told him I'd represent him for free. Just to fuck over the ludicrous security at Comic Con.

When we got into the dealers hall we started looking around. I don't follow toys much and didn't know of anything that I might find cool that would be a limited edition thing. Zack did want something. But some of the rules to get things from the Hasbro booth were arcane. You had to stand in line to get a stamp on the back of your badge to then stand in line at the booth to maybe get the limited edition toy. Hell no. That was not going to happen.

I saw some cool things. But none were so cool I had to have them. There was only one thing that was remotely that cool to me. A Hulk statue from Sideshow Collectibles from World War Hulk. Brilliant. and 2 feet tall. I could put it next to my other 2 foot tall Hulk... But it was $600. And that made it uncool to my wallet.

After a bit I left and went to hang with a friend. I was staying at their house for one night. I had gotten 2 capes for his little girls. The bags from Comic Con all had capes in them advertising some project or another. I got the capes from 2 guys who were going to throw them away. Obviously because they are too cool to wear capes. The girls loved the capes and ran around in them until bed time.

My hosts went to bed and I followed suit. I'd see Bill on Friday because I was getting him in to the convention as my guest.

Day 1 tomorrow...