rorschach

AND this year is the first year I ever decided to take picturesmy camera is a low end junker, albeit in new condition, but I never like to lug the thing around except in special cases. But, all of the times Ive ever brought it out, the batteries died so fast so that I got 0 to maybe 10 pictures a time.


But this miraculous device, put out by Duracell, made it all possibleit comes with and charges 4x AA rechargeable super-long lasting batteriesin 15 fucking minutes! The thing has its own built in fan (like a CPU) evenand the whole thing cost 40 bucks at Best Buy, including the batteries!

So basically, from now on, I will be taking more pictures when I go places. Thanks to my training with my pro-photographer pal, Im a competent picture taker, meaning I can tell what I fucked up later.

Speaking of miraculous, I think a big reason why I had such a great time was that each day I drank a 5 Hour Energy shot right after breakfast. There were so many instances of where I kept walking, kept moving on the floor of the dealers room and then ran into some amazing situation. I think normally I would have just sat down to rest. Personally I think that anyone about to go to a busy con should drink one; it really makes the whole experience better. When Im tired, I get grumpy and it put me in a much more likable mood when chatting with others.

We were staying at the Marriott, right next door, which is like a 3 minute walk. This is the view outside when I woke up that morning

A cool Alex Ross banner ofwella character who needs no introduction.


This one is for _smurfzilla_


Aisle 5000, aka, Artists Alley. Most cons have maybe a dozen rows. Anime Expo, the biggest Anime show in the world, had maybe twenty. ComicCon had FIFTY rows. I bet in a non-recession year, they could easily sell a hundred rows worth of booths. and thats just the dealer room, it doesnt count any panels, game rooms or other side events or parties




My booth in aisle 800, I know, I knowugly-ass handwritten signs Best thing about having a booth, other than the badges having a safe place to drop off and store any loots and other equipment (like that battery charger).

Broadsword Comics, my old pal Jim Balent, of whom I've been a fan of for almost twenty years, and his gorgeous wife Hollygolightly. They took the time to pose for me even though they were in the middle of setup. just so cool. Shes showing off her mini-figs, hehe. I bet I got the best shot of the conI need to remember to send this pic to them. This ones for comixbookgurl


The booth across from usas you can see the entire rack is full of high end Golden Age books. If you are that serious of a collector, this is the one show to be at.


Cute manga-esque Marvel girlspardon my shitty flash. I stooped lower to shoot this so the bright spot would be lower in the imagethe room is dark on Wednesday so I had to use the flash.




Other random statues and suchI was able to diffuse the flash well on these shots. And due to decent composition, you can tell what each booth is.


See the empty booth on this one? Imagine its a normal day and 100 heads, posters sticking out, hats and other nonsense in this photo, covering up everythingimagine a totally crooked shot too as some dumbfucker bumps in to me, haha.

Eddie Allens booth, he does vintage lenticular (yes, I busted out that word) portraits that look like old portrait photos of your granny; then, as you keep moving, they changegruesomely, into a wolf, vampire, zombie, skeleton or some other delightfully ghastly caricature. Its very Disneyland Haunted Mansion-esque. I love this stuff and have ordered online from him in the past. (That's not Eddie there, BTW...he's on the other side of the wall unloading merchandise from a box.
www.hauntedmemories.com



Some awesome statuesand Im not into statues at all. Again, pardon the flashI was going to take pictures earlier but couldnt and by the time I got back, there were a lot more people and they had placed the plexiglass cases over everything.


I LOVE OWLY!!! I was stoked as it looked like Andy Runton was going to be therebut then I came back the next day and I couldnt find this booth again. I think they took everything off the table or something. Oh well, something to look forward to for next SDCC!




AVATAR and various Iron Man suitsvery impressive. On the later days of the con, this booth was so full that they had to regulate people coming in and out so pictures could be taken. Stan Winston's booth, FYI.

I met the hip artist Mitch OConnell for the first time, here he is signing some books for me.



Dice, dice, baby These guys make geek gamer dice setsout of precious stones and metals! I bought a couple of sets and will show them off in the next blog with all of the other goodies I bought.


Best costume of the shownormally I feel bad for the poor sap in the suit but he had a cute girl taking him around and you could tell by the way he was posing and stopping for every photo that he was having just way too much fun being Sock Monkey.


Again, had to take several shots from different angles to move the flash.

Ecto1!!!! Forget about taking this shot when the con is open to the public.


Not sure what this is, maybe Fathom? You can see all of the people crowded in shotI deliberately left this one un-edited so yall can see the contrast between Wednesday before the con and then during the con.
By this time, the floor was open for Preview Night, which by the way is a total misnomer as everyone is selling already. Its more like the first night of the con.

On The Way Back
I had to go home Wednesday night and spent most of Thursday looking for a hotel room between LA and SD or finding some way to get bussed there to the con. I decided in the end to take my own car as it gave me way more control and the trunk of my Infiniti is very secureit cant be opened unless you have the key, even if youre inside the car.

I got luckyTWICE. I was able to find solo vacancies from last-minute cancellations on two nights. It was probably the only reason why I was able to go on Friday and SaturdayI didnt plan ahead on hotels initially because I didnt decide to go to SDCC until about a month away. And although I was able to stay Tuesday night (and thus be at the show on Wednesday) in a relatively empty room, the rest of the nights we had like four people already in the room who had booth duty.


While driving from LA to go look for a hotel room on the border of SD, I saw this carthis is a shot from inside my car. Keep in mind this is still a good two hours away from the Convention Center. (Its pretty coolreminds me of The 3 Geeks comic. BTW, I bought multiple copies of said book for the GGS crew. Its a MUST READ for all US comic fans. ) Also notice the dipshit in front of me breaking while Im trying to take this shotwhile theres very little traffic

Walking to the show, saw the Sock Monkey couple again as this time I was right behind them; evidently they are staying at the Marriott too, where I went to get my breakfast. I got in super-early that day to find a parking spot, driving half the distance of LA and SD from the lucky hotel room I got on the border of SD. Mission accomplished, parking-wise, although it was $24 bucks a day.


This is Rich Kowslowskis booth at the Artists Alley. He draws one of my all time favorite US books, called Geeksville or The 3 Geeks. Its about three kids growing up in the 90s as hardcore comic book fans, progressing in to the modern day. I told Rich his book is SO GOOD because the humor in it is so true. He agreed with me but I wasnt sure if he was just humoring me because I was dropping a bill at his booth, hehe. Ill show off what I got from him in the next blog.


There were a lot of steampunk and a lot of zombie girl themes throughout the con. Steampunk isnt that big of a deal to me and Im not turned on by zombies at allIm more of a succubus/vampiress kind of guy. But my stance on the zombie-girl thing might be changing thoughis it wrong that I was turned on by a statue of a dead girl??
Also, please notice the difference in the two pictures the left was taken first and was just walking face-to-face; the second was me crouching, shot upward. Big difference, dont you think? The shots arent nearly as good as I like though as I couldnt get much distance from the piecethe hallway was just too crowded.


OMG!!! One of the best, best women in manga ever! I totally didnt expect her to be at this showJunko Mizuno!! She basically invented the cutesy goth Japanese style that is so prevalent now. Ill show more of her work in the next blog but this was a shockand her line only had like five people in it. This is at the Last Gasp booth.
Check out the shot on this one. Rather than shoot her straight on like a normal person, I went all the way around to the right, got down and shot from above and thus got her name into the shot.

The view from the terraceevidently theres some comic called Scott Pilgrim and theres going to be some sort of movie I was out there enjoying lunch near the Magic room, hoping to bump in to a certain someone named Squeak


While in the room, I took a picture of the foil rare sheet from M11 that they had displayed as a prize. The pic is at an angle to deflect the flash, keeping the light from reflecting off of the foil surface back in to my lens. One thing to learn from looking at the sheet, there is two of every rare and only one of every mythic rare. That not only means that mythics are twice as rare (obviously) but that its really easy to get doubles of the same rare in the same box. In the old days, the rare sheet was smaller and you got the rares in a box in the same order as was on the sheet.

Also in the room was this super-creepy dude in a rabbit costume (I like creepy, the costume was also very adorable...it was just strange how he stared at two little kids playing cards, haha). I asked him if I could take a picture and he said sure, but when he said it, the mouth of the costume actually moved with his jaw! Thus in the pic, you can see some pink in the mouth as I asked him to say something. Right after I asked him, like five other people who had been just sitting there suddenly got the nerve to ask him for a picture as well. (Im guessing its Peter Rabbit or something?)
In the Magic game roomwas hoping to see Squeak there but I didnt catch her. I was going to try to play her Magic with my bad deck (its all foils though, and quite a few expensive ones, hehe) and lose on purpose, then give her a small gift as an ante prizebut it never happened.
What did happen though was that I managed to play some cool people, newbie players but still very nice, including an Onslaught sealed deck for fun.

My pick for favorite costume of the con! I didn't take many pictures of people in costume because I'm really picky about how much work goes in to an outfit. But the player, the outfit, the character...I dunno, maybe I fell in love for about 1 minute.


This one's for Kemper


Aaliyah Love, my new pal posing for me at our booth. That guy off to the side there is Ron, one of our best workers at the shop.

First, I finally did get to meet Kemper! Ironically, it was not me finding her out on the floor, it was when I went back to my own booth and just sat there, she ran by. I had to recognize and chase her down quickly as she was like the 50th pretty redhead I had seen at the show. I was able to recognize her by the Artoo head on her shoulder! She stayed and talked with me for a good 20 minutes, which was really generous since and I was a bit starstruck to say the least. I must have shaken her hand like five times and like a bonehead I forgot to take her pic. She was carrying her big camera that she's mentioned in her blog many times.

And, of all the people in the world, I got to meet Richelle Mead who is my favorite author right now. She's not even in the comics industry so it was a trip to see her there! Just amazing...and I had stumbled upon her line by accident and got the last ticket available for her signing! BTW, she was drop-dead gorgeous too, also a redhead.

Also, I had the most interesting conversation with Jim Balent on the second time I visited the booth. It's odd, I think the two have some sort of dynamic where one person is always nice to the booth visitor while the other one is just there...the first time I visited, Holly was all excited to see me and stuff. The second time, Jim struck me up and chatted in earnest about...what I was working on?