jamesewelch

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My days at San Diego Comic Con 2010

By jamesewelch 2 Comments

At Comic-Con (or even at grocery store), I have a habit of starting on one side of the building and walking through every aisle to make sure I don't miss anything. So that's kind of what I did at my first day here, until late in the afternoon when I was just zig-zagging around and walking back and forth.

One of my first stops was at the California Browncoats booth. I bought a Jayne knitted hat and Firefly t-shirt (Slim's spaceship shirt). I was invited to a Firefly flash mob on Saturday after the Chuck panel, but when Saturday came we found out that there was over 6,000 people in line in front of us and there was only 4,000 seats/places. So we gave up on that...  

As I was methodically making my way through the aisle, I stopped at DDS booth to look at some GI Joe displays and saw a tiny paper sign that said Larry Hama was a few booths down. To my surprise, I hurried there and found him sitting there without any crowds. After I got there, I realized it wasn't an IDW booth or comic shop booth, so I had to run back across a few aisles to IDW and pick up another copy of GI Joe: A Real American Hero #156 (I had just purchased one copy on Wednesday, see my review on it here). After finding the issue, I had forgotten where he was at and it took me a while to get back to that tiny booth in the middle of nowhere to find him. Once I found him for the second time, he autographed my issue and we talked a bit since there wasn't a huge line forming. Larry Hama was very nice and as a GI JOE:ARAH fan, I told him how glad I was that he and IDW were able to relaunch/continue this series that had been dormant for 15 1/2 years. This was an extra bonus to my "to do list" at Friday's show. I think that moment turned my day into a GI Joe day since I ended up finding a few other GI Joe:ARAH books on my "want list."  

About an hour later, I was through some more aisles and, I saw some guys heading down the main aisle wearing Comic Vine shirts. I had seen one guy (I think Riezner) when I was hurrying back to Larry Hama's booth, but this type there were 3 guys so they were easier to stop. It was kind of strange, but the first person that I spoke with was @Sora_the_key (CV "intern"), who we had just been talking on our blogs the other day. I think the other guys were actual staff members Ethan and ??? (sorry don't remember name). We chatted a bit, I picked up my Comic Vine shirt and headed back to my aisle walking. There's a lot of walking here...

As I was chasing down the CV guys, I saw Stan Sakai. I meet him last year at SDCC 2009 and picked up an autographed (Fantagraphics) Usagi Yojimbo #1. This year, I talked with him again and picked up and autographed (Dark Horse) Usagi Yojimbo #123 (nominated for Best Single Issue or One-Shot Eisner award, didn't win the award). He's a super cool guy. I'm starting to wonder if all of the comic book writers/artists are just really cool...
 
Then I found the Image booth and wandered through that booth. They had a big booth for Image United, but I didn't see any big names there that I recognized. I would have loved to have asked Todd what's taking so long with the next issue... I did find Jason Howard ( Astounding Wolfman) sitting next to an empty chair for Ryan Ottley ( Invincible). I picked up a copy of Sea Bear & Grizzly Shark #1 and got his autograph. Later, I returned when Ryan showed up and had him sign it also. Both guys were nice too. Ryan had a bunch of people wanting sketches that took forever to draw and halfway through a sketch, he stopped to autograph my issue. Both of these guys were also really cool to chat with.

As I was walking through floor, I had wanted to get Brian Michael Bendi s autograph, but the Marvel autograph lines were a bit large. I showed up about 30 minutes early for Bendis' session and found him walking around the booth. Only a couple people recognized him, so I stopped him and chatted with him for a bit. He's another overly friendly guy. I don't know how these guys put up with all of the fans like me (us). As a new forum member of Bendis' web site, I knew that he was secretly giving out free Scarlet #1 variants, so I asked for one and he pulled it out of his bag. This was great, because I had wanted the first issue, but my LCS had sold out before I got mine (I forgot to add it to my pull list there). Now I have something to read and a story about how I got the book.

Later in the afternoon, I stopped by Action Figure Xpress and picked up the SDCC 2010 exclusive X-Force minimates ( Cable, Domino, Deadpool, and Feral - Rob's characters). There I got into line to wait and meet Rob Liefeld. Of course, there were lots of Deadpool fans in the line and Deadpool himself showed up (there were like a dozen or more Deadpools at the SDCC, but only one guy had the fake muscles which made it look okay). I meet with Rob and he autographed my X-Force minimates box (it only thing he was signing that day). He was also really cool and talked with me a bit as another fan fumbled with my camera to take a photo of us. I know Rob is a polarizing figure, but honestly his New Mutants and X-Force run were some of the first comics I ever bought and they were the first comics that I had actually subscribed to the series. The other comics that just happen to pick up were more random titles, since we didn't have a LCS in my town when I was a kid (I had to shop for comics at Walmart, the pharmacy, and swap meets).
 
As I was walking around, I saw a copy of Mass Effect: Retribution - that didn't come out for another week or so at a book (novel) shop booth. I asked about it and they said they were allowed to sell it at SDCC and that Drew Karpyshyn was going to be there signing it later today. Drew is the lead writer for Mass Effect, wrote 3 ME novels, lead writer for SW:KotOR game, and a few Star Wars novels. I picked up ME: Retribution and World War Z (Max Brooks was signing on Saturday, but I missed that). About an hour later at the autograph session, they gave me free copy of Mass Effect: Revelation while waiting in line. I got to talk with Drew and he personalized autographed both copies. He was also very friendly and very nice.
 
Later that day, I attended my first panel which was the Marvel Avengers. Matt Fraction, Brian Bendis, C.B. Cebulski, and Joe Quesada. They talked about the Avengers, Secret Avengers, Avengers Academy, Cosmic Avengers, and New Avengers for about 15 minutes and then answered questions for the remaining 45 minutes or so. This is where they revealed Red Hulk was going to be a new member of the Avengers.

It was getting late by now and I had already missed the beginning of the Comic Vine meet-up, but I figured that I should stop by and say hi and thanks to them. I ended up getting there and finding the group, but nearly everyone was already finished eating and the table was full. So I just said hi and thanks to Tony (@G-Man) and headed on home to rest.

The only thing that I had wanted and didn't get was to get Bendis to autograph my Scarlet variant, but he's a busy guy and the lines were huge to get his autograph and at the panels.

As far as shopping, I'll leave out the non-comic purchases - like my new Jayne knitted hat. Oooo shiny :)  
 
I've already uploaded all of the cover scans and book info where data was missing. I don't think I missed any.

Comic list (SDCC 2010 Exclusives)


Purchase Comics with Autograph

Other Comics

Freebies (or 1$)

Most of the Freebies, I didn't even know what they were until I got home. The booths were just passing them out. Of all of these books, I have only read 2 of them (GI JOE #156 and Steve Rogers:Super Soldier #1), so I have a ton of reading to do now and review writing :) Also with 2 new novels to read, hopefully, I'll be able to finish them sometime this year.
 
This is my 3rd SDCC in a row and I'm very fortunate to live in San Diego, so I just need to buy the tickets and not worry about lodging and travel. Overall, I think this was my best year so far. I went for 2 days, my first day was my geekfest and my second day I spent with my girlfriend/fiancee. One the first day, I met most of the guys that I wanted to meet and bought most of the comics I wanted to buy. I found a few on my "want list" in stock in the numerous comic shop booths, but the price was a bit higher than I wanted to pay. If I had more energy, then I would have went through more bins and more shops there, but that really needs an entire day devoted to back issue shopping since there's so many shops there and so little time.... The second day was a little bit more relaxed and just mostly wandering around looking at stuff. We picked up some freebies and got to meet SyFy Eurkea's Colin Ferguson in person (found him walking the aisles). We chatted with him for a little bit and had some photos. I saw some other TV guys walking on the floor and for the most part, nobody was bothering them until a few people recognized them and started taking pictures then a crowd would form and they would need to get out of the way. Tried to get in line for Adam Baldwin autograph/photo op, but that line was just amazing long.
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