Comic-Con post 1

Wednesday night (July 23) came around, and I found myself extremely excited. Not only was my best friend and her husband in town, and not only did I have a lot of friends going to Comic-Con, etc. etc…

…but because this would be my first full-on experience with the convention.

I have only been once before, a few years back, but I didn’t really get to check out much since I was there for only a day and only to help artist Alex Pardee sell merch at his booth. This year, I would have my time to check every booth out and visit some panels.

Wednesday night, my best friend Alicia and I treated ourselves to a nice Italian dinner, followed by quite possibly the largest piece of chocolate cake I have ever had in my entire life:

(and no, we didn’t even finish half of it… and I don’t even think my roommate Angie finished it either when we brought home the leftovers)

Thursday morning, Angie and I took off in a separate car. Now, for future reference, everyone should check out the news and traffic reports before they head out. Why? Because we made the mistake of not doing so and got caught up in the worst traffic ever.

(At one point, we nearly ran out of gas in the middle of it all, and the closest gas station was to go 15 miles backwards. See all the traffic on the left? That’s what we had to be in.)

Apparently at 5 AM, a Vons meat truck had gotten into an accident with an SUV. The meat truck flipped, and both vehicles caught on fire. We had left Hollywood at 7 AM… and were making good time up until about 8:30 AM when all of the ridiculous backed-up traffic on the 5 began. What should have only been a two and a half hour drive.. ended up being about a 10 hour drive instead. This caused us to miss the The Day The Earth Stood Still/Max Payne and Red Sonja panels that we had originally planned.

We parked in the street and rushed over to the convention center to check in and pick up our badges. Now, since I had never done one of these panel things before, I thought, “Oh, we’re only 45 minutes before the Dexter panel. I don’t think the line will be toooo terribly bad.” Boy, was I wrong.

The line wrapped around the room, and once we got there, security informed us they were at capacity already and there was NO way we were getting in. Bummer. However, at least this now gave us time to start browsing booths, as well as visit some friends.

I made it a point to stop by the War Machine Entertainment table to visit Ro and Jodie, as well as the Level 27 Clothing/PRA International booth to say hi to Steve.

There were a lot of really cool collectables and models on display, but the ones I was looking forward to the most to see were the ones from the upcoming Coraline flick (an original Neil Gaiman story):

(Coraline poster)

(model of Coraline’s “other mom”)

Something else really cool that I saw were these Joker playing cards and Poker chips:

and Indiana Jones made of Legos:

Somewhere in all of the madness, I randomly ran into my old friend Adam Lawson… who I haven’t seen in a good two years. Turns out, he had a booth with a movie he helped produce. Needless to say, it was really good to see him again.

As the booths closed, Angie and I headed out to Ballroom 20 to wait in line for both the Star Wars Awards and the Lost Boys 2 premiere.

Right before the Fan Awards begin, Gerard [McMann] (for those who don’t know who he is, basically, he is the original singer/songwriter for the Lost Boys theme song, “Cry Little Sister”) calls me to inform me that he’s finally made it in, is checking into his hotel real quick, and will be right over for the premiere. Halfway through the premiere, I see him walk by and find a seat somewhere in the middle. After the Fan Awards were done and some people started to clear out, I grabbed Angie and snuck up beside Gerard. We caught up since it had been quite some time since we’ve seen each other and watched the film together.

After the film, there was a small Q&A session with the cast and crew of the film. Jamison Newlander and Corey Feldman came out in character as Alan and Edgar Frog… which I personally found slightly amusing. From there, I said my goodbyes to Gerard and headed back to the hotel to meet up with Alicia, Mikey, and good ol’ John Rivera & Nick Destefano (of Heartbreak Comics) to call it a night.

I will write up an actual review of the movie in the next few posts, for those who have asked me for my thoughts and opinions…

Also, if you want to see more photos I took from Day 1, you may view them here.