Comic Con 2012

Okay, so my annual Comic-Con post is tragically late. I beg your forgiveness! Oh wait, no one reads this. Crisis averted.

Anyhoo, this was a weird year at Con for me. I didn't get a four day pass, I actually didn't get any passes in the first couple of sales. I got very lucky in that I have a great friend (Rey Guerrero, who is a mensch, a champ, and a lifesaver) who happened to be in possession of a guest pass that he was happy to give to me. Which, as I've said, makes him a mensch of the highest order.

So I went out to preview night with my good buddy Peter, and walking into the convention hall felt a lot like coming home. The dull roar of the convention floor, the sights of all the cosplayers and exhibits, it's a different combination every time, but it's still familiar. This was my sixth con, and each time I find more and more to discover. For the second time at Comic-Con, on Preview Night, I ran headlong into Mr. TJ Tallie, which mostly served to remind me that for an event with about a hundred thousand people in attendance, you can still just run into people you know.

On Thursday I went down to catch W00tstock 4.0 with my friends Dave and Katherine, which as ever was about the funniest five hours of my con. Featuring the usual cast of ne'er do-wells, it featured a couple new faces that I hadn't seen before, and who were ludicrously entertaining. One of these new faces was Joseph Scrimshaw, who made me laugh so hard my abs hurt the next day.



On Friday I milled about downtown for a while, checking out a lot of what I call 'con-adjacent' events. A particularly fun one was the exhibition of all the Batmobiles over by the Hilton. These ran the gamut from Adam West's jalopy to Christian Bale's tumbler, and it was pretty awesome.

Later that day, I wandered up the street and right into the middle of a zombie walk. A mile long parade of zombies, striding down 5th avenue. It literally did not end, I kept trying to go against the tide of made-up, blood smeared people. Some of them were very well done, some of them were, well, less so. It was still an impressively sized spectacle. And I was also struck by how in-character some people were. A little too convincing, sometimes.

I then proceeded to the Nerdist Podcast Live for the second year running, and got to watch my favorite podcast crew riff, drink, and be incredibly profane. As much as I love the usual cast of Chris Hardwick, Jonah Ray and Matt Mira, their guest, John Barrowman, really stole the show. Mostly by telling the dirtiest stories, drinking like a fish, and molesting the cast and several members of the audience. So, in essence, a great show, which you can hear the podcast of, if you're so inclined.

On Saturday, I headed downtown to soak in more con-adjacent stuff, one of which was the superhero art exhibit at Michael J. Wolf Fine Art Gallery. Every year they have some manner of superhero art up, but they had some pretty excellent art up this year, including this Batman portrait.

Later on I wound up linking up with my roommates Lucky and Debra to check out 'The Walking Dead: The Escape' event at Petco Park. Essentially an obstacle race through the park, but with ZOMBIES! It was a lot of fun to watch, the zombies were really committed to being scary, grotesque and didn't lumber too much, but picked some strategic 'choke points' and managed to tag almost everyone who went through.

Following that, I actually headed back to my house and then walked over to the Ruby Room, a local bar/venue to catch a nerdcore hip hop show featuring MC Frontalot. It was pretty excellent, for a couple of reasons. One, I've been a fan of his for about 5 years now and have never seen him live. Then, during an opening act I'm leaning against a pool table, having a beer, and glance back at the guy who just leaned against it a few feet away and it's MC FRONTALOT. DUDE. I mean, I didn't say anything to him or anything, 'cause I don't want to fanboy, but that was awesome. The music was awesome, it was great to see him perform live after listening to his albums so many times. The second reason it was exceedingly awesome was the interstitial performances between musicians being Star Wars themed burlesque dancers. Sexy Boba Fett, Sexy Stormtrooper, and of course, Sexy Slave Leia. So, you know, that was pretty excellent.

Sunday I went back to Comic-Con proper, the exhibit floor. I actually saw no panels this time around, I literally just walked around and tried to soak in as much of the cosplay and booth fun as possible. One of my favorite booth displays was Geek Chic's, as it featured fine, handcrafted wooden furniture & faux weapons, with an eye towards gaming tables and paraphernalia, which I would totally get if I had several thousand extra dollars lying around. The cosplay was also excellent, as you can see below. The lady Dr. Who cosplayers are really becoming a staple at Comic-Con!

All in all, it was a great con. It was my Nerd Christmas, and now I just have to wait and try to stay on the good list until next July.

Comic-Con 2011

Well, it's been a while, I should probably report in.

Comic-Con this year was a blast, as usual! The highlight for me was, as ever, walking the convention floor. The cosplayers were out in fine form this year, but my personal favorite was a mash-up of Darth Vader and Super Mario. It's a complete non sequitur, but that's why it's so amazing.


I also came up with a terrible game to play on the convention floor, which I called 'makeup or skin condition'. I make no excuse for how terrible that is, except I actually had back to back moments of genuine confusion, where I realized that one person actually had fake blood on their face, and not rosacea, followed immediately by making the converse realization about another person. Again, I'm sorry I'm occasionally the worst person. It happens.

My favorite part, however, wasn't strictly a Comic Con event, it was rather Con-adjacent. It was the ever-hilarious, nerdy and moving W00tstock, as put on by Paul and Storm, Wil Wheaton and Adam Savage. The guy who rather stole the show for me was Patrick Rothfuss, the author of two of my favorite fantasy novels of the past couple years. In the video below, he reads an old advice column he wrote for his college newspaper.



So imagine if the whole show was that funny. For four hours. That's W00tstock, people.

Another Con-adjacent show that blew my mind was the recording of the Nerdist Podcast Live, with the normal Nerdist crew plus Wil Wheaton, and then the guests of honor Matt Smith and Karen Gillan, known for their roles on a little TV show known as Dr. Who. The part where my brain exploded was when Wil and Matt started discussing how it was to pilot the Enterprise and the TARDIS. NERDGASM. You can find the whole thing here! Sadly, I did not receive a TARDIS burrito from Matt and Karen after the show. Still, well worth it.

Something that's always been a big part of the Con for me is the swag. I could probably get most of the same stuff online, piecemeal, but this lets me do it all in one go. Plus, it lets me meet a bunch of artists and writers whose work I admire greatly. This year was a pretty minimal haul, but I'm pretty stoked about it.


True to form, I bought a lot of comics! Clockwise from top left, I bought the Questionable Content book (the last one he had!), Amulet Book One: The Stonekeeper by Kazu Kibuishi (whose work I've always loved in the Flight collections), Neil Gaiman's Neverwhere, the latest Penny Arcade collection, Orc Stain by James Stokoe (probably the weirdest comic I've read in ages, but it's a hoot), and the second Astonishing X-Men collection (signed! But since the signature is illegible, I don't know who by). Okay, I'm done abusing parenthetical statements, rest easy. The print is the cover of the Japanese edition of the first Scott Pilgrim book, the shirt on the left is a Dr. Who joke on the NASA meatball logo, the middle one is a Game of Thrones bit of swag I got in the redemption room, and the tanuki plumber shirt on the right is from Sam and Fuzzy via Topatoco. Come to think of it, that's actually a lot of swag. So it was a good year!

Finally, the thing that really made my Con this year were my friends. Or rather, the fact that I have friends, and rather more than I thought. Hanging out with Dave and Katherine and Ashok one day, then Raymond the next, then Peter, Hillary, Ruth and Kiana the day after that, and then my dear old friend Thomas who rolled down from LA, I was reminded of the fact that this is not an event to do alone, as I've previously thought. Con is an event that is always enhanced by the company of the people you attend it with, and I'm grateful that I had so many people to hang out with. Oh, and dressing up as Sherlock Holmes was awesome too. Pics to follow.

Anyhoo, this is my Sunday crew as we were rolling out on the trolley. Can't wait for next year!