San Diego Comic Con - The Past Strikes Back

So in my previous post, I talked about my journey to Comic Con. Let me give you my account of my adventure there. I won't do this in chronological order or anything.

The first important point I want to make is this: San Diego Comic Con has very little to do with Comic books, despite it's name. The convention center is massive, with gigantic booths, towering displays and tons and tons of vendors. Those that actually sell comic books is quite minute. For those that know me, I am a bargain hunter for comic books and everything else is secondary. To learn this first had was the most disappointing thing for me.

The comic book panels themselves are not really full. The big halls are reserved for TV and movie events. Some comic book based, but this convention is more about pop culture in general. And video games. Video games had such a huge presence there. I was able to go to Nintendo, Xbox, Sony and Sega events to play games while I was there. Not that I'm complaining. ALSO, we went to a free video game music concert, while really cool (did I mention it was free) had zero to do with comic books.

This little complaint pales in comparison to the one gripe I have that every con goer knows about, but the general public does not. You wait in lines...a LOT. If you are looking for exclusive items, you're waiting in a line for three hours. While waiting in one of these lines, I had plenty of time for self reflection. As in, "I'm standing in this long line for the right to BUY something." I still stood in that line, but that's beside the point. We really wanted to see go to the panel for Psych, one of our favorite TV shows. We stood in a line for about two hours and didn't come close to seeing that panel. We ended up getting out of line and doing something else.

After each panel, they don't clear the rooms out. So what happens is a little bit of gamesmanship. To get to the panel you REALLY want to go to, you try to get in as early as you can to a panel you don't care for and just sit there until the next panel starts. This is seriously a thing. I didn't want to waste my first comic con playing the odds on this. It would cause me to miss out on so many other things.

My last bit of complaints is this. It is really crowded there.

This is just OUTSIDE the convention center

We're talking, shoulder to shoulder crowds at some point. If you don't like big crowds, this is not the place for you. I just hate slow moving people and crowds is that. That's where my frustration comes from.

For all the complaining I'm doing, I really did enjoy myself. I enjoyed the spectacle of it all. The dealers room was really cool. In a rare thing for me, I kind of let myself go and treated myself. I bought most things that interested me, knowing that I would not find some of this stuff later. Mostly because I would have forgotten when I left. I didn't just shop for myself. I picked up various items for all my friends as well. It wasn't just about me. 

I did get to see a few of my favorite artists. I got to chat with Jim Cheung a little bit and bought a few pieces of art from him. I did get to go to a few panels, including a retrospective on "Who Framed Roger Rabbit" which I really enjoyed.

The costumes at this convention are top notch. The best of the best show up for this. It's very easy to be impressed with what you see.

I got to play a lot of cool video games. This was right around the time the Xbox One and PS4 were about to be released, so there was a couple of rooms rented out in nearby hotels to try and grab gamers. 

At the end of the day, I just also like being around a bunch of nerds like this. I'm in my element here. However, this was a once in a lifetime chance and I got to do it. I really don't want to put myself through this again any time soon.