SDCC 2011 Day One

So! At long last, I am posting my Comic-Con blog! I'll try to remember all of the awesome stuff that went on, but no guarantees!

First of all, I'd like to say that Andrea and I definitely underestimated how busy it would be at the convention. It was a constant problem throughout our adventures, and we'll be sure to plan for the crowds in the future. On Thursday when we arrived was the first and possibly largest miscalculation on timing that we had. We got up and ready and took the shuttle to the convention centre at around 8:30am thinking we'd be early enough to get in line for our badges and be on our way in by the time it all opened. Turns out, there were already several thousand people in line, and we had quite the wait ahead of us.

The line was crazy, it wrapped almost the entire way around the convention centre and then doubled back down the waterfront walkway a significant distance. I don't remember exactly how long it took us to get through the line, but I'm thinking it was probably a couple hours at least. The one fun thing about waiting in line was the constant stream of people heading past us toward the end of the line, many of which were dressed in awesome geeky t-shirts or a wide variety of costumes.

Once we made through the seemingly endless line, we got into the building and followed the crowd to the badge pick-up area which was part of a massive tent-like room upstairs in the convention centre. We made it through the crazy mass of people, got our badges, and got our first bunch of free stuff: a giant comic-con bag, two books, and a lanyard to hang our badges on. We, unfortunately, got the Vampire Diaries comic-con bags, but as we made it through a couple of girls asked if they could trade us for our bags. Theirs featured Lego Harry Potter Years 5-7, so Andrea and I were all too eager to trade. Win-win!

The place was set up so the badge pick-up and autograph signing, as well as a large sitting area were all in this massive tent-like room which was on the upper floor and more-or less smack-dab in the middle of the convention centre. On either side of this room were all of the halls in which the different panels would be held. Almost the entire bottom floor of the enormous building was the exhibit hall where there were probably thousands of booths dedicated to everything from comic book stores, comic studios, web comics, graphic novels, to movie studios, television studios, toy companies, video game companies, and a whole artists alley. The other part of the lower level housed Hall H, the largest of the halls used for the biggest and most exciting panels.

We really had no idea where to start, so we explored the exhibit hall. It was crazy how many people were there. It was hard to wade through the crowds to see everything. We saw the Marvel booth, but there were so many people that we couldn't really stop and see it. We also saw a replica of the TARDIS sitting at a random booth, got our picture taken with Pikachu, saw some awesome Lego statues, spotted some random celebrities at the Fox booth, and just when we were about to leave the hall to check out some panels, accidentally found Felicia Day and the cast of The Guild, and got posters signed by the six of them. They were all really cool. I loved Felicia Day's comment about the posters, she pointed out that her character had big boobs and said "that's all the artist" as she covered her chest.

We had made an attempt to check out one of the panels earlier in the day but soon realized that we'd miscalculated the lines to get in once again, so we made sure we were extra early to get into the Marvel's Next Big Thing panel. There was a Batman panel before it that we ended up making it into, but I really wasn't overly impressed by it. I'm not a DC comics fan. The only part I actually enjoyed was the sexy Scottish accent from Grant Morrison.

The Marvel: Next Big Thing panel was a lot more interesting. Alex Alonso, CB Cebulski, Greg Pak, Jonathan Hickman, Nick Spencer, Daniel Way, Steve Wacker, and David Gabriel were all on stage with moderator Arune Singh. They talked up a lot of what Marvel's got coming our way over the next while, some of which excites me, some of which doesn't. There was talk about the Hulk, and an upcoming Villains for Hire book, and stuff with the FF which all was interesting but they're not really my favourite Marvel titles. What WAS exciting was all the talk about what's coming in the Ultimate line of books, which as prompted me to decide to start collecting all four titles spinning out of Ultimate Fallout. Tlhere are also some new Avengers origin stories coming down the line, and some change-ups happening with Avengers Academy which have me thinking I might just have to start picking that one up again. There wasn't much else to offer, but they did give away a free Hulk comic book which is kinda cool (except I don't really like the hulk...).

After the panel we explored the exhibit hall for a while longer and I got to see Jeph Jacques! My favourite web comic creator! Except there was a giant line. And there was a huge crowd around the Rooster Teeth booth (which Andrea really wanted to see) so we gave up and headed to Hall H to check out another panel that seemed interesting. On our journeys through the convention centre Andrea kept seeing celebrities that I somehow managed to miss. While waiting for the Marvel panel earlier she spotted Jon Heder, but I missed him. I did see the guy who played Pedro, though. And then while wlking through the Exhibit Hall she spotted Bruce Campbell, but I totally missed him. We walked RIGHT BY him.

Te end of our day was spent in Hall H watching a panel featuring a couple of famous directors, John Favreau and Guillermo Del Toro. The one big thing I got out of it? Guillermo swears like a sailor. And there was some awesome exclusive footage from Cowboys & Aliens. It was pretty interesting, although probably moreso to Andrea than to me.

After the panel was over, the convention was closed for the day so we headed back to the hotel to relax after a crazy day. It's actually crazy how tired we were that night. Comic-Con is tiring!


Disclaimer: I am a terrible photographer so please excuse the awful quality and/or content of the included photos.