It occurs to me that I have not told all of you about my epic and perilous journey to comicon yet, despite being home for about a week Overall, it was incredibly awesome, on the level of Anime Expo. However, Comiccon was good because the actual convention was better, not because of my skill at convention hopping. Which is good, because Anime expo really relied on me knowing what to do. This was my first comicon, and I had a wonderful time despite not having a bloody clue what to do
Oh yes, pictures can be found on my myspace
Rather than act like the know all authority on comiccon, I'm going to just go over the events I attended each day.
DAY 0: After a long moderately difficult ride to San Diego, the team arrived at the convention center. Parking was difficult, but God smiled upon the convention, and decided that the wait in line to get in would be a mere 10 minutes. I wad even allowed to attend preview night, although I did not have the proper ticket. Indeed, it was a glorious occasion where I was able to see a shopping center capable of eating Anime Expo alive. This exhibition hall was freaking HUGE! I was afraid my head would explode from all of the hugeness. Walking from one side to the other took like 10 minutes, and the entire place was filled with comic book stands, freebies, booth babes, a guy dressed as a giant pikachu, and everything a dork could want. Also, we got some preview night exclusive freebies. It was pretty cool.
DAY 1: Oh yeah, after day zero, we realized there was more to this convention than a bunch of exhibits. On this day, I donned the Yasogami high colors (see above cosplay), and traveled around as the Persona 4 main character once more. I was genuinely shocked that, aside from the shin Megami Tensei gathering at Anime Expo, more people asked me for pictures. We started by dropping off my friend in the line to get into purgatory.... wait.... oh, no it was the line to get in the Twilight panel, sorry. That was the scariest line I had encountered in my life. It extended around the convention center, all the way to a couple blocks away (see picture, but we couldn't fit the whole thing in one shot). Me and my friend the photographer went up to the person in front of the line and asked when they started waiting, and she said.... TWO DAYS AGO! Well, apparently Robert Pattinson and the cast to Twilight were there, so I guess it makes sense... I guess I'll compare it to waiting for Star Wars to understand it. On another note, my friend DID bring up a strong point about guys taking their girlfriends to that panel..... “Why would you take your girlfriend to go a see a guy she would dump you for in a heartbeat?”After that I traveled around the exhibition hall some more, and took picture, had pictures taken of me, gazed in awe at the 25-foot tall statue of Bumblebee from Transformers. I took pictures of the very awesome figurines on display.... all of them were out of my price range. They don't sale action figures for little kids at this convention, they crate them specifically for comic book-guys. I ended the day by seeing the premiere of the movie “Green Lantern: First Flight” This movie was AWESOME... but sadly I was a teensy bit late, so I only saw the end part of … wait for it.... The creator of the movie forcing the crowd to state the Green Lantern slogan! It sounded like a church chorus!. Oh, yeah then my friends placed like 5th in a Magic: the gathering Tournament. I guess all that money they blew on children's card games payed off in the end.
DAY 2: Ah yes, the day where I really comicon'd. On this day, I waited in the line to purgatory starting at around 9:00 AM, in order to get into Hall H (the big event hall) at around 12:30. Fun. Once we got in, I saw the disney panel..... Their doing some cool flashy stuff, and they announced Toy Story 3 was coming. On another note, Miyazaki himself was at the con (My friends at Expo were SO pissed that he went to Comicon instead of anime expo) After that, we saw some interview about “Legion” (Angels with machineguns, looked kinda meh) “9” (Post apocalyptic world run by vodoo doll people running from robots..... is looking AWESOME) and “District 9 “(Documentary about aliens living on earth and people defending their rights, getting violent... I'm SO seeing that opening weekend) After that came the Star Wars panel. Their apparently making a MMO set in the Knights of the Old Republic universe.... I'm on the fence here, I love the old republic more than the Original Trilogy, but I don't like MMOs. Also, they are releasing a expansion to Force unleashed, that expands on the darkside ending, where the apprentice goes and slaughters the rebellion. Sweet.
After I sat around and watched people announce things on day 2 (we camped in Hall H, and saw the big events) I decided to head on to the Klingon lifestyles panel, and watch some guys dressed as Klingons do a skit. It was hilarious, and the commanding officer changed 4 times throughout the skit. After spending an hour being a big trekkie, I decided to go be a Star Wars Nerd and see the Star Wars fan film awards. Never before have so many people dressed as Boba Fett been in the same room. That was pretty interesting, as I saw some neat videos, and saw a preview to the sequel to the Star Wars gangsta rap. My favorite fan made video was probably “Star Wars in a notebook,” but the votes said “Saber” was the best.
DAY 3: The last day that I spent at the con was pretty schweet. Not as good as the second, but schweet nonetheless. I actually did some buying in ye exhibition hall, took picture of more cosplayers, and then... well, my systems were overloaded and I hung around with the team for a bit. When I regained my stamina, I journeyed to the Venture Brothers panel (Where they mainly talked about cartoon penis) After Dinner, I ended comicon by going to Flynn's arcade. Yes, the Arcade from Tron. They recreated an arcade from the 80's just to promote the new Tron movie. Inside this arcade, there where arcade machines playing video games from Tron. Inside, they had an actual lightcyle from Tron. This was nerdy to the extreme, and was just about one of the best promotion I've ever seen. One of our teamates looked like he jizzed in his pants. Thankfully, we concluded comicon quite well
COMPARISON TO ANIME EXPO: Well, why not, I'll compare Comicon to Anime Expo. Comicon was bigger, that much was for certain. Comicon had better daytime programming, a better Exhibition hall, and better promotions. Comicon had better cosplayers, although Expo had more of them. Expo had some great cosplayers, but come on, Comcion had a Klingon that was assimilated by the borg. Expo did have it's strong points over comicon though. There was way better nightlife at expo, better panels, and it had a rave. Also.... uh.... the movies and anime shown at Expo was better. Well, if I prefered American Comics to japanese ones, I'd like Comicon more.... but Comicion was selling just as much anime stuff as the anime convention. I had slightly more fun at Expo, but not by a large margin.... but if Expo keeps going at it's current rate, I may end up likeing comicon more.
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Anime Expo 2009
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