Comic-Con Diary 7: Saturday

Michelle and I let Anita sleep in on Saturday morning while we went over to sell swag. Sales were decent - they topped Wednesday, but Thursday and Friday had been significantly better. Foot traffic in the dealers' room was brisk, but it wasn't turning into sales. Generally, the weekend is spent by many of the guests in panels and pursuing celebrity appearances, so I wasn't surprised.

Since we got over to the convention center earlier, I took another crack at the toy exclusives. This time, things went swimmingly - the Mattel ticket table (in the autograph area) was almost completely deserted, so I snagged my allotment (the ticket lasts for two hours - mine went from 9-11AM) and headed downstairs. I think I was only in the line for a half hour or so. I happily discovered that once you were at the counter with your ticket, you could get all of the exclusives if you wanted them (rather than having to get a ticket for each toy). I snagged a Justice League Unlimited Giganta figure set and one of the Cars Lightning Storm McQueens.

Anita was able to savor a hotel waffle, joining us later on - I had my sandwich for lunch, and was preparing for another run through the dealers' room when who should appear but John Landis! I'd met him a few years ago at a San Francisco screening of An American Werewolf in London and invited him to visit the studio. He gave such a good talk that it set a new benchmark for visiting lecturers - he's still mentioned as one of the best!

He's a Comic-Con regular, but he had an extra-special reason to attend this time - his wife Deborah was presenting her new book, Dressed: A Century of Hollywood Costume Design. We exchanged hellos, and he 'berated' me for not having seen his latest film, Mr. Warmth: The Don Rickles Project. D'oh! He took his leave after a couple of geeky pictures, and I began another round of shopping and picture-taking. My camera was still battery-bereft, so I borrowed Anita's here and there. I did pick up some more toys, but the specifics have slipped my mind.

Anita went to watch Karen rehearse for Red Fraggle's Sunday appearance, and I wandered up to the Acme Archives Ltd. booth, promptly running into David Silverman and Mike Anderson, long-time buddies from my way-back stint on The Simpsons (season two)! Who needs celebrity panels?

Unfortunately, Mike had to bolt, so David and I caught each other up on our recent mischief. Acme's Lisa McLain and Chris Jackson had been chatting with David earlier - so we all began talking, and Chris mentioned he was a fan of my work, and would I be interested in contributing to Acme's line of custom, limited-edition Lucasfilm-inspired art? Well, yes!

Leaving David, I floated over to pick up Michelle and meet Anita over at McCormick & Schmick's for dinner. We were gathering there to celebrate Karen Prell's birthday, which we did in grand style! The Skellys joined us, as well as several more of Karen's puppetry friends. Mr. Silverman was going to join us, but sadly missed our group and wound up fêting elsewhere. The food was great and the conversation was lively - I was going a little hoarse from the week's relentless gab, but it was lots of fun!

I was so tired from the demands of the convention (and the previous late nights of blogging) that I collapsed without writing anything. More tomorrow about three days ago!

Comic-Con Diary 6: Friday

Things started off on a hectic note this morning. I overslept, so Michelle and I rushed to get to the convention center in time to set up the table for the opening crowds. I forgot my badge, so I had to cab it back to the hotel, then back to the center again! Rrrrghh.

The crowds outside were crazy - I wove my way through them as best I could until I got bogged down in a mass of people outside door D. If you've seen the sequence in Empire of the Sun where Shanghai is being evacuated... well, a little like that. I don't do all that well in crowds, so the oppressive mass began to get to me. Fortunately, I realized that the crowd was primarily guest-tag wearers, so I slipped out and ducked into a far less congested door just a little further down.

Mattel has a couple of convention exclusive toys that I wanted, so after checking in with Michelle, I headed over to their booth to see if I could snag a Giganta figure set, or maybe the Lightning Storm McQueen. It took me a little while to realize that there was a single line for two purchasing stations, but I found the end of it and settled in. To their credit, the Mattel folks repeatedly announced that you would need tickets to purchase any of the exclusives - and that required waiting in yet another line in the autograph area. It was certainly better to learn that at the end of the line than at the register, but I decided it was too late in the morning to wait in two lines for toys that might still sell out (for the day) before I got there. I bailed and went back to the Red Window table. Maybe tomorrow!

Anita definitely needed more dealers'-room-wandering time today, so I manned my end of the booth and Michelle helped Scott and Bill out until Anita arrived. Sales were still good, though the older, cheaper T-shirts continued to outsell the new version (I think the bright orange was a great design idea - it allows the beaver to be printed on the shirt with only two colors - but bright orange clothing may have too much of a prison-jumpsuit vibe for most shoppers). The watches continued to sell well - we may have misplaced a couple, but all of the rest sold today - the first item I've sold out at a convention!

Once Anita arrived, I got to hit the dealers' room for about ninety minutes. My camera crapped out early in the day, so I was a little more vulnerable to the spending bug. Over the whole day, I picked up one of Sideshow's companion sets to their vinyl Jabba The Hutt figure - it contained secondary creatures (like Salacious Crumb) that'll accent Jabba's throne nicely. I picked up two more vinyl toys from Super 7, a small Sculpey® monster from a table-ful of similar characters, a Frankenstein Jr. bank (Funko just got it in today), Toynami's con-exclusive Santa Robot figure, and a blocky resin figure of a design-y scientist whose name escapes me at the moment.

Sadly, I didn't get back to the booth in time to see my friend/famous animation blogger Jenny Lerew, whom I'd been looking forward to seeing again - I think it's been quite a while. I tagged Anita, and she got to run off and play. I minded the store and took pictures from the table.

A lot of old animation friends dropped by to say hello and buy swag - I drew a few quick sketches, too. When things were quiet, I focused on a larger sketch that a friend of Steven Ng requested. He wanted Toy Story characters combined with Kiki's Delivery Service characters, which was more than a little intimidating. Miyazaki's drawing style is beautiful, but it's not a particularly forgiving one. If you're not a strong draftsman... it's gonna show. Big time. Fortunately it went rather well, and my 'patron' was very pleased! Instead of payment, I asked that he make a donation to the Sierra Club. Aren't I wonderful?

Michelle went to a painting/drawing lecture by Steve (Nexus) Rude - happily for her, she got in the front row, and had none of the problems that I'd experienced the previous day. She really liked it. I do think she wound up going up to the room a little over an hour early, so I guess that's the moral of that story!

Anita came back as I was finishing the sketch, so we tagged out again - once she was finished helping Bill with his cash box's handsome tally, I was able to go shopping and chatting again. As with yesterday, floor traffic was noticeably better in the late afternoon, so I was able to relax and complete a sweep of the whole dealers' room (if you don't do anything else, I think you could do it in two full days). I picked up some of the swag I mentioned earlier, and drooled over some original art - an old Peanuts Sunday strip I read as a kid (if you've got a good memory, it deals with Snoopy and a crossing signal). Only $55,000! Sigh.

So that was the day! I wandered and shopped until the dealers' room closed, then the three of us went back to the hotel room. Michelle whipped up a tasty spaghetti dinner from the groceries we'd bought earlier, and I watched a little television before uploading (and tweaking) the day's pictures from both of our cameras.

I only missed one picture because of my battery problem. Or maybe I should say... costume. I call him "Warhol Spider-Man".

I'm sitting there, reading a free book I got from the Minx table, when this guy walks in. It's an African-American guy in a Spider-Man suit. So what, right? It's Comic-Con.

But instead of the old-school red costume with blue accents, this guy has a turquoise costume with hot pink accents. He's not wearing a mask, or carrying one. He comes off looking like a Spider-Man for another planet, maybe in a parallel universe. It's like one of those Warhol prints with four Marilyn Monroes on it - the shapes and forms are correct, but the color is straight out of a broken television set, or when you throw the Photoshop 'Hue' slider all the way to the other side.

The suit is professional-looking, but it's tight. Like I-don't-think-he-was-wearing-underwear-tight. You could pretty much see... everything.

It would've made a hell of a photograph!

Comic-Con Diary 3: The Set-Up

Anita and I napped for a little while to recharge our batteries, then headed over to the convention center to pick up our exhibitor badges. That went more smoothly that it's ever gone for me in twenty years of Con attendance. Arriving on Tuesday is the shit.

Anita went to do some homework concerning when our chairs and pin-boards would arrive, while I stayed with the swag. I wandered around a little (not too far) and shot some nearby construction. For the most part, the floor was pretty quiet, but everyone was in a flurry of activity, scrambling to get their booths ready for the following evening. Cartons, wooden crates, carpeting, and electrical cables sprawled as mid-sized cranes loomed over the collage of half-built heroes.

I swapped places with Anita and headed over to Freeman (the booth supply rental company) so I could put a couple more chairs on my credit card. Everyone was great there, but the center wasn't selling anything to eat or drink yet. Off I went to get sustenance, especially water. There was hardly anyone inside, but it was muggy both inside and outside the center.

I picked up a couple of big bottles of water at a pizza shop, and a medium frozen yogurt from the fabled Pinkberry. Celebrities speak in dulcet, reverent tones of this southern California delicacy, and we both agreed that it was quite good - I got crushed Oreos® on top, but it was unnecessary. It was a sweet yogurt with a strong citrus flavor. Was it four dollars good? We're used to spending too much for everything during Comic-Con, so it was hard to be objective.

I went through the convention schedule, and marked off potential events to attend. I'm the most excited about the Spaced panel, and the fact that Paul ("Pee-Wee") Reubens will be autographing this week. I'm going to try to pick up DVDs of Shaun of the Dead and Pee-Wee's Big Adventure for them to sign. Keep your fingers crossed!

There was only so much we could accomplish today (the T-shirts won't be here until tomorrow, and the pin-boards haven't shown up yet), so we chatted with some aisle buddies and headed back to the hotel. After that, a quick trip to Ralph's to get groceries for the next few days, and dinner fixin's for tonight. Anita's whipping up some tacos, and I'm blogging until Michelle gets in - she should be here in about forth minutes. More news tomorrow!