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!