I’ve been to a lot of conventions over the years, but I had never been to the largest, most well known, comic book convention in the world. My friends Phil and Jon have been going every year for the past several years, and ended up having an open slot, so I jumped at the chance to experience the madness for myself… And it was nuts.
San Diego, even foggy, is a lovely town.Our adventure began at the hotel. I’ll admit, I was a bit excited.We picked the right hotel, as our shuttle only ran to a few hotels. Apparently some of the others have a much longer ride ahead of them.As we rode the shuttle to the convention center, we saw this monster on the road. The whole city gets goofy with this stuff.Every day, gobs of people lined up outside the hall. Apparently 135,000 people descended upon the city. It’s bedlam.I feel like this would have been a better ad campaign than IHOB…Even the menus at restaurants get into the act.Inside the hall, there was so many cool things. I almost purchased this, but only had so much space in my suitcase.The autograph hall is where you get shuttled to after you pick up your swag bag.I wanted to buy this so badly, but it wasn’t for sale. Farscape is still one of my favorite TV shows.This line up was really so cool. The photo doesn’t do it justice.The cosplay game here was something ridiculously amazing. There is a guy inside this thing and it ran on hydraulics.This was folks getting together for the costume parade. Dozens of folks in amazing handmade costumes.I loved this group. In the background was folks dressed up as the Wakandan royal family. It was so well done.I always have to get my three monkey something cool when I travel.This woman makes her own pins. I so wanted this one.This was the highlight for me. Sergio Aragonés is one of my creative heroes. He was so warm and welcoming.Getting into Hall H for the big announcements is a bit of an ordeal. This was our camp site for Friday night so we could get into Hall H in the morning of Saturday.
A time lapse video of the walk from our spot in the hall H line to the front of the line.I thought this was the end of the line, but it turned out there was so much more left to go. Luckily we weren’t anywhere near the end.There was a lot of waiting involved with the entire trip…However, it was awesome to see the Star Trek Picard panel. This man was so lovely and excited to be there.Brent Spiner was so lovely too. The entire panel had my eyes tearing up at times with all the love they had for each other.People lost their minds during the Marvel panel. Honestly, I was bored. But then again, with a few exceptions, I have found their formulaic approach to movies uninspiring.
Keith Senkowski
