Comic Con

[click on all pictures for larger version]

The convention center from the escalator:
the kind of picture you take when your parents are architects.

Comic Con was a blast. And I hafta start out with a mention of my favorite costume, that of Buddy Christ, who was kind enough to let me pose with him. Second up had to be the Yoda puppet guy, dressed like a Jedi and operating a puppet Yoda, complete with Frank Oz-ish voice. The costumes were wild, saw a bunch of 501st fellows, a Doc Holliday, bunches of Jokers, too much anime for my taste, but to each his/her own.

Got a card signed by the great Mike Mignola, and then attended a panel he and Mike Carey (got a paper signed by him, since I haven't bought his new book- waiting for the paperback) and some other guys sat on about the difference between writing novels and comics. The friend I was with fell asleep at that one; we don't quite have the same tastes. She chose to attend the Jim Henson showing and the Who Wants to Be a Superhero? panel, which was quite entertaining, except that everyone who asked a question during the Q&A session just wanted to get Stan Lee's autograph. I hit up the Villains panel (terrible, a bunch of YA authors making jokes and a crappy moderator), the Mignola-Carey-other guys panel, the Ben Templesmith panel (there's a blurry picture I took down there; check out much better pictures here) which we left early because friend wasn't interested/fell asleep/we had to get in line for the Doctor Strange movie, which was decent but I don't know a thing about Doctor Strange except that he showed up in an Uncanny X-Men I was reading once.

Doing the paparazzi thing with Stan Lee. Lucky to get this shot, albeit blurry.

And the Indyfan gathering. They talked with Bob Burns, Tony Baxer, and Hasbro reps. Learned that Young Indy will be coming out on DVD starting 10/23! They passed out raffle tickets for a trivia contest, and even though I was thinking Please don't pick mine, they did (I think this is officially the first time I've "won" a raffle), and I was up on stage with 15 others answering trivia questions. I have terrible terrible stage fright, which I know from years of violin recitals, but on the other hand, I'm totally obsessed with Indy, so I somehow managed to get to the final 4 before all of us but one got killed on the question "Who appears in all 3 Indy movies besides Harrison Ford?" If you've seen the films, you can probably name the actor's roles: the giant Thuggee, the German mechanic, some solider in Crusade. But only one guy knew the actor's name; incidentally, it was the one guy out of all of us in an Indiana Jones costume, haha. Answer: Pat Roach. I should have known that. Prize was a Holy Grail replica presented by a knight. Sweeet. I got a shirt. The Indyfan documentary, which they were gathering material for at the Convention, has a myspace, and you can see the trailer here. Cute.

Indyfan panel.

Friendly BPRD agent; Gambit; steampunk ghostbuster;
Violet; scary Rorschach; friendly dude in Jayne hat

An embarrassingly bad picture of Ben Templesmith & David Slade.

The lovely Rosario Dawson promoting her new comic/film.

Ridiculously cute Star Wars Chubbies.

Gettin' on the turbolift; crazy Jedi.

Heath Ledger as the Joker.

Yorick banner that DC should give to me even though I have no idea what I'd do with it.

If you ever get the chance, I definitely recommend checking out Comic Con, if only for one day. The only downsides are traffic and teeny bopper anime otakus (no offense, but isn't Anime Expo enough) running around hitting each other with sticks and, of course, the lines. Nothing you can't deal with. And all for the sake of amazing panels and guests, lotsa exclusives, and nice freebies, plus crazy costumed folks wandering around like it's totally normal.

Btw. I did not get any permission to post the photos of those fine costumed folks, so if by some crazy probability freakout you are one of these people and would rather not be featured on this blog, please let me know.