Wednesday, August 1, 2012

San Diego Comic Con 2012 in retrospect

A few weeks back, I went to San Diego Comic Con 2012 - not as a creator but as an attendee!  I've worked (and will work) my share of Comic Cons from the small press side of the table and Comic Con remains as the one time where I can be more of a fan than anything else. I love it not only for the experience and sheer insanity but also for study - what tables do I stop at? What grabs my attention? What do I care about? If I can figure out my own head and what works for me as a comic fan it should help me as a creator / bidnessman.

That doesn't stop me from geeking out over everything I possibly can, though; this year I had passes to only two days (Thursday and Saturday), so the goal was to make them count.

Highlights:

First order of business was to hit the floor the second it opened and speed-walk (run?) my way to the Bluefin booth to grab the SH Monster arts 'Comic Con Explosion' Godzilla (now happily sitting on my toy shelves).  Oh, and if you haven't seen the King Ghidorah figure coming out soon from SH MonsterArts IT IS DOPE! There was a groovy moment at the Bluefin booth where I was showing my girlfriend's kids the Godzilla figures, with them rattling off all the characters seamlessly.  A woman standing next to me taking a photo of the Godzilla toys took a pause, removed the camera from her face, turned to me and said "You're bringing them up right."

After that everything was a blur of panels on the business / small press side of comics and walking the floor in-between (along with meeting some people I've only corresponded with, which was great).  Here's the super-condensed version of the panels for fellow creators: work hard, make something good and don't be a dick (all panels), if you're thinking of making a vinyl toy...don't (Vinyl toy panel), Comic podcasters are funny people (Podcasting all-stars panel).

As for the floor, this being my second year at SDCC I wasn't as overwhelmed. The floor was much easier to navigate, with many vendors in the exact same physical location year to year. In terms of buying from the Comic Con vendors, if you know your prices you can get as good (if not a better) deal through ebay or the like. I did get a few prints from Artist Alley, one of which was a pleasant surprise; I had seen a print at Comic Con 2011 only to find out it wasn't for sale as it was a special commission. I mentioned to the artist she should make prints and what do you know a year later she did! Advantage: me (disadvantage: my wallet).

One evening I did what turned out to be the highlight of the weekend: the Walking Dead Escape at Petco Park.  If you don't know, it was a simulation of the zombie apocalypse, with you having to navigate your way through the undead without getting contaminated (my favorite part was the repeated warnings to NOT BRING WEAPONS along with you on the run, apparently they didn't want any baseball bat rampages at Petco that didn't involve Padres pitching). If you ever want to know your top run speed as a human being, participate in this.  While you know it's all fake in your head, the second a zombie starts rushing at you instincts kick in and you run the course at a speed between "really f**king fast" and "sheer panic". Plus I now know how to handle things when the actual zombie apocalypse happens! Dry run, suckers.

On the cultural absorption tip, the highlight for me was grabbing a DVD collecting all the episodes of the Japanese Spider-man TV series - I had seen a few, so to have them all in one place was a sweet bonus.  If you're not aware of what it is, let me give you an idea: take Spider-man, except instead of having him be Peter Parker make him a dude who spends the day riding a motorcycle around. Oh, and he pilots a huge transforming robot. Which he tends to use at the end of episodes, after the monster of the week blows up to Giant Monster size. Did I mention the backing music is ridiculously funky?  I'm not sure what watching these episodes is going to result in, but the process sure is fun. Change Leopardon!