Category: SDCC

The Thursday and Sunday schedules are up at the comic-con site. As usual, plenty of interesting stuff.

Some Thursday highlights: a Paul Gulacy spotlight, Doctor Who and Torchwood panels (both with Russell T Davies), an Eddie Campbell spotlight, the Mark and Sergio panel, DC Nation, and, at night, the annual Ric Meyers’ Kung-Fu Extravaganza.

And Sunday: The Jack Kirby tribute panel, a Kyle Baker spotlight, a second DC Nation panel, the Art of the Cover panel, Cartoon Voices, Dave Gibbons, and Buffy the Musical!

There’s a great post over at The Beat on the San Diego con. It includes a short interview with David Glanzer. Some of the comments are worth reading too. As expected, four-day badges are sold out, and one-day badges will likely sell out too.

I think the con experience will be a little different for me this year, since I’m staying at a hotel that’s not in a reasonable walking distance of either the con or downtown. Since it won’t be easy for me to pop back and forth to the hotel during the day, I’ll probably wind up spending either more time in the convention center, or more time in the hotel. (I get the feeling that once I’m back in the hotel at night, I probably won’t want to bother making the trip back out to the convention center again for any late-night activities.)

Given the size to which the con has grown, I’m probably going to try to concentrate on stuff that’s outside the mainstream, and maybe look for some interesting off-site events, like the Rifftrax event I blogged about previously.

I’m actually wondering if there will be a lot of no-shows for the con this year, given the cost of gas, and the general state of the economy. Anyone who waited until just recently to book air travel may be having second thoughts, for instance. And I can imagine some local California folks who would normally drive to the con from, say, the LA area, skipping it this year.

Well, either way, I’m sure it will be interesting, and (as usual) a great change of pace from NJ in July!

I made my travel arrangements for San Diego today. I had almost enough frequent flyer points for the trip. I transferred a few thousand Membership Rewards points from my AmEx cards, and that gave me enough. So, for this year, I’m flying to San Diego for free. Cool.

As usual, it was nearly impossible to get into the Comic-Con hotel reservation site when it went live today. Eventually, I got through. Nearly everything was taken by then, but I managed to snag a room in the Sheraton San Diego Hotel and Marina. It looks like an OK hotel, but it’s not in easy walking distance of the convention center. And it’s right by the airport, so it may be noisy. I can cancel the reservation, if I decide it’s not worth it, but I think it’ll do.

There are a lot of interesting comments on the experience in this entry on The Beat’s blog, and more in the official Con blog. Lots of grumbling about moving to Vegas and/or dumping Travel Planners. Maybe there’s something wrong with me, but I actually find the whole process kind of fun. It takes just enough effort that I feel like I’ve accomplished something when I’ve got the reservation made, but not so much effort that it annoys me.

Comic-Con has started a blog on “Staying in San Diego.” Hotel reservations open up next week. It’ll be interesting to see how that goes. They haven’t even posted the list of con hotels and rates yet, so I have no clue how many hotels they’ve got deals with this year, or what the rates are. Their initial post in this blog even encourages you to try booking a hotel outside of the official con block, since that’ll obviously sell out quickly.

I’ve been scouting alternatives myself, and I haven’t come up with much. There are few downtown hotels you can book through normal channels, but they’re all $300+ a night. There are a couple of hotels in Mission Valley that can be had for under $200, but that’s a bit of a haul to get back and forth to the convention center every day. I think it can be done via the trolley, but I’m not sure about the logistics on that. One of the hotels I was looking at is across the highway from a trolley stop, but it’s hard to tell if there’s any way for a pedestrian to get across the highway.

Well, I guess I’ll try getting a room in the official block, and if that doesn’t work out, maybe I’ll consider skipping the con this year. The way the economy is headed, maybe that’s not a bad idea anyway.

Meanwhile, WonderCon is just a few weeks away!

Well, comic-con is over and done with for this year. Today was pretty mellow. I went to three panels — a DC panel, the second Cartoon Voices panel, and an “Art of the Cover” panel. All were great. Only the voice panel was uncomfortably crowded. I didn’t buy anything at the con today though, other than coffee. I feel kind of bad about that, but really, I’ve got plenty of stuff in my reading pile at home right now. The last thing I need is more books to read! Over the course of the con, I think I bought just three trade paperbacks, and several toys, most of which are for other people. I think this is the least amount of stuff I’ve ever bought at the con.

The NY Times actually has an article about the con. A decade ago, I wouldn’t have imagined an article about comic-con showing up in the NY Times; now, it’s really not that surprising. The article concentrates on the Hollywood stuff, mostly, which I completely skipped out on this year. I didn’t go to either Stargate panel, the BSG panel, or any of the movie studio panels. I never saw the inside of Hall H or Room 20 at all this year.

Once again, I seem to find myself back in my hotel room early. I went to Mark Evanier’s “Quick Draw” and “Cartoon Voices” panels this morning. Both were great. Neither was overcrowded, or hard to get into. There was a DC panel right after the Cartoon Voices panel, in the same room, and I was going to stay for that, but I decided to make a trip to the bathroom, then try to get back into the room. That was a mistake; there was a big line to get into the room, so I gave up and wandered the floor a bit. Then, I went upstairs to try and get into a different panel, but I got there a few minutes late, and they’d filled the room already. I wandered around some more, then decided to go for a late lunch. I got myself a turkey sandwich and a beer, then headed back to the hotel, and here I am, blogging and enjoying the peace and quiet.

There’s an interesting article about the fire marshall over at Sign On San Diego. The photo they ran with it is a bit misleading, though. At first glance, it looks like she’s dressed as Prof. McGonagall. When you look at the picture more closely, though, you realize that she’s in the background, wearing her uniform, and the woman in the foreground is a random Harry Potter fan. (They couldn’t have managed a picture with the subject of the article in the foreground?) Either way, they’re doing a pretty good job of crowd control at the con, given the circumstances. I have to admit that I long for the days when I could just walk into any random panel five minutes late, and still get a good seat, though.

I’m off to San Diego tomorrow morning. I’ve got a bit of a headache right now, and I really hope it’s gone by the time the con starts!