I’m running a couple weeks late posting about Lisa’s and my Comic Con experiences, but I hope you’ll still enjoy our wrap up of our Comic Con 2007 adventures.

Although Comic Con officially starts on Wednesday’s preview night, with the first full day of events on Thursday, neither Lisa nor I were able to attend until Friday. We decided kind of last minute on going and luckily we were still able to get a pass to attend the events. Comic Con increases in popularity every year, and if we’d waited another week to buy our tickets, we would have ended up just reading about Comic Con on the web and wishing we’d been able to go.

Since Lisa and I don’t live close to each other, we both drove separately to San Diego. Our plan was to meet up at our hotel around noonish and catch the trolley to the convention center to arrive by 1 or so, so we could catch all the afternoon’s events. But what are plans for but to be tossed out the non-moving car window? Lisa’s non-moving car window. Not because her car wasn’t working, but because the 5 freeway resembled a 100 mile long parking lot. I was lucky. I only hit traffic once on the 15 fwy the entire two plus hour drive to San Diego, and it only slowed me down for about five minutes. I got to our hotel, checked us in, called Lisa to let her know I’d arrived, then crashed on the bed and pulled out Crazy Cool by Tara Janzen (side note: a really, really good book and series by Tara Janzen. If you haven’t read it, you should.) I had no idea I’d be able to almost finish the book before Lisa arrived. By then it was around 2:30 and both Lisa and I were starving. We talked to the front desk clerk and learned about an awesome Thai restaurant right around the corner. And boy oh boy it was awesome. The best Thai food I’ve ever had. I’ll be hitting that place up again next time I get down to San Diego. Now, belly’s full of the awesomey goodness of Thai food, Lisa and I headed to the trolley station for the next stage of our adventure. It was around 4pm and we figured we’d be able to get to the convention center by 4:30, get registered and at least get to walk around the vendor’s room for a couple hours.

HA!

Friday night, San Diego’s trolley was just about as packed as the 5 freeway. Standing room only–and we’re talking standing-room, I-know-way-too-much-about-how-everyone-around-me-smells, and-it-ain’t-pretty-since-it’s-over-one-hundred-degrees-outside. Crammed in like sticky rice in a rice steamer at a sushi restaurant, Lisa and I made our journey to the convention center. We had to change trolleys twice, which was fun to try to maneuver out the door between all the bodies. It was a Twister game gone very wrong. But no one can say we’re not dedicated (although I’m not sure what we’re dedicated to–our craziness?), because several stepped-on toes and a few body gropes later, we arrived at the con. I’ve never been so happy to see people dressed in freakishly outrageous costumes in my life. Surprise, surprise, check-in was a breeze…because everyone else had arrived eons before us! With only an hour or so left of that day’s con, we flipped open the huge schedule of events to see if there was anything happening that night that we didn’t want to miss. And there it was, the bright light on the day’s events, Kevin Smith was speaking in Hall H…on the exact opposite side of the convention center from where we were currently stationed. So Lisa and I haul our tired and sweaty asses across what felt like all of San Diego, and when we get to the hall we see a line that leads out the door. Security points outside and says we can find the end of the line outside. In Tijuana. Which is pretty much where we ended up walking to. At this point, Lisa and I were giggling at ourselves and our day. It took us ten minutes to walk from the Hall to where the line ended. We figured at that point we weren’t going to get inside to see Kevin Smith, but we’d walked that far so into the line we got, because our only other choice was to walk back…so we might as well do it in line with thousands of other people. A half hour later, we were back inside and only a few feet from the entrance doors to the hall. Yes! We were going to get to see Kevin Smith…

And then security closed the doors. Lisa and I were numbers 10 and 11 in line. So close, yet so far away. As we were getting ready to pack up and go, the head of the security for that venue said that once they were done showing whatever it was Kevin Smith was showing on the big screens and the lights came back on (she didn’t actually know because Kevin Smith does whatever Kevin Smith does and no one on staff actually knew what he was there promoting), they’d be able to get us in. So we were back to waiting again. About another half hour passed, we hear cheering from inside the hall, the lights come on and we get to go inside. Yay!!!!

Come to find out, we missed the showing of the pilot for Reaper, a new CW show starting in the fall. But we got to listen to Kevin Smith for over an hour, which was highly amusing. This is the second time Lisa and I have watched one of his panels at Comic Con. The man doesn’t know a dirty word or phrase he won’t spit out at least a couple dozen times during every chat. Unfortunately, the photos I took didn’t turn out. I had the zoom on too high because we were seated about a mile from him (okay, I’m slightly exaggerating…but only slightly). Kevin was hilarious and self-deprecating as always, and Lisa and I spent an hour laughing until our sides hurt. When it was over, we crawled back to the trolley, smashed ourselves into the crowd and made it back to our hotel, where we promptly fell asleep in preparation for the craziness we knew would ensue on Saturday–the busiest day at Comic Con. More to come…

One Response to “Comic Con 2007–Friday”

1. linda bass Says:
   August 15th, 2007 at 9:28 am

   oh a contest! just what i need and hope i win today but i have to go out in this 100 degree weather for therapy!

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