From July 19th to the 23rd, I went to the 2006 International Comic-Con, the worlds largest pop culture convention. Comics, games, movies, anime, overpriced pretzels, and a bunch of Storm Troopers: Comic-Con had it all.

I went there with a couple of friends, a composition book, and a head full of expectations. Well, I can tell you now, my friends, that those expectations were met and then some. I had a wonderful, wonderful time.

There's 100+ pictures in this blog, so I would recommend that you go make a sandwich or something while it all loads. Or you could just read my little preamble which talks about some of the stuff my pictures dont.

Anyway, we were very lucky when going to this event; I have a cousin who lives in Chula Vista, a city about 25 minutes from San Diego. She let us stay in her house. It was a little closer than the closest open motel, and that closest motel would have cost us at least $500 for the full stay. The only price we paid at my cousins house was that her little German Schnauzer, Otto von Bisbark (I added the surname for reasons obvious), who would lick our faces every single morning as the sun came up.

There were only two real obstacles we had in San Diego: the traffic and the parking. There were about 125,000 people attending this convention, and so you can figure that there were cars aplenty. If we were lucky (and we were lucky, twice), we could park right next to the convention center. If we were a bit less than lucky, we had to park about six or seven blocks away from the convention center. If we were really unlucky (as we were once, since one of my companions took a 45-minute shower [I didn't realize guys could take that long]) we had to park about 1.5 to 2 miles away. And then walk in 99-degree heat.

One of the main reasons I was going to this was to meet up with a guy named Brooke Burgess, who I've known for a while but have never actually met. Make sense? Well, he created the animated online series Broken Saints, which I'll freely admit to being a follower of, and I wanted to finally meet him in the flesh. Additionally, there was a lot of other people I was excited to meet and things I wanted to see.

A small apology upfront. The camera I was using...well, let's just say it wasn't of the highest caliber. Hence, some of the pictures are going to look a little blurrier than one might enjoy. Just pretend you got lemon juice in your eyes or something.

Well, I think we should get started. Are all the pictures loaded yet? Good. Let's begin...



Best to start at the beginning, no? This is the first Comic-Con-related thing as I stepped up to the convention center. So, I decided to take a picture as a special intro to my time there. Unfortunately, some guy stepped right in front of the all-seeing eye of the comic. So that special moment was ruined. ...*Cough*...



And so the cosplaying begins!!! Trust me, a good portion of this blog is going to be spent with me standing next to a bunch of sweaty comic book nerds dressed up as characters about 2000 times cooler than they are. And who better than to start with than my main man, the one, the only: a Storm Trooper.

...I mean Vader. Darth Vader. How embarrassing. Seriously, though, the Star Wars cosplayers were there in full force (pun not intended, but still pretty damn good). Between Jedi, Storm Troopers, Imperial Pilots and Officers, and Boba Fett, it was hard to turn in any one direction and not see at least one person dressed in décor from a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away...



Okay, I'll come out and admit it right here: I'm a full-fledged Full Metal Alchemist fan. Hence, youre going to see a lot of stuff relating to that. I just got so excited whenever I saw something, so I took a picture. And based on this picture, it looks like that Ed is so small, I could take him on without breaking a sweat. Seriously. I actually punched him in the face after this picture was shot. Security had to use three tasers to take me down.



Some random suit of armor at the Square Enix booth. I will give props to Square Enix here: they had one hell of a booth. It was huge, had demos, miniatures, hot Asian chicks, and they had this enormous TV which kept on looping trailers of games and such. And unlike other game trailers which looped after about 3 minutes, this one looped only once every hour and fifteen minutes. Excessive? Yes. However, it was quite convenient when I was waiting in line outside the Activision booth (directly across from the TV) in order to try out to be a voice actor for an upcoming video game.

Whats that? You want to hear more about this video game? Okay, I'll be nice. The game is "Marvel Ultimate Alliance." I was trying out, along with a bunch of nerds with lisps and severe cases of stuttering, to be the voice of Namor (whose alternate name of "Imperious Rex" is the most awesome ever). If I had more time to prepare for the lines, I probably would have done a better job than I did. However, considering my competition, I probably have a better chance at winning than I deserve.



No, this is not a picture of King Kong. A zookeeper had brought in several different types of primates in order to promote a new series about a bunch of monkeys that develop super powers. However, against all warning, a fat man took a flash photo of the gorilla. Tragedy followed, except for me, who left the flash off.



Sadly, this is the best picture I have of this sign, but there it is in all it's glory: the sign atop the Broken Saints booth. It asks the mighty question of "What would you give to know the truth?" Since there wasnt a message box or anything, it may have been a rhetorical question.



And here's the creator of Broken Saints, and one of the principal reasons I was at Comic-Con: Brooke Burgess. As you might be able to tell by looking in his arms, I was being a little bit of a shill when I gave him a complimentary copy of my book. In any event, this man is so nice, it's almost funny. On the Sunday, when I was telling him that I was leaving, he took a framed, signed, poster originally slated as a prize for a raffle and flat out gave it to me. I would have had a picture, but it's too wrapped up to fully appreciate and I dont want to take it out of its protection until I'm up at Berkeley. Still, a really awesome guy.



This is the booth for the independent video game company "The Behemoth", who created the very fun game "Alien Hominid" and were debuting a new 4-Player beat-em-up call "Castle Crashers." I played it, and it was very fun.



And here's the guy who created The Behemoth, Tom Fulp. He's also the creator of Newgrounds. If you've never heard of that (I can't imagine), it's a huge collection of Flash movies and games. One of the most entertaining websites out there, I'd say. If you've never seen a Flash movie on there, this one is a particularly interesting example (wink wink, nudge nudge).

Anyway, I must have been the first person to take a picture with Tom, because he said, "Uh, oh. The barrage of smiling begins. You know, I should start taking frowning pictures." Keep that in mind...



Snakes on a Plane! Snakes on a mutha%*!@in Plane!



This was a giant picture of a Serra Angel, the most iconic creature in all of Magic: The Gathering. I have two points to make about Magic.

First, I tried out in the Magic Amateur Championship, which was conveniently held at Comic-Con. Don't let the name fool you, the people playing at this thing were not bad players (well, one of my opponents was, but he was pretty new to the game, so it was a hollow victory [for me]). There were going to be about seven rounds, plus a separate competition for the top 8 players (out of 150 or so). They would play until well past 1am. I would like to say that I was among that prestigious group, but alas, I fell victim to my most cruel of mistresses, Lady Fate. She was not on my side, and I ended up dropping after the third round, simply because I was not getting nearly enough lands (for those not familiar with Magic, thats about the most frustrating thing that can happen to you).

Second thing: one of my travel companions became completely obsessed with Magic thanks to a demo at Wizards of the Coast. I mean obsessed. He started reading the manual in his free time, played the demo over and over again. And he asked me question after question after question. I had to keep reminding him to refrain from using Yu-Gi-Oh talk (I hate it when creatures are called "Monsters"), and then there were the questions during the tournament:

"So, howd you do?"
"...I lost."
"Oh. Did your opponent have a stronger deck than you."
"Not really; I mainly just had mana problems."
"Oh. Was he playing a deck youve never seen before?"
"No, this is the Amateur Championship, which cost $20 to enter. Most players (sans that newbie I played) are using tried-and-true archetypes."
"Oh. See any ultra rare cards?"
"...Ultra...rare...?"
"Yeah, cards youve never seen before."
"Ive probably seen all these cards a thousand times before."
"Oh. Does Magic have rare cards?"
"...Yes. This deck (which I was borrowing) is about three-fourths rare cards. Its worth about $250."
"Oh."
"Yeah."

Okay, one more thing. I asked a lot of the players there (particularly those with 4-day passes) how much of the convention theyve seen. "None, really. Ive mainly been playing Magic." My mouth dropped. You can play Magic any time and anywhere! You can only be at Comic-Con once a year! Some people have odd priorities. At least I was told by one of my opponents that I was the most pleasant person hes ever played against.



A really nice, large Hot Wheels hot rod. I think this somewhat-blurry photo speaks for itself (i.e. I have nothing much to say about it).



Whats this? More Full Metal Alchemist. Believe it, my friends. There was a lot of hype over the new movie thats coming out later this year. I was actually able to watch some clips from the movie. As far as I can tell, its about the Alchemists vs. the Physicists? Or something like that. Maybe they fight a Homunculus version of Albert Einstein. Now I'd pay to see that!



Yeah, this was the Sci-Fi Channel booth. They had a couple TVs, and a little area to sit down in, but thats about it. The rest was this...blob-like thing. From the very moment I saw it to the moment I look at it now, I wondered, "What the hell is that supposed to be?"



Boba Fett, baby! This giant spinning bust had to be one of the most intimidating things at the con. It just...stares at you. You get the feeling that it's just going to lower it's arm and start blasting some of the conventioneers. (Not like that would be such a loss, but still.)



Whoops, I think she caught me staring. She don't look none too happy about it, either. Still, I was a perfect gentleman to all of the manufactured people. However, there was this one guy who was taking upskirt pictures...of dolls. No, I'm not making that up. He was going to the cases that were holding some anime figurines and took upskirt pictures of them. I know that comic book nerds are desperate, but yeesh!



There's the all-seeing eye in all its glory. Huzzah!



Yes, yes, "who you gonna call?" etc, etc. Seriously, though, these guys had these homemade backpacks that looked better than the movie. Thats what makes this thing so fun: the amount of effort put into all the fan stuff. You can't tell by the picture, but we were being scolded by some bastard in an "Elite" shirt (people who manage the place) for standing still in an aisle. I hated all those people. They couldnt give you directions worth a grain of sand, but boy oh boy could they scold you.



Okay, perhaps a little explanation is necessary here. This is Rebecca Guay. She is an artist (I know her most through Magic: The Gathering). She is known as the "Goddess of Magic Art" mainly due to her unique watercolor style. A lot of the people in my play group would die if they knew I met her in person. And I did. And here's the proof. I think some cardiac arrests are in order.



This blurry monstrosity is me and the Alien Hominid. They were giving away these little antennae and though I got one, it wasn't until later, so no "twin" picture for you. It may seem as though I look a little angry. I was hoping for a shot where we were shooting at each other (he with his ray gun, I with my index finger), but I don't think the guy inside the suit figured that out.



Snakes on a Plane! Snakes on a muthoh, wait. This is Optimus Prime. Carry on.



You can't go to a comic book convention without taking a picture with Spiderman. However, I was almost disappointed. I was looking forward to taking a picture with a grossly overweight guy dressed as Spiderman.

Speaking of overweight, lets talk about the people here! I wont go into too much detail (Lord, no!), but some of the people here, you wonder if this is the only exercise they get all year. Now, I'm no Tiny Tim myself, but at least I only take up one seat on the bus (to be fair, my backpack takes up the other). And it always seems to be the fat people who are the angriest. There's no jolly fat men around here. There was this one guy on a bus who kept yelling at the driver to go somewhere else. The driver just told him, "I'm sorry, sir, but you got on the wrong bus." And then he just started going off. In all honesty, there weren't that many obese people (it wasn't a Weight Watchers expo or anything), but you couldn't miss those that were there.

...Okay, I'll stop being mean now. (I think I'm just bitter because this one big guy bumped into me and then started telling me to get out of his way.)



This blurry picture is of a Batman created completely out of Legos.



Here's another, from a different angle. There was also a Spongebob Squarepants made out of Legos, but I have certain standards of what I take pictures of, and so I refrained.



Okay, forget what I said about standards. Still, I may take pictures of a King Kong figurine fighting a T-Rex figurine, but at least it's not an upskirt picture of a King Kong figurine fighting a T-Rex figurine. I thought this particular pose was funny. It almost seems as though Kong is going to say, "Oh, yeah, take this!" and then shove Naomi Watts down the T-Rex's throat. Huh? Huh? ...Okay, I'll move on.



Star Trek? Star Wars? Star Gate? Who the hell cares! As you can tell by my face, I wasn't paying very much attention to the camera. I was wondering if this crazy alien warrior chick had some sort of deadly body grasp technique. :P



If you've ever wondered what a publishing company executive looks like, here's your chance! Ha ha!

("Boo!" "Hiss!")

Hey, what do you expect; this is free entertainment. Bah, ingrates.



I honestly don't know what the politically correct term for this guy is. "Sand Person?" "Tuskan Raider?" In any event, I just called him a "Savage." He got angry and started whooping while raising his pike. I used that opportunity to rip off its filtration mask, revealing a sweaty, acne-covered teen. I quickly put the filtration mask back on him and then punched him, grabbing his pike and stabbing him with it. I was heralded as a hero that day.



Ah, yes, good old Halloweentown, filled to the brim with "Nightmare Before Christmas" paraphernalia. And whose excessively-long arm is that? Well...



It's a statue of Jack Skellington which looks like it belongs on an "Alien Autopsy" video.



You know, I'm just going to come out and say it now: Robin completely cramps Batman's style. With his colors, boyish good looks, and really, really short shorts, he looks more akin to a partner to...I don't know...Siegfried and Roy or something. I personally wouldn't want some scrawny little kid watching my back...



I'd much rather have Wonder Woman as my partner! (Double entendre intended, of course.)



This guy was standing completely still. Like, Buckingham Palace Guard still. We didn't know if it was a statue or a real person. So I took a picture with him, and noticed his chest moving ever so slightly. I whispered to him, "Your secrets safe with me!" But still he stood. A real trooper, that one! (Or pilot, at least.)



Aw, SNAP! Batman's watching you! Actually, I was quite disappointed with this statue, as that clock...yeah, it wasnt accurate. It was just like a broken VCR, showing 12:00 all the time.



This is a purple elf from the World of Warcraft booth. They were giving away free demos of WOW to people. Considering the fact that the game often steals many a person's free time, and has even been known to be responsible for several addict's death, isn't giving out the demos the video game equivalent of: "Hey, kids, try this free sample pack of heroin!"



I have no idea in Hell who these people were supposed to be. Still, if I put on a red wig, I would want to have my picture taken. ...Wait, no I wouldn't...would I? (By the way, that chick's arm [the one you cant see] was a bit south of the equator, if you know what I mean.)



Okay, get ready for a string of FMA pictures, this being the first.



Interesting note: I once took one of those surveys, and apparently, the FMA character I'm most like is Roy Mustang (the one with the black hair). I had never thought of it before, but it works, wouldn't you say?



Okay, I was going a little FMA-crazy at this point. I have nothing interesting to say here, so I'll say that I just found a new addition to my favorite cartoon characters list: the Racoon Girl. (Go here to find out what I mean. (Click the O at the end.) Plus, I have a new great line: "Ohhhh, shoplifting?"



And here we have definitive proof that Edward Elric has no nipples. Being an alchemist has its price, I suppose.



A front-on and non-blurry view of that hot rod. I don't know much about cars, much less hot rods, but that thing looked nice. Not sure how you'd drive with those engine things in the way, though.



This was a Toyota Yaris that was at the G4 booth. I saw the black guy from G4's "Attack of the Show" there. I went up to meet him. However, I didn't know his name, so I just said, "Hey, youre that guy from 'Attack of the Show.' It's a pleasure to meet you." Yeah, I'm sure I made his day with that one.



The side of that car. Apparently, these markings are not the original paint job, but a special ad for some comic. I got a free copy of the comic just by filling out a small survey. It wasn't really worth it. Still, I may be able to return the comic to Borders or something for $10 in store credit. :D



This is one of the last remaining photographs of Frogger. An hour after it was taken, he tried to get lunch at a restaurant across the street, and was run over by a speeding truck.

R.I.P. Frogger, 1981-2006
Jumping Onto Logs in the Hereafter.



You know, I never noticed it before, but Frankenstein is a damn spiffy dresser!



This could easily be a Broken Saints promo shot (of sorts). We're all wearing shirts that have to do with the series, and the freakin' name is behind us! What? Who are they? Oh, well, the one on your left is Andrew West, the artist of the series, and the one on your right is Ian Kirby, the technical supervisor of the series. As for that handsome devil in the center? Well, he's just a troublemaker, that one.



This is me with Susan, the "Fallen Angel," the biggest fan of the Broken Saints series. She was dressed as one of the characters and was helping at the booth. That is, when she wasn't taking pictures with me (which I believe happened once).



Pretend this is one of those documentaries from the thirties, and I'm that annoying-voiced narrator:

Walking around the convention is hard work. Look at this young lad, for example. But theres much more to be seen. Get up, sonny, you still need to shake hands with Dick Tracy!

(On a side note, I never did shake hands with Dick Tracy.)



Yep, Im still at the Comic-Con...good to know.



You can't have a convention with superheroes and not mention The Tick. That show has the distinction of having the best villain: a giant loaf of bread that would consume people. Once the people were inside it, they would fall asleep because it was so soft and warm. Ah, the memories...



Aw, snap! Jack is trying to steal my phone! I actually could have bought this, were I willing to shell out $3200 for it. (I wasn't.)



If there's any picture that you can call me a moron because of, it's this one. Still, I think it's pretty damn funny. I mean, it's Boba Fett and Han Solo, living together in perfect harmony! How can that not be cool!



The bike they're using for the upcoming "Ghost Rider" movie ("Rider," not "Writer"). They chose Nicholas Cage for the role of Ghost Rider. Why? I don't know. In fact, I don't know how that man gets any of the roles he does. "Wind Talkers" my foot. He must have the world's best agent.



The back of the bike. I'll use this time to discuss another Ghost Rider moment. I was in the bathroom (what a promising start) washing my hands when this kid, who was either mentally challenged or just really weird, shouted at me, out of the blue, "My mom's...my mom's gonna see Nicholas Cage, from the movie." I was about to say, "Nicholas Cage is a hack," but I thought better of it. After all, Cages agent/bodyguard could have been in one of the stalls.



Congratulations! You have made it to the halfway picture! And what a memorable picture it is! ...Yeah! ...Trust me, one month from now, this will be the only picture you remember. Mark the date on your calendar; you'll see.



Don't be fooled by his light-colored face! It turns out that Link is not of Hylean descent! You can't tell by this picture you can only tell by his fingertips but Link is actually Mexican, or Guatemalan, or...Mayan, maybe?



This picture may look like all fun and games, but I was actually being mugged. That...thing grabbed me from behind and said, "Give me you wallet. If you tell anyone, I'll come after your family. Grrrowl!"

Actually, that reminds me. When we were walking back to our parking spot (this is when we were parked far, far away), we saw some lady running after this big smiling guy, screaming, "Somebody, call the f--king police! He stole my purse!" I pointed and said to my companions, "Look, kids: street crime!" Actually, I pulled out my phone to call the police (I would have chased him and strangled him with my attendance badge lanyard, but I was on the opposite side of a busy street and I kind of enjoy life) as a cop car rolls by, I wave him down and point out the situation. I'm not sure if he actually caught Mr. Smiles, though.



Sigh, well, where there is good, there must also be evil...



This picture makes me want to do a cheesy 80s sitcom. I can just imagine the jingle:
I was going into my apartment,
And who did I see?
A giant water-shooting Pokemon.
It's Blastoise and Me!
One's a turtle with cannons,
The other likes to drink tea.
We're the original odd couple.
It's Blastoise and Me!

I can just smell the Emmy's now.



This picture makes me want to do a cheesy 80s sitcom. I can just imagine...oh, wait, I've already used up that one. How about a heart-wrenching romance?

NARRATOR: "They were lovers who could never be..."
MYSTIQUE: "Andrew, its not possible. Youre a dashing young billionaire, and Im an evil shape-shifting supervillain. I just dont think this can work out."
ANDREW: "Let me do the thinking for both of us."
MYSTIQUE: "Oh, Andrew..."



This alien was made completely out of tools and motorcycle parts. Quite the piece of work. I was still able to defeat it in combat, though. The face-hugger, on the other hand...



...Yep, we're still at Comic-Con...

...Now that I think about it, this should probably be at the beginning of the blog...

...*Cough*...



Remember, no strictures, the ninth of the pictures,
Of Tom Fulp's request that you heard,
I must attest that Tom Fulp's request
Was ever so absurd.

(In case you can't tell, thats a reference to V for Vendetta. In any event, remember what I said about Tom Fulp saying that he wanted to take a frowning picture. Well, I later gave him the opportunity, and here it is. Though, to be honest, he looks more sneering than frowning. By the way, I'm wearing an awesome shirt, wouldn't you say?



Look, it's a blurry picture with Captain Jack Sparrow and some other pirate-related guy. Of all the people dressed up as Captain Jack, this guy was probably tied for first (youll see the other one later). He even walked around correctly and spoke exactly like the character. Plus, they were both using real swords. I think this is one of the few conventions where you can get away with walking around with honest-to-goodness weapons. And no, I'm not talking about those fake lightsabers (some real lightsabers would be awesome, though!).



CAPTAIN JACK: "Either this fella is growing a strange new set of ears, or I've had a bit too much rum."
ANDREW: "Help! He's violating my personal space!"
OTHER PIRATE-RELATED GUY: "Damn, I look sexy!"


Okay, stop for a minute. I need to set up these next couple of pictures. You see, I believe it was on Friday. I was walking by the Marvel booth, when I saw a sign that said, "Autographs: Stan Lee, 3pm to 4pm." 3pm, I thought. Why, it's 2:20 right now. I'll just go do something really quickly and come back to get Stan Lees autograph (by the way, if you don't know who Stan Lee is, go away right now. ...Wait, come back! Okay, you can stay, but read this and then come back. Understand his importance yet? Basically, without Stan Lee, there might not have been a Comic-Con to go to. Getting his autograph is a pretty damn big deal). Well, as I'm walking back from whatever it is I'm doing, I see this group of security guards walking along, saying, "Move it, out of the way." Then some people start gasping. "It's Stan Lee!" "It's Stan Lee!"

What? Oh, SNAP! I took too long. I had to chase after the group. I knew the line there had probably already formed, and I needed to make sure I got into it. However, the attendees of Comic-Con have to difficulties: 1.They aren't very small. 2.They aren't very mobile. Hence, I had to do a lot of maneuvering and even a little bit of shoving my way through the place before I got to the line for the autographs. I confirmed that I was in the correct line and thanked my lucky stars. People started filing behind me pretty quickly. However, the guy with the "END OF LINE" sign stepped in only 12 people behind me. 12! Had I not been as hasty, I would have missed it. (Quick aside: Haste makes waste, but those who hesitate are lost. So which way should you go? In this case, it was better to be a little wasteful [of what?] and in the right place.) I then waited patiently for about 40 minutes before I even got a glimpse of Stan Lee.

Now here's something you may not know about Stan Lee. For all those who went to SAHS, imagine, if you will, Mr. Logan writing comic books. That's exactly what Stan Lee was like in person. His sense of humor, his voice inflection, and his mannerisms were all like Mr. Logan's. I was even waiting for him to say, "Ha cha cha cha cha!" In any event, once I finally got to stand in front of him, I handed him my composition book. Now, the man has just signed nothing but comic books for the past 135+ people, and here I am handing him this normal old composition book. He looks shocked and says to me, "You must be from anotha' planet!" (I took that as a compliment. :D) He then saw that my description for him in the book was "God of Comics." "Aw, thats cute," he said to me, "I'll sign it all big for you." And he did (youll see that later).

Before I even reached him, though, I tried to get a picture of the man. Now, I was using my moms camera, and that camera does not enjoy movement. At all. And Stan Lee was moving around like a box of donuts at a police station. The following are my...attempts to get a clear shot. I'd recommend playing the "Tetris" music while looking at these. You get an idea of how tricky it was to take them. Enjoy:










As you can see, it seems like Stan Lee is trapped in a dream world of sorts. ...Hmm, that's not a bad idea. Ill send it to him. Anyhoo, that was a really cool experience, meeting him.



When I came up to this guys booth, he was complaining about how hot it was in that armor. I asked if it would make him fell better if I took a picture of him. "...Yeah, sure." So I did. As it turns out, this guy's company made all the swords for the "Pirates of the Caribbean" movies, as well as some other stuff. Remember what I said about being able to carry swords around? Well, I was almost tempted to buy a couple. The price was a bit too steep for me, unfortunately. I was also considering, though, to buy a couple wooden practice swords. However, if I really can't bring them up to Berkeley, would it really be worth it? (Im actually going to question that rule, though. If they allow baseball bats, which have been the documented weapons in many more cases than practice swords, why won't they allow my swords? They're made of wood, for crisakes! Seriously, I am going to see about that.



Yep, here's the other Captain Jack Sparrow, who I called "Sequel Sparrow." I swear, the effort that goes into some of these costumes, it's just remarkable.



This guy was buff! I'm sure he would work great playing Wolverine in the Universal Studios "X-Men: Live" show (God forbid such a thing actually exist). You may have wondered why I didn't edit out the red in my eyes. Well, I...um...I wanted to be...Gambit! Yeah, that's it, hehe...



WHAT? NO! No, you did not just see that!! It doesn't exist! It never existed! You can't prove it exists!!!1! *Eats hard drive.* See, no proof!



You wanna know something? I'm a PIMP! Just look at me! With my homeboys Mario and Link, we ride through the suburbs in our low-rider, and that makes all the little chicas swoon. Though you know all the swooning's for me. After all, Mario is an Italian stereotype, and Link wears a skirt. Me, on the other hand, you betta recognize!

(We interrupt this program to bring you "Exploitation Theatre," featuring Blackula, Blackenstein, and The Blunch-Black of Blotre Blame.)



No, this wasn't "Free Lightsabers Day" (dear God, I wish it was), but I was able to spar with this Sith-in-training. Now, it may look as though he had me on the ropes, but right after this picture was taken, I cut off his hand.



Okay, I've never played a Final Fantasy game before, but apparently, in FFVII (OMG, SPOLIERSSSS), the villain, Sephiroth (the dude with the long white hair), stabs this chick named Aerith...Aeris...whatever, in the back with a really long sword while she's praying. This was an ironic twist on that. Can't you just see the irony there? Can't you? In any event, there were a bunch of nerds cheering when they saw this. "Hooray!" "That was the way it should have been!" And so on, and so forth.



O_o Nipple shot! ...Oh, wait, never mind. That's just gross.



Okay, so I asked the Sephiroth dude to borrow his sword for a second. Now, everyone expected I was going to do pose attacking Sephiroth with his own sword. But no! I go for the chick. All of a sudden, all of the nerds start booing me. I snapped back at them, "Quiet, or Ill take your scientific calculators!" That shut 'em up. And with that, we left the convention center on the final day, never to return.



And here's a shot of the convention center from our parking space. Say goodbye to San Diego, and hello to a 4-hour stop-and-go drive home!


And that was it for the 37th Annual International Comic-Con. I saw my share of faces, shook my share of hands, and basically had a wonderful time. I highly recommend it to anyone who has the chance to go!

Of course, one of my most brilliant decisions (other than wearing calf-protecting undershorts to protect against crippling chafing) was my composition book. Inside that thing is the collected signatures and sketches of anyone who was anyone (to me, at least). All of these people are related to something that has some significance to me, so you can imagine how great it feels to have it.

Now, things are going to get a little "ghetto" as all I did was takes pictures of the pages. Sorry for not doing some fancy-pants scan, but what you see is what you get. Enjoy!






















Now, there were a few more, but they weren't has noteworthy or interesting as these were.

Now, for my final act, I'll be showing of some of the pieces of artwork that I purchased while I was there.




This is a print of the "Angelic Blessing," by Rebecca Guay.



This is a print of the "Exalted Angel," by Mike Sutfin.



This is a print of the "Archangel," by rk post. Hmm, have you noticed a pattern with these so far?



Ooo, gotcha! Pattern broken! This is a picture of "Circu, Dimir Lobotomist." It's a creepy picture, but something about it always jumped out at me as kind of funny. Maybe some taglines: "The doctor is in." Or my favorite: "*Sniff*...Next."

My mom doesn't like this one much. I can't imagine why.



Tee hee. Well, you have to admit, that's artwork in itself. :D

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..........................What the hell?

It's over?

You're kidding me!

Wow. I guess it is over. Well, then, that's that. That's my trip to Comic-Con in one (very large) nutshell. Thanks for looking! I hope my multitude of pictures hasn't melted your computer (or my rambling your brain, for that matter).

Now, in case you weren't able to tell, this took me a loooooong time and a hell of a lot of work. A few comments would make me feel like I didn't just throw all my nights away.

Thanks, everybody, and take care!

Omnipotently,
Andrew