Comic Con 2009 ! What An Adventure!

Written By Lorenzo M. 

This was my Third Comic Con that I have attended – although it has been three years since my last attending – it has definately grown and changed. You MUST get your tickets and hotel reservations at least 8 to 10months early – if not – you will be staying far away from the San Diego Convention Center and paying a lot of money because of the need for housing and accommodations.

I wanted to break it up day by day for you – so you’ll see how it breaks up! Fun, fun, fun!

From Preview night, July 22nd all the way through closing night on Sunday July 26th, it was 5 days of fast paced action and excitement. Having had to stay about 10 miles away because of waiting till the last minute to book rooms, Michael and I had the pleasure of riding the San Diego Trolley everyday. Nice and clean – however being Public Transportation, it did have drawbacks. We did get the four day package ($75 each) early and it saved us from about $40 a day regular daily price. (Saving us over $85 each!) The four day package also including the PREVIEW NIGHT! So five days total!

Michael had never been to Comic Con or even an event like this before. We were both enthusiastic and nervously excited. For me because, taking Michael into this adventure, and seeing his reactions to everything around him was well worth it!

This was the conventions 40th Anniversary and it grew from a 300 person meeting in three rooms in 1969 to using ALL 30 Million square feet of the San Diego Convention Center and TWO of the adjoining ballrooms in nearby hotels to accommodate over 126,000 people on Saturday and Sunday!

I wanted to discuss a few of the things we prepared for first. If you have never been and are thinking of going – a few IMPORTANT tips to take very seriously;

IMPORTANT TIPS AND TOOLS:

1 – COMFORT! Where comfortable cloths and good walking shoes. There is a lot of walking and standing around – we both lost weight on this trip!

2 – SAVE SAVE SAVE! Bring cash and lots of it – if you are a collector! Because the venders, actors, artists, writers and talent usually don’t have machines for Credit Cards – cash gets you moving much quicker. There were plenty of ATM’s all around the convention center.

3 – PACK FOR SURVIVAL! Bring a back pack and stock up on energy bars, Crystal Light energy packets for bottled water, healthy energy food, trail mixes, fruit and munchies. Keep hydrated with water! You’ll find you can survive really well with one serious meal a day and healthy snacks through out the day.

4 – SWAG/FREEBEES BAGGING IT! Carry a spare EMPTY larger than life CLOTH bag if you have one. You will be getting freebee’s left and right! Books, toys, buttons, flyers, comics, DVD’s, junk and more junk. You need something to carry them in and dump out at the end of the day – keep it separate from your back pack filled with survival info and nutrients!

5 – PLAN, PLAN, PLAN – They have so much going on everywhere all the time and at the same time! Look at Each days schedule carefully – highlight what you and your party wants to see individually and then compare notes. WARNING: YOU WILL NOT BE ABLE TO SEE EVERYTHING YOU WANT! Pick and choose what is REALLY important to you and flowing the schedule and learn all the maps! Review every morning before you arrive – “…what are we doing today and where is it and at what time?”

6 – START BEFORE THE ROOSTER! – Start your day EARLY – Lines form VERY early EVERYDAY! Saturday and Sunday had over 120,000 people EACH day!

Everything below is broken up by Each day. Refer to the picture

 Comic Con 09 Picture Gallery for references to each image!

Now here’s what you missed  !!!!!!!!

DAY ONE: Wednesday July 22nd, 2009 – Day/Night - Once we checked into our really nice room (Pics 001 and 002), we headed off to the San Diego Convention Center! (Pics 003 and 004)

The doors opened at 4:30 PM. (The line started forming at 12:00 PM
The Exhibitors Room – Four football fields long! Michael was amazed at the size and complexity of the all the over 1000 venders present on the floor of the San Diego Convention Center. There are banners, posters, electronic displays, player’s booths, fancy stands, lighting and plasma screens and rear projections everywhere!

Michael and I had a master plan of very specific booths we wanted to visit. (Marvel, Paramount, BBC America, DC, Doctor Who.com, EA Arts, Etc.) But when we walked in – there was so much to see and look at and so many ails to walk up and down and left and right and diagonally…..we just couldn’t pass by everything we saw. Freebees being handed out all the time and the hundreds of thousands of people….lot’s of people.

Did I mention we even had to wait two hours to get into the room itself. They led us down long hallways and up an escalator (Pics 005 and 006) to wait in another hallway. There had to be 5,000 people plus in the line. Michael and I made some new friends and we all talked about all our favorite panels, who we liked to see and what was going on overall. (Pic 007 and 008) Once they stated letting us in we went back down another long escalator to another Hallway and then into the main Exhibit hall – Vavoom! Over 100 Vender, Artists, Companies, merchants, Designers, Writers…etc over four football fields long of floor space!

Michael and I were overwhelmed and amazed. Remember it was Michael’s first time and my third……it just keeps growing and growing. To our Surprise…knowing he would be there but not knowing exactly when…we ran literally into actor Colin Baker – Doctor Who’s sixth Doctor! (Pics 009 and 010) From there we visited many of the booths including the D23 booth (Pics 011 and 012), the Fox booth (Pics 013), the Merchandise Star Trek Booth (Pics 014 and 015) and the Sideshow Ent. Booth (Pics 016 and 017).

We covered about 75 of the floor before we closed them down around 10pm! I won’t even tell you all the stuff we bought! We were tired when we got back!

DAY TWO: Thursday July 23rd, 2009:

We started early and headed off aboard the San Diego Trolley. We were about ten miles away so it took about 30 minutes to get to the convention center. (Pic 019) Today was the first official opening day.

We had a planned scheduled for today and every for the week – but the realization of traveling the length of the convention center, the times of the panels and programs, the amount of people, the lines and general logic of the various events – we decided to forgo a morning event to head back into the Exhibit Hall. (Believe me you’ll spend a lot of time in there!)

While there I got this crazy idea of getting the Sixth Doctor Who action figure and having Collin Baker – who was at the DoctorWho.com table all weekend – to sign it for me. (Wednesday night Michael and I both got an Autographed photo of Mr. Baker.) He was generous and always kind. Michael was a little nervous meeting him on Wednesday and I even told Mr. Baker – I introduced a new fan to his Doctor. Collin was amazing – he said “How Brilliant! Don’t be shy!” He shook our hands again we got his pictures with him as you know. Today meeting him he remembered me and was eager to sign his figure. He even reminded me of the special edition another table was selling.

We spent hours collecting the free-bees from everyone, checking out more merchandise and comparing prices on the floor. We saw amazing detailed costumes and characters of all types. There are people from all four corners of the globe at this convention – hence the esteemed title “Comic Con is the world largest convention anywhere!”

Walking around – and not obviously advertised we bumped into Lou Ferigno (TV’s Incredible Hulk) who was signing autographs and posters. Michael, who is an avid autograph collector, also got his chance to get his tickets for autographs that were happening the rest of the weekend!

We then headed to Ballroom 20 (the largest of the rooms for all the panels) where we walked in on the Quantum Quest (which started at 12:00 Noon) presentation already in progress. We didn’t know what it was going in but we were getting our seats for the next seminar.

Amazingly enough we got a chance to hear the director, writer and actors of the animated film project about Protons, Neutrons and Atoms and their birth and challenges in the sun. One of the voices was Star Trek Voyager’s very own Robert Picardo. He was funny and extremely sharp with his wit! There were two special presentations projected on the four very large – theater size – HD plasma screens hanging above the audience – one from another legendary Neil Armstrong – who is another voice in the film and one from Star Trek’s (2009) very own Chris Pine. Both talked about the film, filming process, character development and doing the voice work for the characters they were doing. However even though he was present in San Diego Chris Pine called in directly to the directors own personal cell phone and spoke to the room of 5,000 + people directly. Cheers and screams of happiness were echoed in the huge auditorium! That was a surprise for everyone present!

Then it was time for our pick of the day – Entertainment Weekly’s Wonder Women Panel at 1:15 PM. (Pic 020) The guest for this panel were; Sigorney Weaver (Alien), Zoe Saldana (Star Trek), Elizabeth Mitchell (Lost/V) and regrettably Eliza Dushku (Dollhouse).

Sigorney and Zoe were amazing and very smart, intelligent and forthright with their answers about women in Film and TV and how their portrayed. Zoe was complimenting Sigorney for laying a path to her career and opportunities and Sigorney was giving praise to Zoe for being more of an inspiration for the new generation of young women who want to be leading ladies or female action heroes of the future. Elizabeth was incredible humble and appreciative for all her opportunities and career adventures and was even honored to be following women like Sigorney as a model actress. Sigorney even mentioned she was turning 60 this year! Wow! Now, this is just my personal opinion – and it certainly doesn’t want to make me watch the show even more now, but Eliza was a little self-absorbed and ditsy in her responses and commentary. Zoe talked practical and policies and political influences while Eliza just liked to hear herself talk. (She even sat a little away from the other women. It seemed that Zoe and Sigorney bonded while working together on James Cameron’s new project called AVATAR.

This was an amazing panel and I felt inspired because of Sigorney’s words and empowered by Zoe’s insights and humbled by Elizabeth’s sincerity – however Michael and I were off to our next panel!

Walking into ‘Legend of the Seeker’ Panel which started 4:30pm and we saw a few previews of the new season and a scene from the first episode. It was almost over when we arrived and we wanted a good seat for the next panel. It was interesting to see the clips without final effects.

At 6 PM was the Discover Magazine’s Mad Science panel which Michael and I wanted to see. This panel was about Science Fiction vs. Science Fact and how it is incorporated into TV and Film. Writers and science advisors from the shows like Eureka, Battlestar Galactica and Fringe were there to explain with art imitates life or the other way around. The panel was very interesting and discussed the possibilities and probabilities of things we see on TV and Film that are based in some sort of real science – and – those that are literally pure fantasy!

When that finished and I actually talked to one of the writers of Fringe explaining how amazing the show was, we walked to the exhibit hall and it was closed for the evening! Tired, worn out and sore in the feet area) we hopped on the Trolley back to our room! Day TWO is over……..snore. (Pic 035)

DAY THREE: Friday July 24th, 2009.

Hopping on the Trolley we headed in again. (Pic 036) It’s early Friday morning and we were excited! After two days of conferences, merchandise, celebrities, panels and crowds of people – we headed to the signatures of various people. On the main exhibitors floor we got John Barrowman (Captain Jack Harkness of Torchwood and Doctor Who fame) and just casually walking around the floor we discovered Mr. Edward James Olmos (Commander Adama), Michael Hogan (Col. Tigh) and Baltar himself James Callis of the Battlestar Galactica. (Pic 037) 

John Barrowman (Pic 030) was amazingly funny and courteous and very friendly. Signing away with his long time partner Scott, he was there with his co-star Naoko Mori (who plays Toshiko Sato). (Pic 031) Naoko was so beautiful and warm. She reached out her hands, shook us both and even reached out with a small hug for a picture with me.

After that we headed over to the table with Mr. Leonard Nimoy and Kevin Sorbo (Andromeda and Hercules fame). What an amazingly long line. However Michael had his tickets and the wait was very short for us. We greeted Mr. Nimoy (Pic 026) and he was pleasantly funny and very alert. He seemed to attend to every one of his fans. Right next to him was Kevin (Pic 028) and he was perky and excited and shaking hands and posing for pics with almost everyone! He even gave me a free signature! Kevin was even describing his up and coming projects as well as his trip to China. He also was promoting his Golf Tournament as well.

When I looked over to the left while walking around on the other side of the exhibitor floor – I noticed what looked like Edward James Olmos (Pic 027) – and sure enough it was. With the rest of the cast of Battlestar Galactica, Edward was so friendly as well and he was telling me how the story of BG ending at the moment Blade Runner began. He said the series was meant to run as long as it did. He also mentioned he is going on to direct episodes of the new Sci-Fi series CAPRICA. HE was an amazing man. I spent some time speaking with Michael Hogan (Col. TIgh) about the fact that the series was so good and it was written to end the way it did. (Pic 029)  He said it was supposed to go four seasons and that's just what it did. (Later in the day we passed him going into the convention as we were headed out for lunch!) .James Callis (Pic 029) was just as friendly and polite with his strong English accent – he described the series as a “pure pleasure” to himself. “Brilliantly written”, he said. Sitting next to their table from the series Chuck was Adam Baldwin. (Pic 054) He was also gracious and kind.

We then walked through the official “Autograph Floor” and there were a lot of people signing – two of which were Gil Gerard (Pic 038) and Erin Grey (Pic 039 and 040) from the original late 70’s series Buck Rogers In The 25th Century. Erin was beautiful and Gil was amazing funny and friendly to everyone. Michael got a great pic with the two of them! (Pic 041) You could tell Gil and Erin had a long term relationship – they were very playful!

I even got a chance to meet and independant productions version of The Master from Doctor Who! (Pic 042) He was charming and friendly and extremely excited about doing a Doctor Who story!

                       

Now a couple hours had already passed and we needed to head up to another panel regarding artists. It was called “THE DESIGN PROCESS” and featured illustrators, artists, costumers and CG people from Star Trek (2009), Iron Man (1 & 2), Transformers 2 and G.I. Joe. It was an interesting talk and display of the sets, costumes, props and designs from their various movies. It was really interesting to hear and see early designs of things compared to the final results. With changes and alterations made by the actors or directors. Visually they were colorful and dynamic and come sin all forms from sketches to CG to models to story boards.

At this point Michael wanted to attend a panel regarding opening up your own comic book store but later decided to wait with me to see the 80th Anniversary of Buck Rogers panel. And who were the speakers? Gil Gerard and Erin Grey! Waiting outside for about 45 minutes while the line grew and grew – (Pic 049) we were finally let in and got front row seats!

Let me tell you – Gil and Erin were obviously friends and knew each other well! They kept ‘ribbing’ each other and making references to the pranks and jokes they did on each other in the late 70’s. Apparently there is a new Buck Rogers in the works and Erin’s very own daughter is playing Col. Willima Deering – just like her mom did! I did ask the questions when the floor was opened up to Erin about if she could tell us some of those ‘stories’ that she kept referring to about Gil being a naughty boy on set. She responded with a rather humorous story of her playing a prank on Gil and the producers that turned out to be quite a riot! This panel also introduced a new detailed with sound and lights, action figure of Buck Rogers that was pretty cool! (Pic 050) The time went by so quickly here!

Now it was after 5pm and we headed down to the second largest auditorium HALL H where we walked into Lucasfilms Star Wars Spectacular which was already in progress! There we saw the entire cast of STAR WARS: THE CLONE WARS do an entire read through of an upcoming episode with special cast member Anthony Daniels! (That’s the original C-3PO himself!) Anthony records his voice in his homeland of England while the director directs him from Los Angeles! They told stories and jokes and was hosted by a TV Cable couple I had never seen before dressed as Luke and Lea. (Pic 051) There were also previews of the new DVD releases, visits to the Lucasfilm Ranch and even a comic take on George Lucas with Lucas himself and Seth Green!

Then we moved closer to the stage to get better seats for the next presentation – Entertainment Weekly’s Visionaries (Pic 052) – with guest James Cameron (Director of Aliens, Titanic, Terminator, The Abyss, True Lies and the producer/director of the upcoming film AVATAR.) and Peter Jackson (Director of all three Lord Of The Rings films, the new King Kong and producer of the upcoming release DISTRICT 9.)

In this seminar James and Peter talk about their various processes of film making and techniques along with the realistic advent of 3-D CG. James announced there is going to be a 3-D version of Titanic coming out and AVATAR is revolutionary in the processes that are forthcoming. Both men took various questions from the audiences most of the time. They were friendly, polite and extremely giving with information. Even an 11 year-old film-maker seemed to impress the two veterans with his question about writing and filming what you write. An extremely entertaining and informative session – they both got a standing ovation at the end. (From 4000+ people!)

Tired once again, we trudged out with the thousands and headed to our Trolley and yet another good night sleep! (Pic 053) This was out longest day yet!

DAY FOUR: Saturday July 25th, 2009:

Again we rose and shinned – a little groggy – but still excited! Michael was especially nervous because he was meeting Brent Spinner today. Off to the Trolley we went and met what seemed like double the crowd. Weekend crowds at Comic Con are jammed packed. Those are the tickets that sell out the quickest because most people do not take the week days off like Michael and I did. The doors to the event usually opened a little bit early each day! (Pic 053 and 056)

Today – we went straight to the exhibitor’s room again! We stood in line for Brent Spinner (Lt. Commander Data of ST:TNG) – (Pic 058) who was also signing with Leonard Nimoy (Ambassador Spock) as well. Michael was a little nervous again but Brent was funny and charming and when I told him Michael was a little nervous – he warmed him up completely. (Pics 059 and 060) Even Nimoy was gracious and friendly to Brents jokes sitting next to him.

Brent told the daughter of one of the assistance to Brent and Leonard to get him some coffee. The girl asked Brent – how do you take your coffee? Brent humorously looked around the room – and without blinking said add the cream to look like HIM! His Color! He was pointing at Michael! Everyone around laughed. Michael was a little more than embarrassed. As we left – he said to Michael – “Remember – you’ll always be the cream in my coffee!” I broke out in hysterics. So did Leonard! (Pics 061, 062 and 063)

Next, we did walk over again and we saw and said hello to John Barrowman of Torchwood and Doctor Who (Pic 065 and 066) - who was signing again with his co-star Naoko Mira. I stopped by her table again and had her sign an Action Figure of her character Tosh. (Pic 067) She was so kind and gracious again that I even got to take a picture with her. A very beautiful woman in person – who mentioned she just moved to LA and was off to China to do a play. There were many costumed Doctor Who fans there as well who were eager to meet John and Noako as well. (Pic 064)

As we were walking out – we saw signing away was a line for Russell T. Davies who is the Creator and Producer and Writer of Doctor Who and Torchwood! (Pic 069) Again Michael and I were excited to meet this literary genius. We were in line and when I mentioned I thought he was one of the most brilliant writers for modern day TV in the Sci Fi genre he stopped – looked and me intensely and found my Comic Con ID Badge and then looked up at me and said “ I Love You Lorenzo!”. He was very humble and appreciative and he signed two pics for me and even took a photo with me and then with Michael too. (Pic 070 and 072) We were so excited that he spent some time and had all that energy to be so courteous to the many people in line waiting to see him.