by Chris Eaton-
(edit, Sorry for the wait, just been a busy week around here is all)
Sunday. This is God’s day of rest. But for the wicked that attend Comic Con, there was no rest.
After a late start in checking out of our room, then trying to find cheap parking in Downtown San Diego, Cesar and I park about 8 blocks away after finding parking for under $10 bucks.
It was roughly 1 pm by the time we entered the convention floor. The place was still packed. I had missed the Greg Wismen signing at the Slave Labor Graphics booth, so I cut my losses. Figuring that there’s not much left to do, shopping seemed like the best idea.
Wandering the dealers section, Cesar shopped with a mindful eye. Spending 40 minutes scouring anime statues and trying to haggle down the prices to get that last minute deal. I found an Ultraman figure for $2 bucks and said..why not!
This went on for the next 4 hours as we plopped down what money we had left on some last minute deals. At the same time, grabbing what was left of the FREEBIE stuff.
My downturn of the day was trying to pick up a copy of DOLLHOUSE at the FOX BOOTH. The booth workers wouldn’t hand over the DVD as the pre order wasn’t in my name. I wasted almost an hour before talking to the head of the booth who, after explaining my situation, reached into a box, took the pre order papers and tossed me a DVD. While thankful, I was annoyed as hell that one of the booth hands couldn’t do this for me almost an hour earlier.
Cesar and I then remembered we had grab bag tickets from the WB panel from 2 days prior. The problem with redeeming them was just the mass of people at the WB booth. We cut in front of a line that was wrapped around the booth for some Harry Potter bags to collect our bounty. Inside the white plastic bag was a Sherlock Holmes and Nightmare on Elm St t shirt. A mini replica of the Box from Richard Kelly’s THE BOX, a Where the Wild Things Are paper crown (similar to Burger King’s) and some Jonah Hex stickers. (I was personally hoping for a Hex t shirt or poster myself)
The 5 O’clock hour rung near, I headed to the Marvel booth to get some last minute pictures of the Iron Man display. Once the clock stuck 5, a voice on the PA came through and thank us for coming, then told us to get the fuck out (well, not in those EXACT words, but might as well of been) No less than a minute later, the ELITE security guys came out of nowhere and started herding everyone towards the door. I veered off in the opposite direction, and started snapping pictures of every possible booth that I couldn’t get a clean shot of before. I also grabbed stacks of posters and other freebies from the closing booths.
Satisfied, to an extent, I headed out to the main Hall, where Cesar and I met up. We then hiked back to the car, dropped our stuff off, met a friend for a last hurrah down by the ocean, and around 7 pm, hopped on the 5 freeway. Then flat out to Carlsbad, Oceanside and San Onofre, then to Orange County..home at last, and the end of the geek odyssey for this year.
