Rickshaw Ride (Day Three part 1) - Adam
It was Friday, the first day of the weekend, and people were really starting to fill up the convention hall now. The con group was Joe, Laveall, Gump, and myself. Upon arriving at the ballpark parking lot we were approached by some of the many rickshaw bike drivers that were hovering about like vultures. Most of us were content to politely decline their offers as we could only imagine the price was much too high considering the convention center was only about 3 blocks away. Gump, however, wanted to bargain with the guy. The rest of us weren't really paying attention to what he said, but then Gump tells us that we're taking the rickshaw, it's only $7 for our whole group of four. It sounded shady but Gump assured us that's what the deal was and asked me to pay the guy in advance. I felt like we were ripping him off and tried to hand him $10 before we started moving. He begrudgingly accepted it. The four of us squeezed onto the cart, which was not meant to hold this many people or this much weight (close to 900 pounds between us). Joe had to sit on Gump's lap even.
While sitting there we saw the sign that said "$7-$20 PER PERSON". That lets you know just how much we cheated this guy. It was an uncomfortable and at times scary ride, but a memorable experience. Joe handed him another $5 when we stepped off the cart.
(Pictures courtesy of Laveall)
Day Two - Adam
I spent the night in what sounded like a war zone. Joe and Laveall can snore so bad I can't even describe it in words, but I managed to get some sleep. The next morning we grabbed some free breakfast from the hotel and Joe, Laveall, and myself made our way back out the convention center for our first full day of comic-con international excitement.
There were a couple of panels that I was semi interested in attending that day but didn't make it around to them because I got so caught up in everything I was doing in the main exhibit hall. One of my first stops was the
Atomika booth where I met and talked shortly while Sal("Uncle Sal") Abbananti and Andrew Dabb. I had heard Sal on the
Comic Geek Speak podcast several times and he sounded like a really funny guy. I bought a copy of his trade and had he and Andrew sign in, haven't gotten around to reading it yet. (The laughs from the CGS interviews make it worth the cost either way.)
The
Lego booth had a great Batman statue made completely of Legos, which was really amazing to see. While I was admiring it a family dressed as Batman characters came up and had me take their picture in from of it also.
These were some of the first of many great costumes I got to see over the course of the weekend. Unfortunately I got so caught up in everything that was going on I forgot to snap pictures of many of them.
I found the
Wizards of the Coast (WotC) booth soon afterwards. They were demonstrating a bunch of the games they sell and if you participated you could get some free stuff such as a pack of "
Magic: The Gathering" Cards, or a
Dungeons & Dragons Player's Handbook. Some stuff was worth a fair amount of money. I figured I'd try out some of their new games and see if I got lucky on the freebie part. I spent some time playing
Dreamblade and the
Star Wars Miniatures game. In the end I just ended up with a pack of M:TG cards, but I had a good time playing the games.
In the middle of the afternoon I met back up with Joe and Laveall to go find some food. We had been handed Quiznos flyers on our way in and decided to look for that. On the way we saw a guy in a hotdog costume on a balcony of the Hilton across the street tossing out free T-Shirts promoting the upcoming movie "
Accepted". We each grabbed a shirt and soon saw Subway and ate there instead of looking further.
During lunch Joe and Laveall told me that they had seen
Andy Lee, a "Modern Zen Artist" I had recently met in Philadelphia and really enjoyed. Upon returning to the convention center I immediately went to the back corner where they told me he was set up to say hey and check out some of his work. As I approached his booth, Heather, who I assume to be his girlfriend, recognized me right away and greeted me excitedly. We talked for a while and I watched him paint a piece or two.
The night before I had stopped by the
Evil Ink booth and said hey to
Claudio Sanchez. (see
Coheed & Cambria) I had brought some books on the trip with me to have him sign but did not bring them that night (when there was NO line at all) so I asked what the schedule would be like for the weekend and planned to return on Thursday better prepared. Now, Thursday, around 5:00 was when he and his newest artist would be signing so I made my way there, they pointed me to the line that I didn't immediately see, it was huge. I wasn't feeling very patient just then so I decided I would come back the
next day and get in line just a little bit earlier.
I also stopped by the
Diamond booth to say hey to my friend, Toby, who worked for them. He wasn't looking forward to this weekend because he knew he'd be stuck in the booth the whole time while everyone else got to have all the fun
After some more wandering I ran into Joe and we both were about to call it a day. We had been on our feet for over 6 consecutive hours and knew there would be plenty more time to do the many other things we wanted to do. We needed to wait for Laveall yet so I decided to show a couple of my stops to Joe to kill time. We made our way back to the Evil Ink booth (only about and hour since I had just been there) and there was no line at all. So I went up and said hello again, along with Joe, and had Claudio sign my books and I picked up the sketchbook preview they were selling and had both Claudio and the artist
Gus Vazquez. (I didn't ask him, but the rumor is he's the cousin of actress
Rosario Dawson.) Anyway I had Joe grab a snapshot of me with the two creators since nobody else was waiting.
While writing this post I found this
eBay auction for the Amory Wars sketchbook going for over $70 dollars! Evil Ink was selling it for $10. The book is about 5"x8", 32 or so pages, and not much but teaser content. I had a hard time putting $10 towards it myself, but some people are just nuts. Had I known it might sell for so much I would have bought and extra :)
Back at the hotel we met up with the rest of the gang who had gone to
Balboa Park for the day and checked out some of the museums there. (Maybe one of them will write an entry about their day *hint hint*) We had dinner at the steak/bbq place just outside the hotel and a bunch of the guys goofed around in the pool for a while. I was a pussy and called it a night early. (I pretty much did that the whole trip.)
Comic-Con Preview Night - Adam
After checking in at our hotel and getting much needed showers and naps a few of us (Adam, Gump, Joe, and Laveall) headed downtown to grab some food and check out the preview night of the con. We had dinner at Fred's, some mexican place, I know Laveall and Joe snapped some shots in there...
Checking in at the con was a breeze for pre-regesters that night. The line was big but moved constantly and once you were at a desk there was no hassle at all, which was nice. Once we had our badges and freebie bags we stepped into the showfloor for the first time and were blown away at the insane amount of stuff that was there. You literally could not see one side from the other, it just went on so far. Here's a shot from the back corner near "Artist's Alley" and the auction area. (pic was taken on saturday)
And another taken closer to the middle of the floor.
Some of the most notable booths were the "Snakes on a Plane" and "Sci-Fi" booths.
I mostly just wandered around for this night and said hi to a few creators that were around. There weren't many lines, but I didn't bring anything to sign anyway. One of the first stops was the
Image booth where I saw
David Mack, creator of Kabuki. I had seen a "sketch" he had done for Joe that was amazing and was hoping to get one for myself but he said he'd be too busy that weekend to do sketches. Suck ass. Though after a bit if chatting he did give me a copy of
Kabuki volume one along with a poster for only $10, even cheaper than amazon. What a generous guy!
Then I made my way around to the other side of the Image booth to shake hands with
Brian Posehn and
Rick Remender. I stoped by the
Wowio booth when a cute girl offered me a free t-shirt. (One of many opportunities I passed up that weekend.) The shirt's not that great... but the website has me interested.
All in all a good night. I got an idea of how the place was set up and was ready to do business in the following days.
Day One - Adam
Our first flight out of BWI left at 6am one wednesday morning. Most of us did not sleep at all the night before, in fact I'm pretty sure Gump is the only one that got a little nap. We all arrived at the airport around 5am and began the routine baggage check and security crap. Despite the lack of sleep everyone was pretty amped about the trip and wide awake.
The plane to Cincinnati was really tiny, Gump could barely fit. Here's a shot after we had landed.
After a short wait in Ohio we were on our way to San Diego. The next few hours on the plane were spent half-awake at best.
Once we arrived we all shuffled our way over to the car rental place where we had our first good time dealing with the locals. Eventually we got things worked out and headed over to Petco park to kill some time until we could check into our hotel. It was hot as hell and some of us wasted no time getting sun-burned like crazy.
Team Joe's Basement - San Diego Comic-Con 2006 Blog
Phew... that's a big name. Anyhow, the purpose of this blog is to record and share the pictures and stories of Team Joe's Basement's trip to San Diego for the comic-con international in 2006. This will be a cooperative effort (hopefully) by all the people that went on the trip. So without further ado, on with the postings!
