Team Joe's Basement

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.)

posted by Adam @ 5:07 PM