I mentioned that I spoke briefly with Sergio Aragonés at his booth on Thursday afternoon. The first half of the conversation went something like this:
“Sorry, I can’t make it to your panel this year. There’s another one scheduled at the same time.”
“And that one’s more important, right?”
*laughs*
“Well, I saw last year’s, and it was great.”
“It’ll be the same thing this year, you won’t miss anything!”
Not that I saw anyone dressed as Thor, but it seemed an appropriate description for a Thursday at Comic-Con.
![[Picture of Carmine Infantino]](https://kvibber.com/photos/comic-con-2006/img036.jpeg.html "Carmine Infantino")
No earth-shattering news so far, but then it was only a Thursday. Katie went to the voice acting panel and the Animaniacs panel (mostly in connection with next week’s DVD release. I went to the Carmine Infantino retrospective. Other than that, we both roamed the floor.
Be sure to check out the back of the Snakes on a Plane booth. There’s a wonderful flight safety card on “what to do in the event of snakes on a plane.”
When I was in high school, I remember there being tons of comic book retailers. They aren’t gone, but there are a lot fewer, and listening to people at the booths, they have the same feeling: not only is the percentage of the con focused on comics shrinking, the number of comic sellers is shrinking too. I managed to pick up a couple of leads on my back-issue hunt. I also sold a couple of random Golden Age and Silver Age books I had picked up, freeing up some space in my backpack (though there’s plenty of stuff left that I didn’t bring).
I spoke with Phil Foglio briefly, and got him to autograph the remaining three Girl Genius volumes (amazingly, volume 5 showed up the the mail the day before we left) and got a photo of Sergio Aragonés holding up a little Groo statuette.
![[Picture of Kelson with magician Misty Lee]](https://kvibber.com/photos/comic-con-2006/img038.jpeg.html "Kelson with magician Misty Lee")
At one point I started to take a picture of a woman in what I thought was a good Zatanna-style costume (though it evoked the look rather than copying the look). As I was setting up the shot, I realized that it was magician Misty Lee. I told her I’d seen her show in Burbank a few months ago, and she insisted on posing for a second photo with me in the shot. The guy who took the photo? Paul Dini. We talked for a few minutes (“You weren’t there on Saturday, were you?” “Uh, I don’t think so…”)
We ended up leaving around 6:00, went back to our hotel, showered, changed, and went out to dinner at the Indigo Grill (which we had walked past on our way to and from the con two years ago). It turned out to be very good. Highly recommended.
We made it to San Diego around 1:00. After spending an afternoon in Old Town, and a self-guided tour of the Whaley House (which we missed last year), we dropped by the convention center to pick up our badges for Comic Con.
It was around 8:00, and it was Preview Night (only open to guests and pre-registered attendees), so there was basically no line. Only one problem: no one seemed to be willing to give us our badges!
We walked up to the first open window at the line of pre-reg booths. “Hi, we’re here to check in. Last name…” “Try those two guys over there.” “Oh, OK.”
So we walked across the way to the two guys she seemed to be pointing at. “Hi, we’re pre-reg, we’re here to pick up our…” “Try over there,” they said, pointing to a booth further along in the original line of booths.
So we walked across to that window. “Hi, is this where we actually pick up badges, because we were over there, and they directed us over there, and they directed us over here…”
It was, so I handed him the bits of paper from when we signed up, a whole year ago at last year’s con. I gave him my name, he didn’t seem to be able to find it, I gave him Katie’s name, he couldn’t find that, and eventually I had to dig out the receipt (which I had just ripped off of the sign-up sheets, since we usually have to go to separate windows), show him that yes, we paid, and somehow he was able to dig up our registration info, because the badges had the right city any everything.
So we got in, checked out the floor, and I got a few leads on Golden Age Flash books (though again, people seem to be bringing mostly the good-quality expensive copies), and we left when the hall closed at 9:00. Along with everyone else on the planet, as far as we could tell. It wasn’t nearly as crowded as any day last year, but it was more than either of us expected.
Some funny spam subjects that have popped up in my inbox or in the server’s spam traps recently:
Brought to you by the Department of Word Salad. (I really ought to draw up a guest strip for Spamusement with one of these.)
Found on a stamp vending machine:
OK, it’s not hard to figure out from context that “semipostal” simply refers to the fact that some of the cost of the stamp goes to the Post Office, while some of the cost goes to the chosen cause.
But given the prevalance of the term, “going postal” as associated with violence, perhaps using the label with the “Stop Family Violence” stamp was not the best choice. Now, I’ll apologize in advance for the gallows humor here, but would “going semipostal” be what happens when you want to go to work and shoot people but decide to stay home instead?
Last week, after going out to see Superman Returns, we wandered over to Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf. I ordered the new honeydew ice blended drink. Katie ordered the pomegranate-blueberry drink. When we picked them up from the counter, though, the combination struck us both as funny:
Yes, they were green and purple.
Notice anything odd about this Flashback Features movie marquee? (Hint: Look at the dates.)
I think I can see a solution to their problem…
