[Editor’s note: This year’s San Diego Comic-Con was full of the usual surprises — celebrity appearances, videogame announcements, sweet comics (of course), and the obligatory crew of chicks in costumes. Since Niero looks fat in his Lara Croft costume, and my Emma Frost outfit shrunk in the wash, we didn’t make it to “the con” this year.
Destructoid community member Virtualgirl (Meagan VanBurkleo), on the other hand, had a great time. She’s pretty excited about it, and she has a lot to say about her experience. And who can blame her? She rubbed elbows with some of her favorite comic book artists, was close enough to Thomas Jane to smell his deodorant, and may have used Tommy Tallarico’s bathroom.
Envious? Read on to find out more. Oh, and if you just like looking at pictures, there’s plenty of those too. No seriously … there are a lot of pictures. I’m not kidding. Take it away, Meagan. — Nick, Editor-in-Chief]
Wow — where to start? San Diego Comic-Con was one of the most amazing trips ever. There is almost too much to talk about, but I will try my best to get it all out for you!
I flew out Thursday morning at 9:30 central time … or at least, I was supposed to. My flight was several hours delayed because they chose to wait until departure time to reinstall some navigation software needed for flight (somewhat unnerving if you think about it). The flight was crappy due to turbulence and my general dislike of flying.
I got in to San Diego around 1:00 pm, grabbed a cab, headed to the hotel to change into my first costume, and meet up with the girls. A quick change and I walked down to the convention center with Perry (Ruby Rocket’s boyfriend) — a bad idea since I was wearing very high stiletto heals for my Tomb Raider: Legend “Tokyo” costume. The pain in my feet from that short six block walk was a precursor to the amount of pain I would be in the rest of the trip, but it was well worth it to show off my costumes that I worked so hard in.
The attention was overwhelming, and somewhat unexpected from the first moment that I waked in. Before I even had a chance to meet up with the girls, I was stopped by several photographers to take my photo. Once I met up with Aktrez (going as Emma Frost) and Ruby Rocket (as Phoenix), it was a photo frenzy. We were stopped every few minutes, and once we were stopped, it was hard to get moving again … It was kind of a cool feeling!
Because my plane was late, I missed the interviews with Greg Horn, Adam Hughes and Joseph Linsner, three really talented artists, but I got to meet Greg Horn later on in the week. Also, because I was taking summer classes in order to graduate this fall, I was not able to fly in for preview night, where Ruby and Aktrez met Rosario Dawson. They both said she was extremely nice, and even offered them pizza since she was having dinner while chatting with them.
Back to Thursday afternoon. We set up cameras and herded convention goers to Aktrez, so she could ask them the most important comic related question ever:
“If you could be in a relationship with any superhero/villain, who would it be?“
I wanted to put it in more plain terms, like “Whose spandex would you like to get in to?”, but we were going for a family-friendly audience because there were so many kids around … LOL.
The answers were hilarious, and the amount of thought that some people put in to their answers made it even better. We will have videos of it up on GGL’s The Wire later on in the week; I will post a link to it when its up and running!
One highlight of my trip was when I stopped by the Top Cow booth, my favorite comic company. I had been talking to two of the extremely talented artists there, Rick and Eric Basaldua, online for a few months, hyping up the costume I would wear the next day, but decided to stop by today to show them my Tomb Raider costume anyway. I just stood by the booth until one of them looked up at me, as they had a long line of fans waiting for autographs and I did not want to bother them. I was completely surprised when they jumped up, got out of line, and gave me hugs, leaving their fans waiting. They turned out to be two of the most amazingly nice guys ever, and I had a great week hanging out with them at the con.
It was pretty late at that time, and since the convention closed at 6:00pm each night, we headed back to the hotel, and then out to dinner. Rick met us at the Hard Rock Café for dinner, after which we walked back to the hotel after stopping in at a Seven Eleven to try and find The Simpson’s Movie merchandise. We sat up in the lobby for a while before going up to our room, and I crashed immediately. My brain was still telling me it was two hours later than the clock said, so it was definitely time for me to get some sleep.
I woke up bright dearly the next day, as it was my Aphrodite IX costume day, and I wanted to have plenty of time to get ready! It took me a good two hours to get all my hair, makeup, and costume stuff done, but it turned out pretty fun! Becky went as Black Widow that day, and was a show stopper in her latex cat suit. We took the bus down to the con, learning from the previous day’s mistakes, and met up with Ruby as Black Cat. After posing for some photos, we started the interviews — first with David Mack, best known for his Kabuki Comics (which have some of the most beautiful stylized artwork I have seen in my life). After Ruby interviewed him, we moved on, Aktrez interviewed the Mega 64 guys, and then we moved on to Artists Alley and interviewed some more talented artists, including Billy Tan.
I was extremely excited when we stopped at the Sideshow Collectibles booth and saw that they have the most amazing new Tomb Raider statue I have ever seen. It is a must have, and since it does not come out for a while, I am for sure going to save up and get it. I don’t think my collection would ever be complete without it. Sideshow has some of the most detailed stuff I have ever seen, including some new Street Fighter stuff.
We did a few more interviews, and finished filming everything we needed, as it was our last day with a camera crew. Aktrez finished an interview with Mythic Entertainment about Warhammer Online, and before they left, I did my first ever on-camera interview with the people of Cartoon Network, about their new MMO, called Fusion Fall, aimed at the same demographic that watches their shows. I will post the link again when the interview is up!
The last thing we did that day was head back to the Top Cow booth to show off my favorite Top Cow costume! It was really fun, and all of the guys treated me extra special because I was one of their characters, letting me in the booth for photos and everything. After hanging out a little longer, we headed back in for the night, as we were switching hotels and it was a bit away from the convention center.
After getting out of costume (which was more difficult than it looked because my face paint stained my cheek, and the sports tape on my legs took skin with it), Aktrez and I went to Denny’s for dinner and I crashed early again.
Tommy joined us late that night, and the three of us got up for another early morning. I decided to wear my Tomb Raider costume again, as I only got a short day in it on Thursday, and Tommy and Aktrez went as Spidey and Gwen Stacey. Ruby went as Power Girl that day, and looked awesome in costume! We left the room a little late, as the World Series of Video Games footage was playing on CBS, and both Aktrez and Tommy were judges in the Guitar Hero competition, so we stayed to watch for a bit.
It was nice that we did not have a schedule for Saturday; we took things at our own pace, and was able to really look around and see everything. We still decided to hold off on shopping, as we were in costume and it would be a pain to lug everything around in heels. We started on one side and did our best to work our way completely across to the other, but that was almost impossible in one day. I got to see the guys from my favorite comic book store, The Source, and tons of other cool stuff.
Saturday also held the highlight of my trip — getting to meet Michael Turner, my comic book hero, and the reason that I am even in to comic books to begin with. I did an ethnography on comic book culture in high school, and when I went in to the comic shop and saw a Turner Tomb Raider cover, I was hooked. I have been collecting his work ever since. My office is dedicated to his work, with six framed posters, and a ton of his statues.
Michael knew Tommy, so when he went up to say hi, Tommy introduced him to me. I never expected what happened next. I was so awestruck that he was standing by me, and that I finally got to meet him after all these years, that I actually started crying. Not tears running down my face crying, but I could not hide it, and Aktrez and Tommy noticed and pointed it out. WTF? I cried??? What is that??? LOL. I will never live that down (or the fact that I was way too flustered to talk to him), but after a minute or two, I managed to say I was done being an idiot, and told him what his work meant to me. He seemed like a very genuine guy, and seemed to appreciate the compliment. I got my picture taken with him, and I look like a dork, but I don’t care. Next time I meet him, I plan on being a little bit less of freak.
I also got to meet Thomas Jane, best known for being The Punisher in the Marvel movie. He was there promoting a new comic that he wrote, which was cool, but strange because I figured he would be swarmed with fans … but he was just sitting there by himself [Editor’s note: HAHAHAAHAH, that’s cause he screwed up The Punisher movie and he’s a lame actor. — CTZ]. I got his autograph and a picture with him, which was pretty cool.
Again, we went back to the Top Cow booth, where Seth Green was signing, and Robert Downy Jr. was in the next booth over signing for the Iron Man movie. I got to talk to Matt Hawkins, the president of Top Cow, who was uber nice and down to earth. He took the time to sit and talk to me about some of the new stuff Top Cow was doing, and I even got a free copy of The Darkness game!!!! That was very cool!
We ran in to the guys from Geekscape, and part of the interview included Jonathan telling Tommy he was going to “suck him like a grape,” which is much funnier out of context!
We ran in to a ton of other people, saw a bunch of cool things … some of which are below:
After heading back to the hotel, Tommy wanted to show me some of the cool parts of San Diego. After a nice dinner, we went out to a pier (my first time at an ocean other than Mexico) which was really cool. It had a roller coaster and tons of rides right next to the ocean. We had some amazing ice cream and headed back to the hotel. After that, finally having had enough sleep to go out, I met up with William Haley from Destructoid and we drove around and chatted at a coffee shop for a few hours.
Sunday was the last day of Comic-Con, and our shopping day! With a scavenger’s mindset, and for once, a sensible pair of shoes, we started determined to work our way through the entire convention. Among the coolest things I found were the Witchblade snow globe I have been wanting for years, some Top cow mini action figures, The Playarts Balthier and Ashe Action Figures I have been wanting, some comics, free Tomb Raider dog tags, and some souvenirs for family. My hands were completely full by the end of the day, and so were Tommy and Becky’s.
I ran in to Ellen Muth from the TV show Dead Like Me on Sunday. I wanted to take a picture with her, as my hubby and I are big fans of the show, but when I was told it would be $10 for a photo, I just kind of laughed it off and walked away. If I did not have to pay to take a picture with Thomas Jane, I was not going to pay for her. They let me take a picture OF her for free, which I did, but the whole experience was funny.
We said goodbye to the guys at Top Cow for the last time, and we left feeling like we had seen almost all there was to see, and then were faced with a dilemma: How the hell were we going to get everything in the car? We ended up getting everything to fit, leaving me about 12 inches of room to sit, but it was well worth it for all the cool stuff we bought.
We drove away in the crowded car, headed out for an amazing dinner, then out to see the musical Avenue Q. It was the first musical I have seen, and was probably the funniest I will ever see. Some of the songs were titled “The Internet is Made for Porn,” “Everyone’s a Little bit Racist,” and “It Sucks to be Me.” The play was done with puppets — there was puppet sex, and even a character playing Gary Coleman. Overall, it rocked.
After the play, we drove back to Tommy’s place, where we spent some time looking through his amazing comic collection, and swimming in the pool.
Tommy’s place was amazing, and you could see his personality everywhere. Some of the highlights included a Houdini themed bathroom, an amazing Egyptian themed dining room, his Spider-Man room, two life-sized Lara Croft statues, an awesome theater, and his backyard. His backyard had three life-sized pirates, a wizard, a dolphin and even two life-sized raptors. The whole place was a play land, and you could tell he put a lot of work in to it.
We left the house early Monday morning and drove right to GGL, where I would spend the next couple of days with Becky. GGL was a fun place to hang out, and I got to meet some cool people, like the cast of Epileptic Gaming. They let me sit in on the set of EG for Monday’s episode, so you can see my head floating around behind Summa in some of the shots.
After the day at work, Aktrez and Tommy took me out to the Universal Walk were we did some shopping and had dinner. Another long day, another tired Meagan, who fell asleep in the car again on the way home, as I seem to do every single night …
Tuesday was much of the same. Spent the day at work with Aktrez, went to eat at the MTV cafeteria where Scott Baio was eating, assuming he was there to promote his new reality show. Becky and I had a short night, driving around the hills a bit, and then going to a burger joint before heading in. It took me two hours to get everything packed into my suitcase, as I bought much more stuff than I intended to.
Very early morning, up at 4:00am to get to LAX for my 6:30 flight. Eventless flight, met my hubby at the airport, and drove home. The whole trip was completely amazing, I got to do and see so many things, and I am uber excited to go on my next trip, which I wish was PAX, but will actually be E for All. I have to thank Becky, Tommy and Ruby for an amazing trip one more time! You guys were all amazing to hang out with! I could not ask for a better group!
I will end with some cool shots taken by Mike of BlankLogo Photography. He was nice enough to do some mini-shoots with Becky and me while we are at the con.
Like I said, I will post links when our video clips are up! I am also going to do a post of some of the best Cosplay costumes that I saw at the con in the next few days!
Thanks for reading!
