San Diego Comic Con 2007 Review- Part 1

San Diego Comic Con 2007 review

I attended the Sunday, August 29th Comic Con and boy was it packed and I’m sure that is the report you will hear from most attendants. I originally planned on attending the usually big Saturday event, but just over a week until the show, the Saturday show (and four day passes) was sold out, a first! And then as the week came closer to the Con, both Thursday and Friday sold out as well. I then booked the Sunday show ticket on Friday just in case, and glad I did as Saturday morning came around and Sunday was sold out as well. All four days at Comic Con were officially SOLD OUT, no walk-ins or anything.

After reading reports that Friday & Saturday was busy and packed, I was glad I chose Sunday since I just wanted to see Comic Con one last time since it has become so big, and hour and a half worth of driving, and my friend’s have also stopped going, so this year’s show was suppose to be the last hurrah. I haven’t attended Comic Con in about two years, and I ended up getting to the show about an hour early (9:30 a.m. was when it was stated that the registration doors open and 10 a.m. to the exhibit hall). I parked near the convention center just across the street, but the parking cost was a whopping $20.00 for the day, heck no! I drove a couple blocks and found another parking lot…same thing $20.00. Well I remember last time just paying $10.00 so I kept looking, ended up settling for $12.00 for a stall at an ACE parking structure next to the S.D. Padre’s Petco Park baseball stadium.

Now after attending Anime Expo this year, I was prepared for a long wait, maybe an hour. Well Comic Con is head and shoulders above the crew at AX. I walked into the Con at 9a.m. (30 mins. Before the reg. was suppose to open) and was directed to go upstairs to the registration booths, went up the escalator and proceeded to get my badge from a young lady, all-in-all taking about five minutes to register and get my badge, now that’s class. The AX people need to take a cue from SDCC since they have a larger area, more attendees and still manage to get people in ON TIME! The only problem I experienced at the beginning was lining up in the hallway to the escalators to go into the exhibit hall, waiting for 10 minutes then was directed by staff telling everyone that the line was OUTSIDE. So I had to get in another line and wait, waited 30 mins. until 10 a.m. Read the program guide while waiting, sad that the majority of stars and events happen on Saturday, even the autograph booths are sparse on Sunday.

Finally at 10 a.m. the line started moving, once inside I tried to look for the Hasbro Toy Shop booth so I could get my limited edition Transformers Alternator Rodimus and Titanium Menasor. The Con is huge for those who’ve never attended (almost ½-3/4 mile long I think end to end with tons of booths lining back-to-back of each other) so I had to circle back to get to the Hasbro booth. Ended up waiting in line again, about 20-30 minutes. Once I got to the front of the line, it was announced that the Menasor was sold out, so they didn’t even have enough for Sunday which I think is ridiculous. Got the TF Rodimus though. Lucky though they did inform us that the next day the items would be available online, so I was able to order the Menasor today, plus shipping & tax of course, dang you Hasbro!

Now that I had Rodimus, my next thing to do was get some original sketches from the artist’s alley. My main reason to go to SDCC was to get original drawings from comic pros, I’ve only done it a few times before and all for about $20 for some water color drawings. I saw the Green Lantern DC artist there, but sketches was $150, another was $150 as well, Adam Hughes was charging $250. Even a basic baseball card size head sketch by some was $20. Now I thought those were a bit high so I passed since I have a artist who I’ve commissioned work from before doing big 11x17 drawings for less than half those prices. So I was disappointed