San Diego Comic Con 2007 Review- Part 2

So now it was time to WALK THE CON.

I’ve only attended Comic Con on a Sunday about 2 yrs. ago and that day was sparse of visitors, this year was packed, almost a Saturday traffic in my eyes. It was bumper to bumper traffic, pushing and squeezing through the narrow aisles and booths. I overheard attendants from Saturday say that that day was even more packed, which I could hardly believe since I don’t know how people could even squeeze through. For Con attendees, please don’t
take your babies and young children to the Con if they require a stroller! I thought the strollers was banned before, but those with them were trying to squeeze in areas where they didn’t have room causing people to hurdle or push to one side. I feel bad for those in wheel chairs since there was a good amount of them there, and there was just no room. I had a game plan to zig zag through the booths in order to see them, but the traffic was too large that I just visited the booths that I could maneuver to without getting crushed. For a comic book convention, only about 15-20% of the booths I saw had comic books, most of the booths were media related (Star Wars, Pirates, Sci Fi channel, Hasbro, Mattel, etc.).

It took me a full 5.5 hours to see the whole convention center (compared to just an hour at Anime Expo for size and traffic comparison) and I didn’t even get to see any panels or go upstairs to the autograph area. None of the items were really out of the normal I haven’t seen before, swords, Transformers, Manga, DVDs, Dr. Who items, independent comic booths, etc. I didn’t even see rare TF Titanium toys (The Fallen, Ultra Magnus, etc.) that I never saw at retail. On the anime cel side, slim pickings this year. Only saw about 4-5 small booths with cels. The biggest was the Eaton Gallery from Sherman Oaks, CA where I got a couple Super Friends dougas, but they specialize in mostly American cels (Warner Bros, Hanna Barbera, Disney). Was able to get a free sketch of the Atom from the SF show since instead of a price on the label it said “Free- Just Ask” and so as I was paying for the WW sketch the guy looked at the “Free” listing and asked another co-worker since they never saw it before, but they gave it to me free (another similar sketch was $5). I liked the cels they had from the 90s Iron Man (plain cels around $30) and sketches from the new Teen Titans and Justice League shows, but they were going for a minimum of $750-$1k. My only cel purchase was a cel of the enemy look-alike Guyver Aptom from the Lost Numbers Zoanoid team with sketch.

Kept staring at the watch since on Sunday the Con closes at 5 p.m. instead of the normal 7 p.m. I was nearly done with the booths at 4:30 a.m. but wanted to circle in on some items to pick up. I really wanted to get the huge, oversized Smallville bags that was the size of a person that everyone was carrying around, but I couldn’t find the booth. Also tried to get a “Vote for Petrelli” campaign button from the Heroes booth but it was packed since they did raffles throughout the day. Decided to leave around 4:30 a.m. an hour and a half before closing to escape the traffic out of San Diego. So ends my day at SDCC 2007 and to my Con experience in SD for the foreseeable future.

Highlights:
•Saw Levar Burton (Reading Rainbow host, Geordie LaForge from Star Trek: The Next Generation) and Captain Sisko’s son from the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine show signing autographs from a booth. Though they charged $20 for the autographs or pic to be taken with them. Also saw the chief engineer actor from the Battlestar Galactica new series.
•Still a good place to see all the upcoming toys and collectibles from manufacturers.
•You can get a drawing from big-level artists….if you have a lot of money to drop.
•Easy registration process, not a lot of lines to wait in just to get into the Con.
•Able to get exclusive toys made just for SDCC