San Diego Day 3

Saturday. Or "The Day Randy Realized That Maybe Comicon Has Gotten Too Big After All."

Once again, up early (around 8:30), got ready then headed down to breakfast at diner next door. French toast and ham, and a Coke for the caffeine. Got the shuttle around 9:30, got to the Con before 10, still wasn't able to get a cool big WB bag, or any of the other cool stuff I thought I might want. So I headed over instead to see Alex Grecian and Riley Rossmo, who do the awesome Image book Proof, and picked up Rossmo's sketchbook. While there, I ran into Kyle Baker and chatted with him a bit.

Then it was time for the frustrating realization of just how crowded Saturday was going to be. Learning my lesson (or so I thought) from yesterday's Spaced panel, I went up early to get into the Terminator line, got up there around 10:45 for an 11:30 panel. Line was out the door, and they weren't clearing the rooms between panels. As it got closer and closer to 11:30, it seemed likely we weren't getting into that panel. And we didn't have Internet outside, which made the wait even more annoying. I listened to a Dial A Stranger podcast and played some Tap Tap Revolution. I was about to give up, but the line moved inside, and that was enough to get me Internet access so I could Twitter, check websites, check RSS and fritter away the next hour waiting for The Office panel, which was in the same room.

Got into that, and it was a lot of fun. Some of the best fan questions of any panel I've been to, and if some of the writers were very quiet, enough of them (especially Mike Schur) had plenty to say that you didn't really notice. I then had a choice, to stick around through a panel I didn't really want to see so that I could also see Pushing Daisies, or to leave and give up on seeing any more panels that day. I chose the latter.

So it was off to Ralph's for some clam chowder (big 'ol bowl, I was very full and very pleased, Ralph's has really good lunches considering it's just a supermarket) then headed back in to pick up my sketchbook from Colleen Coover.

Rewind: I had dropped off Katy's sketchbook for Coover, and she did a kickass Batgirl for Katy. Also, just because we're rewinding, at some point I brought a beautiful pencilled piece that Ramona Fradon had done of Plastic Man and Wonder Woman. She had a ton of pieces, and they were all great... if I'd had the $150-200 to drop, I would have gotten one of the bigger ones. She wasn't going to be around Saturday or Sunday... kind of a bummer, because I think I now have the cash to spend on one of the bigger ones.

OK, back to Saturday. Ran into Andy Diggle at the Vertigo booth, wandered through the videogame area collecting posters for a variety of things, went and bought Dr. McNinja and a T-Shirt from the creator, ran into Marc Andreyko at the DC booth, then got a sketch from Michael Gaydos and a print of Manhunter to boot.

I know I'm forgetting sketches and prints and sketchbooks I got. I'm sure I'll do some kind of feature on Comic Pants. But rewind again, on Friday I was wandering through the Hasbro booth and randomly spotted Larry Hama, only one guy talking to him. Hama is pretty much responsible for me being in comics, thanks to GI Joe hooking me, so I went over and told him that, told him how glad I was he was doing the IDW stuff, and he signed a freebie GI Joe comic Hasbro had for me.

I know I'm forgetting a ton of people I ran into during this day, but I know that after leaving the Con around 7, I went to The Fish Market. I was solo, and I don't really like eating alone, but it turned out for the best. There was a wait for tables, but no wait to sit at the bar and eat, and they had the full menu. I had a Ginger Lime Prawn appetizer and then Garlic Prawns (the guy next to me, a pilot from Calgary, had them and they looked awesome). Talked with Jeff and Noel, a couple who were there celebrating their 10th wedding anniversary. Truthfully, I would rather have had one of those comic geek talks that Comicon dinners are so good for, but it was a pleasant evening, and there was great food.

Then I returned to the hotel room to blog this, which is what I'm doing now.