Comicon 2009 Day One

I didn't have internet access to tweet/Facebook, so it's back to old school blogging for my report on day one of San Diego.

Flight out went pretty smooth, managed to read Elmore Leonard's The Switch and Darwyn Cooke's Hunter as well as watch the last couple episodes of Torchwood: Children of Men on the way. Got into San Diego at 4:40, made my way to the shuttle area and found the Holiday Inn shuttle just about to depart, perfect timing.

There was more than a little traffic this year. I got to the hotel at around 5:00, though, and got into the room I would be sharing with my roommate (who, as of this writing, I haven't met, as he was asleep when I got in... I'm trying to type as quietly as possible.) The shuttle from the Holiday Inn to the Con was jammed in traffic, and I didn't wind up getting to the convention center until about 6:15. The pro/press line was surprisingly long this year, but it moved quickly, and I was on the floor for probably two and a half hours of Preview Night.

Which was crowded as hell. The show sold out faster than usual, and there's every indication that this year is going to be even more crowded than last year. But as with last year's Comicon, I managed to get a lot of my goals for the weekend accomplished on the first night. I have tentatively lined up our Free Comic Book Day guests for 2010 and set up a very cool event for November. I picked up the new buttons and Clue cards from Colleen Coover, got Darwyn Cooke to sign my copy of Hunter, bought all the Love & Capes stuff for Katy, got new Owly T-shirts for me, Katy and Aaron and bought North World and Stumptown T-Shirts for myself from Oni. Lots of money spent first night, but hopefully that was the big burst, and there won't be as much money spent over the next few days. Also picked up Nathan Fox's artbook, and probably a couple other things I'm forgetting as well.

My dinner plans were looking like a lonely affair, but I called up my friend Tess and she invited me to come to dinner with her and Kevin Altieri. I joined them, along with a couple other friends I hadn't met before, and we walked back to my hotel to eat at the Elephant & Castle Pub downstairs. Decent grub, made better because by this point I was completely starving, and fun conversation and good food was had.

This one's light on the "who I saw, who I met" because it was a bit of a blur. With any luck, tomorrow I'll be able to do a bit more tweeting.