Part 3: San Diego Comic Con

So we made it to Comic Con, we had just been introduced to the staff of Dark Horse Comics. They set us up with great bags of swag. These included pins, stickers, comic books, posters, and two cool 20th anniversary items, a coin and a key chain. (I will post pictures of these two items when I get a chance.) We deposited our bags of stuff in the "green room" of the Dark Horse booth, fueled ourselves with Red Bull, and began to review the program for panels of interest that we could still catch. Due to the late arrival of our flight we missed the panels on Hellboy animated movies, the Dark Horse 20th Anniversary, Snoop Dogg's Hood of Horror, and Scott McCloud.

We decided to take a preview of the exhibition hall and try our best to make it to the Wildstorm: Crossroads panel at 3:30. Greg is a great fan of Grant Morrison. I was excited to learn more about the new WildCats comic with Morrison writing and Jim Lee's pencils. More on this panel later.

First stop, the Hot Chocolate booth. This is Jim Silke's booth. He was joined at various times by other artists, including Mike Mignola and Geoff Darrow. I needed to pick up Mignola's convention sketchbook and limited edition print for my collection. I wasn't sure how long they would hold out.

There was a short line at the booth. While I waited I checked out the surroundings and was dumbfounded but the talent in the surrounding area. Within 20 feet of where I stood were booths for Mike Mignola, Gary Gianni, Geoff Darrow, and Arthur Adams. These four artists' work make up a huge part of my comic book collection. This was a section of the exhibition hall that I planned to return to again and again over the course of the convention.

I was a little star struck by Mignola. I thanked him for all of the great art and stories. He personalized the inscription in the sketchbook for me. I didn't think to ask him to sign my sketchbook too. I wish I had. There was a line and I was beginning to feel overwhelmed by the whole experience. I was affected by the environment of the exhibition hall(which to say it is over stimulating is an understatement), traveling through time zones, sleep deprivation, and Red Bull.
We spent some time looking around. I did my best to track down some of my online friends from the Hellboy Forum. I went to the Animated Hellboy and to Pan's Labyrinth looking for anyone. It was too late. We then headed up to the meeting rooms to find the WildStorm panel.

The highlight of the Wildstorm panel was hearing Grant Morrison talk about all of the projects he is working on with Wildstorm. As per usual most of his monologues left me saying to myself "what the..." It sounds like the new WildCats series is going to be fantastic. They showed a variant cover my McFarlane that was pretty cool. I am sure that it has made its way around the Web by now. All of my pictures of Morrison had a professional photographer's tripod in them.

Jim Lee showed up late but he brought cookies. He passed them around. I got a very fuzzy picture of it. It was a nice gesture.

After the Wildstorm Panel we checked out the exhibition hall some more. The size of it combined with the lack of sleep, it was all a lot to take in.

Before too long it was time for dinner. We went to an upscale Mexican restaurant on 5th Avenue called La Fiesta. We shared the Ceviche. I believe Greg had carnitas and I had an amazing mole poblano. If you ever go to San Diego check out that mole.

We spent part of the evening checking out what the Gaslamp district of San Diego had to offer. We ended up getting a scotch in the hotel bar before getting some sleep for another busy day.