Comic Con - Saturday

Mike compared Friday to Empire Strikes Back, so I guess that means that Saturday was our Return of the Jedi. And you know what that means! Chirping, hooting teddy bears!

But not really.

Anyway!

This was the latest we were to the Con the whole weekend, so I just had time to get to the Convention Center, get Corey Lewis to sign my Sharknife, watch Bryan Lee O'Malley sign Lindsay's Scott Pilgrim book, grab a quick lunch, and then head to the DC: One Year Greater panel. And then that panel sucked! Seriously, I thought maybe they'd let the wide array of talent up there talk a little bit, but no, it was straight to the Q&A. I beat a hasty retreat back to the floor.

I finally, finally got Steve Purcell to sign my Sam and Max collection. He was really pleased that my copy was so worn. He did a li'l Sam sketch and signed it and I was super happy. I also snagged a sweet FLCL shirt. I headed back to the DC booth to get Grant Morrison's to sign stuff again, but it turned into a crazy nightmare. I'd get into details but I don't want to bore you so let me just say that I waited in a line that wasn't real, Morrison was 20 minutes late, I thought the real line was closed, and then wound up in the real line completely by accident just as they opened it up to more people. So I got the first issues of New X-Men and All-Star Superman signed, so that was all right.

There was a large group of well-dressed Batman villains circling the DC booth at this point, and I was greatly amused to see a guy dressed as the Joker chatting up a girl in a wheelchair dressed up like Oracle. NERD IRONY. I also noticed Misty Lee due to her signature top hat. And because she's, y'know, gorgeous.

I was pretty beat from the Con overall so I decided to hit Ballroom 20 early to sit back and wait for the Veronica Mars panel. I wound up seeing this TV Guide panel that I had known nothing about beforehand, but wound up featuring Jorge Garcia, Jennifer Love-Hewitt, David Goyer, Jeph Loeb, Frank Spotnitz, and the head of programming at the Sci-Fi channel, among others. The panel was still pretty dry, though.

Finally the Mars panel got underway, and Matt and I had decent seats. Rob Thomas did most of the talking, which was fine. Ryan Hansen did a backflip. Michael Muhney's a hambone. Francis Capra said maybe one thing the whole time. Apparently next season Tina Majorino will be a regular, and that's an idea I can really get behind. And during the Q&A a guy claimed to have a package for Kristen Bell that had been delivered to him because he was living in one of Bell's old apartments. "I think it's a foot massage," he noted. After a bit of back and forth, he gave the package to security, who gave it to Bell, who opened it, looked up and said "It's from my agent. Who apparently does not realize I moved two years ago." Good times.

Afterwards we all met up and headed back to the hotel for dinner and to freshen up for the remainder of the evening's escapades. Lacking an extra shirt to change into, I donned my new FLCL shirt and cursed myself for not bringing anything nicer. I also got a head start on drinking, downing a SoCo and Coke before heading out, and preparing another one for the road. We hit up the masquerade first, meeting Corinne, Aimee, Laurel, and Jenni. We kicked back at our corner table and drank a bit. The masquerade seemed lamer than last year, so Leslie took off early with Jenni, and Lindsay, Paul, and Frank wandered off to the Hyatt. I was pretty drunk by this point, but I did notice Mike was actually drinking again. That boy's going to develp a problem.

The dance party started up earlier this year, and they actually turned down the lights, so that was an improvement from last year. There was a bit of dancing and then we decided to find our friends at the Hyatt, but only after having to pry some strange guy off of Liz. Scandal! On our way out Corinne tried sliding down the bannister, but slid right off and ate it. Landed right on her tailbone. Painful for her, hilarious for others.

(All memories at this point are through the filter of being intoxicated. Feel free to correct me if I mix something up, folks.)

The Hyatt, is turned out, was PACKED. Why didn't we go there last year again? It took us a bit of time to wrangle everyone, and then everybody just seemed to just be sitting on these steps off away from the party, so I waded back into the crowd where I immediately ran into Meredith and Ethan. Some others from our team came over and we wandered over to a different bar at the opposite end of the hotel. I spotted Grant Morrison and various other comics professionals. Finally we headed up to Meredith's room to relax a bit. Frank and Lindsay were MIA at the Hyatt bar (turns out they were both being hit on). Laurel and Meredith tried to order room service, but were on hold for half an hour. Paul, Mike, Corinne, and Aimee went home. I met a few of Meredith's co-workers. Frank and Lindsay finally made it up to the room and they were BOMBED. Eventually hotel security threw us all out. (Not us specifically, just anyone who wasn't a hotel guest. They were sweeping the whole floor.) I had sobered up by this point and was pretty tired (it was around 2 or 2:30), but Lindsay kept bugging me the whole car ride back to the hotel until I flew off the handle. And that's really all I have to say about that. Matt's attitude the whole way back was pretty hilarious. "Just gettin' us home! Not going to be involved! Just driving the car and smiling!"

So that was that. The next day we packed up our stuff and headed back to LA. On the drive home I read Lost Girls, which is a really literate, sophisticated piece of fiction where the characters just happen to have graphic sex every few pages. Ah, pornography.

Uh, the end, I guess.