Neither Here Nor There: Comic Con 2015!

As I said in my previous post, Comic Con was kind of chill for me this year. It was a lot of time spent in the exhibit hall, walking around, hanging out, and kind of not a lot of panels. But it was, as always, FUN!

My boyfriend and i drove down to San Diego on Wednesday after taking a half day at work. It was a really pretty drive along the coast, and we made it to our condo downtown in just about 2 hours. We stayed just a couple blocks away from the convention center, which was SO convenient.

This may be the last year I get to attend the coveted Preview Night, so I definitely wanted to make the most of it. We wandered around and saw almost everything before giving up and getting tired. I looked at my watch. It had been an hour and a half. Oh well, there was plenty more Comic Con to go!

We made a couple observations that night. One was that the Disney Tsum Tsum booth was giving out pins every day if you took a picture with their standees. Um, yes please! They had one Aladdin themed one, and one Nightmare Before Christmas themed on. They also had a big stack of huuuge Tsums! There were several glass cases with upcoming products in them, including these adorable tiny plastic Tsums! Awesome, more things I have to collect!

Another is that there were several book publisher booths giving away books! We stopped at both these and the Tsum booths every day to pick up more pins and more books! It was pretty awesome!

A few more fun pictures from Preview Night:

ABC thing. IDK.

Fat Rabbit Farm's Babee Fett & Ewok Babee plushes!

SQUISHABLES. I did not buy any.

This are Groot.

A stack of Bare Bears!

I'm gonna need to get a dog just to dress them up like this.

R2 Servers!

Yes.

Thursday morning, I picked up my badge, and then walked the exhibit hall a bit. I follow several Comic Con related Twitter accounts set for mobile notifications on my phone (which I highly recommend so you don't miss out on things!), and read that Hall H was rather empty. So we rushed over and then walked right in. To Hall H. Let me repeat that: we walked right into Hall H. No line. We caught the last part of Billy Murray's panel, and then it was time for the Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 2 panel!! It started out epically, with a huge group of drummers all in white. Then they showed a 'message from District 13' and then the brand new trailer! It was really cool; I feel like it had been a long time since I've been able to see something like that in Hall H (though it's probably only been like 2 years).

Bill Murray and friend.

Several drummers drumming

OMG okay!

Josh Hutcherson, JLaw, & the inferior Hemsworth

That night, we went to a party held by the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund at the Westgate Hotel. It was too far to walk, so we took a pedicab! It was a pretty nice party. We got gift bags with several comic books, and Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab was there giving samples of some of their scents. They had several themed drinks - we got the Incredible Hulks, which were, of course, green (thanks to Midori). The pedicab driver told us out this hidden bar with an Alice in Wonderland theme. We decided to check it out, and had to go down a stairwell and then search to find the hidden door!

Gift bag & Incredible Hulk

I swear it was busier than this.

The screen where you could watch others try to find the hidden door!

This is NOT the door.

Friday was the busiest day, panels-wise. Of course, we couldn't get into those, so we caught the Walking Dead and Fear the Walking Dead panels in the Playback Room at the Omni. They don't play the additional videos (like trailers and whatnot), so we watched those later on the internet. The Playback Room is such a great alternative to trying to get into Hall H or Ballroom 20.

Greg Nicotero & Andrew Lincoln

Chandler Riggs & Danai Gurira

Steven Yuen

Melissa McBride

Then we checked out (or rather, walked around the outside of) some of the offsite stuff, like the Adult Swim carnival, the FXX Fearless Arena, and the parking lot outside Petco Park.

Hello Kitty truck serving Hello Kitty treats

FX Fearless Arena

Snowglobe for Fargo! I would have loved a picture in this, but didn't want to wait in line forever.

Marty McFly Lego, found at the Hard Rock!

AMAZING.

This is the Adult Swim carnival, surrounded by people camping out for Hall H. No thanks.

In the evening, we went back to Hall H for Kevin Smith's panel, which he bemoaned as completely empty after the previous panel, for something called Star Wars, took every attendee to a Star Wars Concert! There were actually still a lot of people there, the same amount as there usually are for his panel. He talked about his next film, Yoga Hosers, and brought out his daughter, who stars in it.

Saturday was the chillest of days. We walked over to the Snoopy/Belle boutique in hopes of getting a free Eos, only to find out it's free with purchase only. BOO. We did get a picture and a pair of free cardboard opera glasses, so there's that.

We tried to wait in line for Allie Brosh, of Hyperbole and a Half fame, but missed getting in the room by about 20 people. Then we tried to get in line for Muppets and then Lego Marvel's Avengers panels, but the line for that room was pretty insane. We ended up just hanging out, and then going to the Cheesecake Factory for dinner, before going back to the convention center for a panel my friend was in. I've never personally known anyone on a panel before, so that was exciting!

Also Elijah Wood was there.

On Sunday morning, I walked around the floor one last time before heading over to the traditional airing of the Buffy musical episode, Once More With Feeling. Juliet Landau, aka Druscilla, spoke a bit beforehand about the documenatries she's working on, one about vampires in popular culture, called A Place Among the Undead, and one about real life murders based on those myths, called A Place Among the Dead.

I took the Amtrak back to LA, which was a first for me. I decided upon it originally because I knew I would be staying in San Diego until Sunday evening, and the last time I did that, I sat in traffic back to LA for about 5 hours, which sucked. So this year I tried taking the Amtrak back. Overall it wasn't too bad. I bought a business class ticket, which guaranteed me a seat, and apparently, a bag of snacks and a drink. I sat on the wrong side, and so was on the opposite side of the ocean. Also, I found myself with an iPod with a dead battery, so I had to make do with listening to the ambient sounds of my Nintendo 3DS for the duration of the trip. I got to the train station around 5:30pm, and arrived back at my apartment at 10:30pm, which was maybe about the length of time I found myself in traffic last year, but at least I wasn't the one driving.