Comic-Con 2011 report

This is my first time back to Comic-Con, my first time back to the United States since 1997. I remember it being a lot smaller, I remember the place having more room to move about. 14 years later and it's a totally different beast. Back then it just used barely 1/3 of the exhibition space one one floor. Now it's expanded to beyond all the halls and rooms of the convention centre. Even going to hotels outside and events being held on the park grounds across the road from the convention.

I'm no stranger to massive conventions. I attended Comic Market consistantly for the past 11 years. So I'm used being obsessive to the point of camping out, or waking up early. To be honest, Comic-Con isn't close to the obsessive levels of Comiket, but there are still dedicated people who will camp overnight for the Twilight panel. The campers for Comiket usually number in the thousands the night before. I was number 42 in line when I camped out to collect my 4 day pass on Thursday morning. And maybe around the 400's when I camped out for next year's tickets.

Now, it's supposed to be summer in the states. But it was COLD. The whole West Coast had that kind of cold air, but sunny weather. I lugged with me a massive amount of clothes in anticipation of a sweat-fest like Japan's summer.

So, Comic-Con... there were at least a hundred panels I wanted to attend. But the lines were so daunting. People were camped out for Ballroom 20 and Hall H in particular. And the lines literally wrapped around the building. I wasn't going to my first convention in years and just stand in line for the whole day. So my first 2 days were to ignore the panels and focus on getting commissions from the artists in attendance.

First thing on Thursday morning was to run into the artist alley. Problem was... the artist alley was about 50% empty. The doors to the hall opened about 9am, but the artists weren't supposed to arrive until 9.30-10am. So strangely, it was quite empty in the morning in that section of the building. The bulk of the people were heading to the panels no doubt, or going to the toy booths to pick up the exclusives. My Thursday was dedicated to familiarising myself with the halls. Of course, I left to dump some luggage back at the hotel and promptly got lost for 4 hours trying to find my way back...