Comic-Con International report

For the 5th year in a row, I had a table at the San Diego Comic Con. This year it was back to the Small Press area, which was probably a good thing, since the "cheap" (i.e., $650) tables were tiny and crowded this year.

It was a fairly good con overall. The new hall D was open in the SD Convention Center, so it was even BIGGER than last year! But the underground parking is still the same size, so I had to get there before 8 in the morning if I wanted to park. I'd hate to see what will happen when they finish building the ballpark....

Wendsday blew big time. They decided to have a 'preview day' this year, opening the exhibit hall from 5:30 p.m. to 8:30 for pre-registered fans. So I get there at around noon to set up (and to make sure I have a parking place), then I have to sit around for 6 hours. All for a lousy 3 hours of con time, during which I made no sales. Bleah!

Thursday was great, though. Thursday was the offical start of the con, when they start letting in the on-site registered fans. Made a $300 sale within 30 minutes! <IMG SRC="smilies/smile.gif" border="0">

Friday was slow (usually is), but Saturday and Sunday did pretty well. This was my best year ever at CCI, and one of my top 3 cons, period.

Saturday, I attended CritterConDiego, and didn't get home until 2:30 a.m. Then I had to wake up at 6 to head back to the Convention Center. <IMG SRC="smilies/eek.gif" border="0">

Unfortunately, I got stuck behind the table most of the time, so I didn't get to wander around the exhibit hall like I wanted to. And getting stuck in those gawd-awful chairs made my bad knee hurt so bad I could barely walk at the end of the con. But I did get out a few times, and managed to get caught up on my comics, fill a few holes in my collection, and find some new titles as well.

Costuming seemed kind of tame this year, none of the roaming hordes of Klingons and Stormtroopers like last year, though there were two people who really stuck out in my mind. One was a guy wearing a Klingon mask, and bright orange shorts, a Hawaiian shirt, and leis. <IMG SRC="smilies/confused.gif" border="0"> The other was a woman wearing a chainmail dress with nothing on underneith! <IMG SRC="smilies/eek.gif" border="0">

Did anyone else attend? I was over in the Small Press area, table B-3, in Hall A, between Yarf! and Noburbs.