Comic-Con Day 2

Another brief post, I'm afraid...I hope I can remember all the details when I get around to filling these posts out.

We wanted to catch the earlier train (9:36) on Friday, so we got up at 8:30. Mmm...that wasn't really enough time. We left the house close 9:20...we did arrive at the station before the train did, but we would have had to park blocks away with about 2 minutes to go, so we decided to drive.

Traffic just sucks, at the time of day, everywhere. Eventually we got to a cleat spot, though, and made it to downtown. Then we had to find parking, which we did before too long, though pretty far away from the convention center.

Found our way there eventually and made it to the last hour of the Comic Book Law School 101 workshop on intellectual property rights. They guy who gave it was really enthusiastic and clear, and it was pretty interesting (there is a 102 workshop today, but we're going to have to miss it to sit in line for Heroes...).

My only other plan for the day was to see Neil Gaiman, so we just wandered around for a little while and found the overpriced crappy food court for me to get lunch.

I took my pizza to where I'd be waiting in line to see Neil; I arrived right before the event that would precede mine. There was no one else waiting outside, so I thought, Why not just go and grab a pretty nice seat inside now, watch this other event, and then move up for Gaiman? So I did.

I'm glad I did, too, because the event was pretty cool--it was the creative team for the upcoming The Spectacular Spidermanl, which will be premiering on Kids WB in 2008. The producer was the guy behind Gargoyles, apparently, and it was great to hear him talk about their plans for this show. I'll say more later, but it looks really awesome and I plan to watch it when it comes out.

I sat in the aisle seat of last row of the front section of the room, which wasn't bad, next these random kids (by kids I mean they were out of college...). During the Spiderman stuff, I learned, via handwritten notes on paper, that the boy next to me, who would stare at me rather intensely from time to time, was named Alan and that he thought I was very pretty. (Exact words "You are very pretty.") So that was fun but also pretty awkward.

What's even more awkward is that when I tried to move up between events, it became clear that finding a new, better seat would be difficult, so I went back to sit next to Alan again. Oh well. We had some weird conversations, weird because of some miscommunication (just about books and things, though), and then Neil Gaiman came on.

It was fantastic. I was probably glowing. I did not get up to ask a question..if I'd had a really pressing question, I would have (I think), but I really just wanted to listen to him speak, because he's so much fun to listen to. I really will fill this out with details later.

Post-Gaiman, I met up with Andrew and we went back onto the trade floor. Saw a girl (hired by the booth) costumed as the girl with the machine gun leg from Planet Terror...and I couldn't figure out how they did it, except to have a real one-legged girl (unless she was holding her leg behind her and I just never got close enough to see). Andrew bought a book he wanted, and we went back to see the Sam & Max guy (Steve Purcell) so I could buy something for Ted. When he saw us coming, Purcell said something like, "Well, now I'm embarrassed that I complimented you yesterday," and I played it off by mentioning that I'd told my friend who was a big fan, and needed to get something for him now. Long story short, bought him a book, and Steve Purcell put an extra special sketch in it for Ted.

We ended the day with two panels, one on how to pitch an animated short to a company, and the other on how to build and sell your intellectual property--so, very close to the same thing. The first one was kind of interesting, but by the second, so much of the information was repeats of what we'd heard both in the prior and in the workshop this morning that I just couldn't keep my eyes open (they were even all in the same room). Plus it was really poorly moderated--more on this later.

We left Comic-Con after this; it officially ends at 7, which it was then 15 minutes after, and we weren't planning to stay for any nighttime events (the Eisner Awards were last night). We drove back up north, stopped at a place for "Chicago Style" pizza on the way (pineapple and bacon for toppings), and basically fell asleep when we got home.

Off to wait in line for Heroes!