Comic Con '10 Day One

For once I can say that Comic Con finally came up with a useful innovation and that is allowing people to pick up their passes in Fashion Valley on Wednesday. A lot of hotels and motels are in the Fashion Valley/Mission Valley area, so many con attendees stay there. Instead of schlepping all of the way downtown for Preview Night or worse yet, having to schlep downtown on Thursday and stand in line for three hours like I did last year, this allowed people to be ready to go on Thursday at 10 a.m.. The line at the Fashion Valley location was long but it moved really fast and I got my pass in an hour. Getting out of the busy parking lot took about an additional half hour but I didn't miss any con time at all. Awesome.

This morning, I made a bee line for Hall D, where the Star Wars Pavilion is always located. I suppose that because Celebration V is a few weeks away, there weren't as many licensees here as in the past. But all of the usual suspects were there or close by: Hasbro, Hallmark, DK Publishing, Museum Replicas, eFX, LucasArts, Official Pix, etc.. How many of you knew beforehand that Official Pix was going to host anyone SW this year? Me neither. As it turned out, Steve Sansweet, Catherine Taber from Clone Wars, and Dee Bradley Baker were on the schedule. Hey, thanks for letting us know, Official Pix! Baker is supposed to sign tomorrow, so I went up to Anne Neumann (I don't know her married name) and asked her what time Baker was signing. "When he gets here." Okay, um, how much is it going to cost? "Don't know yet." It would be nice to get his autograph since it will be one less to worry about at Celebration but can we be a little bit more specific??

Prior to hitting Official Pix, I went to the Her Universe booth. Ashley Eckstein wasn't there yet but all of the new goodies as well as the ones that have been online were there for sale. The Star Wars logo hat with the sparkly Swarovski crystals--glue-gunned on there by Ashley herself--was $60. It sounds pricey but I was honestly expecting it cost $80-$100. They were limited in availability and autographed on the inside brim. The guy at the booth told me if I buy the hat and bring it back later, Ashley can personalize it for me. Cool! So I bought that, one of the Alliance logo necklaces (the black one...there was also a blingy red crystal Alliance logo necklace), and the new Han 'n Leia t-shirt. They also had a new zip up hoodie jacket with an OT manga SW logo on the back and MTFBWYA on the bottom. It's a nice piece and I might come back for it. I was wearing my Padmé t-shirt and a girl and her mom show up to look at the stuff. The teenage girl really liked my shirt and the booth guy told her it was their top-seller online (take that, you naysayers who think nobody is interested in PT stuff). She ended up buying one. Where's my commission ;)?

I went wandering around the Star Wars Pavilion for a bit and took pictures. I ended up buying the Hallmark exclusive ornaments (Threepio and some other droid from TESB) since there was no line or anything to buy one. Apparently, Hallmark is rolling out a line of Avatar (the Smurfs, not the Airbenders) cards. In fact, I got a good laugh out of the Avatar merch I saw...for such an anti-capitalist movie, it sure has no problem with capitalism. Anyway, I saw that Hallmark will come out with other SW-themed gifts, i.e. glasses, desk accessories, picture frames, etc. next year. But I was very disappointed that all of it was Eps IV-VI stuff. I hate this business of pretending the prequels don't exist or trying to hide them behind the more kid-themed Clone Wars. Grrr. I went by a busy soft goods booth selling all kinds of SW plushy dolls and backpacks, which seemed to be really popular. They even had Stinky/Rotta from the Clone Wars flick. Another booth had belt buckles; they sell the same ones at Hot Topic. The LucasArts folks were handing out free stickers and sticking them on people. Mine fell off twice.

Around this time, the strap on the big free bag I got at registration yesterday broke. Dismayed, I went upstairs to the registration area to get another one. They told me, "No." So I was stuck with a huge bag I had to carry around in my hand. Wonderful.

Anyway, about a half hour or so later, I came back by Her Universe and Ashley Eckstein was there. I took out my hat and the booth guy looked at me like, "What do you want me to do with this?" Uh, I wanted to get it personalized? Like you told me about half hour ago? Am I that forgettable??? Once I explained it, recognition dawns and Ashley cheerfully personalized my hat. She was also wearing the Padmé shirt and laughed, "We match!" She was still her chatty, friendly self. I joked on Her Universe's Facebook page they were keeping labor costs down by having Ashley put on the crystals on the hats herself, but as it turned out, I was right! She told me it would have cost a lot more money to have paid somebody to make those hats, and since this was still a small operation, they didn't have the wherewithal yet to have everything mass-produced. Interesting. She hoped eventually that would change and they could bring prices down. She also told me that they were going to have a TESB exclusive necklace--a triangular shape--available only at Celebration V and there are going to only be 150 available! Eeek, I guess I better go by Her Universe first on 8/12!

Mission accomplished there, I headed toward the far end of the hall where Artists' Alley was located. I walked up and down the aisles, pushing through the crowds. Thursday is the least worst day though so at least the aisles were navigable! I managed to chat a little bit with some of the Star Wars artists at Artists' Alley, like Denise Velasquez and Randy Martinez. I told them that I saw video of their musical interlude at Germany's Star Wars Rocks con earlier this year. Denise does have her music available and we talked a bit about the technical problems of DIY recording.

Marching onward through aisles of videogames, steampunk merchandise, zombie stuff, Japanese stuff, weird crap whose appeal completely baffles me, and movie/t.v. promo booths, I considered the fact that the place really smells. Honestly fan people, can't you bathe every now and then and invest in deodorant? I have no idea why it gets stinky where fen gather. Perhaps that's why I saw more than one booth pimping Star Trek's line of fragrances. Men can chose from Red Shirt, Tiberius, Shirtless Kirk, and the brand new Sulu ("Oh my!"). The ladies can invest in Pon Farr ("drive him crazy"). Also, I find the practice of farting in large crowds because nobody would know who did it appalling. I know one can slip out every now and then without warning, but to cut one loose on purpose? Nast-y. That's what the bathroom's for. Or get some Beano. Yuck.

I paused at Jerry Vanderstelt's table because of a gorgeous new Padmé print on display. Wow, this one was awesome. And for the low, low price of $163 for the paper print and $350 or somesuch for the canvas. Well, the canvas was out of contention but hey, payday's tomorrow...should I splurge? I had to think about it. Vanderstelt also had on display his Celebration V art. That was a beauty as well. It's my #2 priority now, after Erik Maell's piece. I walked by Russell Walks' booth and he had a cool new poster I hadn't seen before either. Sigh.

I stopped by my friend Matt Busch's booth but we didn't get to talk for very long before two ladies came by to talk business. Matt is doing a line of classic film posters with zombie themes that seems to be successful. He said that a couple of guys who worked on the Harry Potter movies came by and bought a zombified Harry Potter poster. Apparently some properties don't like to see their characters get the undead treatment, but the Harry Potter guys thought it was hilarious. One of the women informed him that one of the gentlemen produced the films. Lucasfilm doesn't have a problem with zombies either because there were zombified posters for all of the SW and Indiana Jones movies.

On the way to heading outside to eat my lunch, Things From Another World was giving out tote bags. I snagged one and transferred all of my stuff into it. It turned out to be much sturdier than my Comic Con freebie bag.

I didn't see too many celebrities today, but I did catch "Thelma" from "Good Times" at one table. I doubt very many of the teens and 20-somethings at the con remember the show but I used to watch it on prime time! Eeek, I'm old. But "Thelma" looks great. I also saw Marina Sirtis signing at a table; she looks pretty good as well. I saw Peter Mayhew signing later on.

Eventually I got around to Gentle Giant's booth and checked out their wares. Among their collection of Star Wars Babes mini busts was a Snowbunny Padmé I'd never seen before. Her hair was loose and she had a flirtatious look on her face, and she was holding out mistletoe. If Rachel Zoe were a fangirl, she would say, "I. Die." I knew GG gives a freebie mini bust every Christmas to its premiere members, so I asked the GG guy if Padmé was going to be this year's giveaway. He said yes. This thing was so made of awesome because it was something an A/P fan fic writer would come up with...or perhaps a fanboy who dreams of snogging Padmé under some mistletoe. I'm definitely upgrading my GG membership to get that mini bust. Whatever it takes!

Hasbro had an awesome set up featuring the Battle of Hoth, starring its toys. Lots of cool stuff is on the way, just in time for Celebration. What a coincidence.

On I trundled past more aisles and more booths, pausing to look at some art nouveau items that turned out to be really expensive antiques. I saw what was supposed to be a huge set piece from the upcoming "Thor" movie. I saw some great stuff at Sideshow Collectibles, even though I can't afford a lot of them! Geez, guys, didn't you know there's a recession on? At the Kotobukiya booth, they had the Darth Maul and Mace Windu lightsaber chopsticks available, so I had to buy those.

I also saw a young woman in a very skimpy leotard pose for pictures with various attendees. How skimpy was it? Her butt cheeks were hanging out and she didn't wear any hose. Yikes. Worse yet, somebody even had her pose with A BABY. WTF???

That glittery hat I bought at Her Universe got a lot of compliments as I walked around, including from a booth full of burlesque dancers, heh heh. Where's my commission, again ;)?

At the Chronicles Books booth they had copies of "The Sounds of Star Wars" for sale, which won't hit bookstores for another month or two. Better yet, they were on sale for $20 off cover price. Sold, but boy was it heavy. I tried to check in my bags only to find out the coat check place was full. Darn it.

By about 4 or so, I was exhausted. I sat for a bit and rested, then went back to Vanderstelt's booth and shelled out for the Padmé print. I have no idea where I'll put it. Oh well, once I get my Barbie Dreamhouse, I'll have room.

So that was day one. Tomorrow is Star Wars Day and the highlight will be the Clone Wars panel in the p.m.. Hope I'll see something good!