Comic-Con

At the end of July Darren and I went to San Diego for 3 days for Comic-Con, the world's largest comic book, sci-fi and geek pop culture event in the world. Terrence came with us 2 days, and Jenn joined us for one afternoon (having to go to that whole job place to do that work thing in the morning).

Started in the '70s with 500 attendees, this annual convention now attracts more than 125,000 people a year to the Convention Center. This shot of the crowd doesn't do it justice, as you can't see just how wide, and how long the hall really is, and that is just the trade show part of it. On the next floor there were dozens of meeting rooms where you could go see talks on all aspects of the industry, and one huge hall where studios previewed movies and the actors, directors or producers would come out and talk to the crowd. Terrence and I went to one where Jessica Alba was promoting her new movie Good Luck Chuck, and we saw Peter Fonda talking about 310 to Yuma. All 4 of us went to a preview for the new Stargate movies. Many fans, of all ages, show up in costume - parents dressed up their babes in strollers, children of all ages wore their favorite character, groups of teenagers roamed around dressed as groups of Hogwarts students, and then there were these two women --- There were lots of superheros and sci-fi characters (these are just fans dressed up, not paid actors walking around. The only way to distinguish many of the actors from the fans was the ident badge the fans had to wear to get into the convention),storm troopers (apparently even intergalactic evil doers need to check in with the office occasionally),and a very large number of women dressed up in the gold bikini Princess Leia wore when held captive by Jabba the Hut. I think those women were very brave wearing such a costume, as the convention center was FREEZING cold, and they didn't have a lot on!Also, a ton of fans were dressed as Japanese anime characters, and it was fun to watch them act out scenes (even if I don't know who any of the characters are).
We were very impressed with the level of detail and the quality of costumes that were here. We talked to one girl visiting from the mid-west, who was rather dismissive of some of the anime costumes that "were obviously store bought". Apparently true fans make their own outfits. Like this guy dressed as J'Kar from one of my favorite series, Babylon 5!
Most of the studios, gaming companies and memorabilia folks were out in full force. The displays, from Batman out of Lego to a full size Jabba the Hut were amazing. I think Mitchell would really like to see the displays and lego characters, and of course the Batmobile!
We saw celebs like Jessica Alba and Lou Ferrigno, and stood in line for autographs from Amanda Tapping and the gang from SG-1 and Stargate Atlantis.Terrence and I chatted for a while with Marc Singer, aka Beast Master, Jenn had her pic taken with other fans dressed as original Battlestar Galactica Psilons, and I had to document my encounter with the only Elvis Stormtrooper I have ever met.With Darren taking most of the photos, we don't have any with him in them! It was a great time, and we will have to go back another year.