Geek Speaking Medicinal Uses for Comic Con

Geek Speak: Medicinal Uses

The two-by-two strip is brought to you courtesy of my being terrible at figuring out mathematical ratios for the purposes of getting this down to a reasonable size to display in a single row. This is partly due to the "canvas" setting sin Sketchbook Pro, where I did the finishing work for this one. When everything is said and done the finished work is huge. I struggled with getting the panels down to a size that looked good in a single row, but finally gave up when it got to be really late and the text balloons looked terrible. 

This one marks a couple of firsts for me. I've never drawn a group of animals like the ones in panel three, and I've never made use of a cinematic device like the "pull away" that takes place between panels three and four to let the audience in on what he's seeing and the reason for his reaction. 

I can't speak for everyone, but I think buying a cart full of alcohol is a totally acceptable response to suddenly being able to understand everything animals are saying. 

Comic Con: The Highlight Reel

I've dedicated a few blog posts now to Comic Con, and as time goes on it becomes less and less relevant. To wrap things more quickly I'll spend a little bit of time on the highlights from the weekend and a few of my final thoughts now that I've had a chance to digest it all.

The Adventures of Lendell Prime

Lendell had a pretty extraordinary run of good luck on the second day of the Con. He is a big, big fan of Game of Thrones, and he had been planning, that's not a strong enough word, insisting that he was going to attend the Game of Thrones panel this year. He knew going in that it would be a zoo, but I don't think anyone was prepared for how the length of the line when we drove up at 9:00AM that morning. It was already wrapping around the convention center. With more than a little reluctance and disappointment Lendell gave up on attending the panel. At least, until after our lunch at the Rock Bottom Brewery.

We were on our way back to the car to drop some things off (Tea Leaf had scored pre-paid parking at the convention center) when he got a call from Tea Leaf. Tea Leaf had managed to score re-entry tickets to the panel. He hustled off to find them, get his ticket, and get into "Hall H" ahead of the big event.

He made it into the hall, found a seat, and got settled in before the big show. While he waited for the Game of Thrones panel I went upstairs to one of the smaller rooms for the "Spotlight on Bruce Timm" panel. As part of the panel the show was handing out tickets for Game of Thrones gift bags that people attending the show could pick up from a room in the Marriott. Lendell scored one of those, too. The bag, it would turn out, consisted of well over a hundred dollars worth of Game of Thrones merch, including a T-shirt he'd wear on the last day of the convention.  

As part of his presentation Timm mentioned that he was actually set up in a booth in the general vicinity of Artist's Alley. Known Lendell to be a big, big fan of Bruce Timm and the original Batman: the Animated Series I sent him a quick text. 

Lendell has a special book he brings with him to the convention just on the chance he'll run into Bruce Timm or Paul Dini and have the opportunity to get them to sign it. As it happened he had shared that bit of information with us in the hotel room just prior to leaving for the day. In my text I told him about Timm's booth, and told him to go get his book signed. He was able to do that after leaving the Game of Thrones panel. I was able to get Timm's signature a little thereafter.

Frank Cho

I picked up a book from Frank Cho at his booth, and he was nice enough to sign it. Frank is a cool cat. If you get the chance to buy a book from him and say a couple of words, do. He's gracious, and funny, and if you catch him at the right time he might even draw a quick doodle of one of the characters from his webcomic Liberty Meadows, as he did for me at WonderCon when he'd sold out of his books. 

Artist's Alley

Like Thursday I didn't get to spend a lot of time in Artist's Alley, but I did get to wander around some. Artist's Alley is incredible. I really hope I get to go to Con again next year, as I will likely spend at least one day just walking artist's alley and talking with some of the artists there. 

An interesting recurring theme that revealed itself in Artist's Alley was how few of the artists had gone to art school. Most had studied something else, something completely unrelated, and that's if they had gone to college at all. What they all have in common is a passion for the work, and they draw every day, they draw anything they see that interests them, and they are constantly challenging themselves. 

The other thing they had in common was most of them are really cool and gracious about talking to people who walk up. 

Tea Leaf and Celluloid Lannister

I mentioned in a previous post that Tea Leaf and Celluloid Girl had dressed as the Lannisters for the second day of the convention. The picture that I posted really didn't do them justice. 

The costumes were spot-on so much so that when they were waiting outside the convention center for the cast of Game of Thrones to go into the area where they would be signing books and whatnot for fans, they were spotted by the cast and producers of the show. One pointed them out to another, who pointed them out for two more, until the entire cast was pointing at them and waving to them. Someone involved with the show had someone run over with a microphone at some point and handed it to Tea Leaf. Both were so overwhelmed that Tea Leaf said he stammered out something like, "I really like your show..." but a couple members of the cast commented on how much they loved my friends' costumes and then went into their signing event. Shortly thereafter someone wandered over and handed them the re-entry pass that Lendell would use to get into the panel. 

As an epilogue to their day in costume, Tea Leaf had spent the entire day with his hand balled into a fist inside his sleeve. It was then wrapped in an ace bandage so he wouldn't have to clench it all day. To give you some idea what that would be like, ball your fist and hold it for ten minutes. Then imagine holding that for nearly twelve hours. When he finally changed and uncurled his fist it opened slowly like they ancient desiccated claw of the mummy. I think it might even have creaked. Anyway, it looked agonizing. 

Dinner with the Phoenix

Phoenix rolled into town later with our mutual friend Gibbergeist. She was planning to meet up later with her husband, Benni. We didn't know quite where to eat that night, so we ended up in a little hole-in-the-wall pizzeria called Ciro's. 

Ordinarily I don't go out of my way to eat pizza. When I do it has to be something like what we got at Ciro's. I ordered the fig and pig and washed it down with a Moscow Mule (vodka, ginger beer, and lime). The drink was a little light on the adult beverage content side of the equation, but the pizza was worth a trip to San Diego on its own. 

The End of Day Two

That pretty much sums up day two for me at the convention. It was really a day of ups and downs, but it was a day of spending a lot of time with some really great people, and learning a lot about an industry and a story telling medium I love. 

There was more in store for me on days three and four.