Comic-Con 2008

Just a few weeks ago, on July 25-26, Tim and I flew down to SD for what seems like an annual event for us now-Comic Con 2008. We spent our first day checking out all the booths, and sitting in one of the more popular panel discussions for the movie, Watchmen. Of course, the popular booths were once again Sideshow for the excellent statues, busts, and hourly giveaways, and Lucasfilm for everything Star Wars, which included a lifesize Jabba the Hutt, and a stage with the new life size Clone Wars characters on display. This stage was filled with endless and constantly changing star wars characters, such as every Clone Trooper imaginable, various forms of Mandalorian bounty hunters (aka Boba Fetts), and numerous Jedi knights. There was even a point where a group of predators stormed the stage to steal some of the spotlight from the Star Wars characters. Massive lines were also present at the ever popular Hasbro and Mattel booths for their exclusive Comic Con figures. I ended up buying a Lobo (from the Superman series) at the Mattel booth because of their short line at the Saturday opening. Perhaps it was because all the people were away lining up for the Heroes panel discussion, which we tried to get in line for at 8 in the morning Saturday by the way, but after seeing the line which wrapped around the Convention Center all the way to Seaport Village, we decided to pass and just hit the main show room.

Friday night, we also roamed the downtown SD area in search of numerous urban boutiques, such as the Armory, the Attic, and Five and a Dime. We also visited the Westfield mall (where we were standing right next to Method Man in Footlocker) before heading to dinner at Rei Do Gado's, our favorite Brazillian bbq. We stayed at the Bristol Hotel, which was awesome by the way. It was very modern, as our room was decorated in black, white, and red.

On Saturday Tim and I split up for most of the day to do our own things at the convention. Tim went around searching for autographs. I spent it looking at all the booths in detail, searching for gifts for Becks, playing papparazzi, and sitting in a DC panel discussion (included Bruce Timm of Batman cartoon fame), which had a preview of the 2009 release of the animated Wonder Woman. I actually ran into Ray P in this panel, so after it was over, we scoured the main showroom together for at least 30 minutes before he left to rejoin his family at their hotel. On Saturday the stars were out in full force (Heroe's James Kyson Lee and Hayden Panettiere, Buffy and Angel's Eliza Dushku and David Boreanaz, Star Trek's Avery Brooks and Jonathon Frakes, 24's producer and director Jon Cassar, rappers Common and Methodman, Lou Ferrigno, etc.).