This was my first time at Comic Con. The prices for passes are too damn high for me, I'm not a comic fan (that would be my husband's department) & despite all his stories, I figured it would appeal much more to my husband than me. I got my professional pass and figured I'd go to network, check out vendors, go to the infamous Venture Brothers & Robot Chicken panels hubby had been telling me about for years (he's been to every single one ever since we've lived here & he could go to Comic Con on a professional pass) & while we had that booklet for Get a Life, see about getting it autographed by Chris Elliott while he was allegedly going to be there (we'll get to more of this in Day 3).
My husband briefed me on the whole experience of Comic Con. A few tips:
1. Wear comfortable shoes.
2. Bring a bag for your loot. If it's your first year there, you will buy something.
3. Get there early for the professionals line.
4. Avoid going on Saturday like the plague.
5. Bring portable food to eat since the food at Javitz is greasy & too expensive, even by NYC standards.
One very valuable tip he gave me that I used was: if you see something you want, buy it because it may not be there the next day.
This turned out to be great advice because by Sunday, it was slim pickings.
We arrived there a little after 12:30 if I recall. Here's where we were in line:
As time passed toward 3 p.m., when the floor opened the line got longer. Here are some views of that:
It gets long, doesn't it?
So as we were in line, I overheard conversations, listened to music on my iPod & occasionally sat down to rest my legs. When the line moved, we got up really quick even with our stuff on us.
Eventually, we got onto the exhibit floor. We spent our whole day there. One observation worth noting: if you're not a comics person, you can probably still find stuff here. I bought quite a few things, in fact.
For instance, these plushes from I Heart Guts. The lady at that booth was awesome. She asked if I'd been there last year; I explained it was my first year & we'd seen her site before going there so it had been a planned stop.
Basically, I Heart Guts is a retailer that has plush versions of various organs. Things like hearts, brains, bladders but even lady & man parts like the testicles and ovaries. Here's what I got there on Thursday:
A brain. Because, everyone should have one. If you don't, you are an idiot who needs to stop taking up so much oxygen.
A black heart! Since as a lawyer, it felt only proper that I have one. Why not a literal expression of something people will already tell you I have based on my occupation & being "the enforcer?"
And an ovary since I like the weird & unusual in my plushes. Plus, it's controversial & since I grew up with a Puritanical parent there's always a part of me that's going to gravitate toward the controversial. Getting that also gave me a brilliant idea for a video blog & inspired another purchase from them the next day. I plan to do this visual rant right near election time (you know, pretty damn soon once I can get my hubby to be cameraman for it).
I gave the lady here my card since she was awesome & I'd totally love to use that product placement in my company's work if given the opportunity. Perhaps even in my own project.
We did a lot of browsing around on Thursday. Got some free cereal from the Kellogg's Krave booth. I'd had the regular chocolate before. With milk, it's the weirdest stuff.
Major point to make here: there are LOTS of things at Comic Con that have NOTHING to do with comics. There was a Craftsman booth, a Chevrolet booth that had cars with no relation to comics, wrestler booths, gamer stuff, weapons, etc. I had thought the Craftsman booth was to encourage women who were being harassed by the fan boys to use tools to beat them down & repel them away. My thought was they were giving live instruction on how to use tools for that purpose. No, they apparently created their own comic book that was being given away.
Even NBC Universal had a booth to advertise their daytime talk shows, many of them extremely trashy! I went with my husband to the dentist once in the East 100s of Manhattan (which is not a nice area & we thought it was low income). When I was in the waiting room, they were playing Maury Povitch and I overheard some people in the waiting room who struck me as being from the very demographic most people will tell you Maury Povitch is trying to appeal to say that they felt Maury was trashy with all the "Who's my Baby's Daddy?" stuff. The very same complaints, I might add that so called "educated" & "professional" types make about daytime talk shows (some of which I've heard with my own ears).
Steve Wilkos was scheduled to make a public appearance there on Saturday or Sunday but I didn't show up for that one. I personally think that show would be much better if Steve Wilkos were given a gun, could blow away proven child molesters & the like with zero liability on him or the show if he did so and enough checks were done to make sure the proper animals were taken out. If he also got to take out corrupt politicians & Wall Street bankers, I think we'd all be on board for that one (all proven of course; you have to make sure people are actually guilty first or admit to their wrongdoing). The only people who wouldn't be are too wimpy to live if you want my honest opinion. If you know one, ask if they would live next door to a convicted child molester if they had kids or let that child molester babysit for them since they're so gung ho about NEVER killing ANYONE, no matter what the person did (even if it was horrific, gruesome & harmed multiple babies/little kids/disabled people/puppies/kittens/whatever weakened group you feel sympathy for). Let's see how they feel about murdering people who do these things & have zero remorse or are actually proud of molesting babies (or whatever inhuman atrocity they committed)!
Doing that would also accomplish televised murders without too much extra cost.
Amidst all this craziness, I found another vendor whose clothing caught my eye. Specifically, this dress:
She told me she only had that one & it was in a Small. As I often wear a small or x-small in things, I wasn't sure if it would fit. She told me the sizing was a little different than normal & it was based on your hips. However, based on mine she felt the dress would fit. If it didn't, she said, I could come back tomorrow & exchange it. I decided to take the risk since I thought it looked awesome, I had nothing even close to similar & it was an okay price for me.
Sometimes, the vendors you get things from don't have names. They just have cool, awesome merchandise that catches your eye & says "Consider buying me." This one actually shouted "Buy me!" As per my policy, I had to get it and at least see if it fit.
Then, I found one jewelry vendor called The Silver Necklace. They were another planned stop for my shopping purposes. Their earring display in particular caught my eye so I spent time looking there. I ended up getting 4 new pairs of earrings:
Slices of cake. Definitely appealed to my unique sense of style.
You can't see these well but they are black hearts with some colored patterns on them. They look nicer with more light.
I saw these & immediately thought of a brown silver necklace charm I'd gotten recently. It was a brown heart, presumably a chocolate heart lollipop. If I can match something I see on a shelf to something I own, I definitely consider that in the choice to buy.
And lastly:
This was a no brainer since I thought "These will match that white dress & other stuff I have." Plus, they could work in a business setting.
I also finally got a corset. That had been on my wish list for ages:
This is a quality corset from Timeless Trends in Austin, TX. Has a lifetime guarantee, in fact. I also made sure to try it on before getting it. That had to be an event since people saw you being laced into them when you were trying them on.
If you've never had a corset on, it's scary as hell at first. I wasn't sure if I was going to be able to breathe. I also wasn't sure if I could eat or move in it. I tried on 2 and this one felt much better. I think also having that sense memory of having one on helped some since the second try on wasn't as scary. In fact, I think wearing a corset could even help your back since my back felt much straighter after I was wearing them.
Their staff was very friendly & helpful in this whole trying on experience. The saleswoman there also made me feel at ease when I said I felt like I couldn't breathe when I tried on the first corset; I was worried it was just me who had that but I guess maybe it's one of those first timer things.
If you bought a corset at Comic Con, I hope you went here since some vendors had ones that weren't as well made or high quality in materials. The price I paid for mine also wasn't as bad as I thought; I expected to pay $200-300 for one & mine was $99.
For more shopping, we found another unnamed vendor. He was selling some T-shirts that were hilarious. He told us of a special fondness of parodying Mickey Mouse & apparently Disney doesn't mind the parodies as long as you clearly state that your product isn't from Disney or endorsed by them. Since we'd gone to Orlando before, I mentioned my husband's joke about Mickey controlling Orlando because of the mouse head power poles & how my husband did it in the voice of Goofy. It was hilarious & we kept making jokes about how gay people weren't welcome in Disney World because of Walt Disney's hatred of Jews and Disney World's branding itself as a "family" place. He had some Clockwork Orlando shirts that I wanted to talk my husband into getting for himself (at least one since I know he is a fan of A Clockwork Orange). He got a different shirt on Friday.
I, however, got one of the Disney parody shirts. I LOVED this:
Yes, it says "Mouse of 1,000 Corpses!" When I saw it, I had to get it.
Finally, I got a pink stuffed Nerd from the Nerds booth. Nerds: the snack that will give you an instant sugar rush & make you a beloved figure to 95% of children.
Picking a color was really hard, though. They had light purple & blue as well.
We also got some collective loot. First off, a Choo Choo Bear plush from Something Positive:
For those who haven't read Something Positive, Choo Choo Bear is the lead character's cat. This cat is hairless & boneless. He also reminds me an awful lot of our little kitty, who is just as smart & mischievous though he was fixed before he could have kittens and I believe our cat is asexual. He hates all creatures equally & has never liked other cats. When he was a kitten, he was taken to visit my husband's then girlfriend. That chick had a Maine Coon (here's what they look like). Maine Coons are large ass cats, to say the least.
Our cat was a very tiny kitten though he's a large cat now. The second smallest in his litter, if I remember.
Normally, if you are a cat entering another cat's turf you are screwed since the cat who lives there has the advantage. Not our cat!
Nope, that little gray kitten hisses the Maine Coon! The Maine Coon backs off. See what I mean about our cat hating all creatures? We love him, though. He's got moxie & doesn't take any shit unless he loves you. I sure wouldn't let anyone be nasty to this cat or they'd have to die/suffer his furry wrath. Cats have caused death before. Watch 1,000 Ways to Die for an example.
We also got a Felix clock:
The tail is a pendulum and the eyes move! My husband's wanted one of those classic cat clocks for ages & I always thought they were neat so this was another thing off our wish list. It was fortunate that we got it on Thursday because by Sunday, they were long gone.
I was shocked at all the shopping opportunities. My husband laments the shrinking number of comic retailers at COMIC con. I did also slip my card to the people at the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund. As an entertainment lawyer, probably a good idea to know something about it since I do know writers in general & it's a project I'd give a damn about that's more creative than most legal pro bono projects.
Stay tuned for parts 2 & 3 of this series. We did not go to Comic Con on Saturday since it was our wedding anniversary & Saturday's bad reputation. Me + long lines = bad enough to deal with but me + long lines + my anniversary = negative level of patience, more anger & great likelihood I will physically harm someone and end up being arrested, ejected or something not good for anyone concerned. I definitely have things to say about Friday & Sunday though the presentations will be less visual.
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