San Diego Comic Con, Here We Come…

by Richard and Sarah Woloski

“Should we?”

“Shouldn’t we?”

After much debate about whether or not to go to Comic Con this year, we let all the tweets and FaceBook posts get the better of us. Plus now that we have SKYWALKING THROUGH NEVERLAND we figured it would be in our best interest to go. So we packed up the RAV 4 and drove 2 hours south to San Diego. We only had Friday afternoon and evening to spend at SDCC, but we wanted to make the most of it.

Finding a parking spot near the convention center is like finding a vintage rocket-firing Boba Fett for under $20. Not going to happen. So we parked a few trolley stops away and followed the Klingons, zombies and Stormtroopers to SDCC.

This was exciting since we hadn’t been in 4 years in protest to the large crowds which consists of many who don’t even know that there is a difference between Marvel and DC. These Johnny-come-lately’s just want to see the celebrities and take part in this global event. (If you’re one of the many attendees who have noticed that your favorite vendor is no longer there that’s because there are many who are pulling out since their sales have plummeted. There have always been the must-visit tables where I would drop some petty cash, however they’ve stopped coming since it ended up costing them money in the end. so many inner struggles.) Damn you social media for pulling us back in! (We secretly love you, don’t leave us.)

“EXCLUSIVES WHERE ARE YOU?” If nothing else I’m a sucker for convention exclusives. I had already ordered my Gentle Giant Jumbo AT-AT Driver so I didn’t have to worry about that one. Check. Time was ticking since we got there mid-afternoon so Sarah and I visited the Star Wars/Her Universe pavilion then decide to divide and conquer looking for items you couldn’t get anywhere else. Except eBay and Craig’s List for 2 to 3 times what the buyer got it for. Alas, many exclusives I was looking for had already sold out that day.

I met up with Sarah again and we stalked… oops, I mean we waited to talk with Ashley Eckstein (Ahsoka Tano of The Clone Wars). We’ve met her at several different occasions so we had facial recognition. She recognized Sarah right away since she does so much re-tweeting and posting about Her Universe and their Fangirl Of The Day. Also she knew her from Sarah’s alter ego, JediTink.

Not wanting to leave our Skywalkers out, we collected lots of swag for an upcoming give-away. I know someone out there will be eager to get a box full of comics, posters, Star Wars Rebels pins, rubber eyeballs (???), and mardi gras beads (again ???).

We met up with friends such as Obi-Shawn, Chris Alexander (Star Wars Origami author), Angi Viper (cosplayer extraordinaire) and new besties Dave Filoni (Clone Wars and Rebels executive producer) and Sam Witwer (Darth Maul on The Clone Wars). Even though I was carrying a Boba Fett backpack full of out podcasting equipment, Sarah beat me to the punch and whipped out her iPhone and got sound bytes from Dave and Sam (that’s what we get to call them now. Seriously. Just don’t ask them about it. Seriously).

We did pick up a few small things such as the Tusken Raider and Bantha Itty-Bitty from Hallmark and, in a lack of foresight I picked up the 2′ Boba Fett candy bowl holder. For $30 I would have kicked myself if I did not get it. However, I forgot that we were planning on party-hopping in the Gaslamp Quarter right afterwards.

The Boba Fett candy bowl holder comes in a very large cumbersome box which was very hard to hold without bumping into every passing Tardis, video game character and scantily-clad superhero variant.  Always seeing the silver lining, Boba became a great conversation piece. “Where did you get that?” was how we met many new friends.

It was nearly midnight when we realize we were running on fumes and we both had work the next day. We followed con attendees who all had those giant bags, you know the ones where you could fit 2 Ewoks, a Hulk, the boulder that chased Indiana Jones and a goldfish, back to the trolley.

Sarah offered to drive home. I got in the car and the next thing I knew we were pulling into our driveway an hour and a half later.

We had a great time even though we were just there one day. But with social media and Amazon you don’t have to actually be there to get the minute-by-minute news and to pick up the con exclusives.

If anything SDCC got me into a con mood again. Next up – Long Beach Comic Con (yay! Just 13 minutes away), Stan Lee’s Comikaze then…then a little con called Star Wars Celebration Anaheim! Hope to see you there.