These are my impressions of my 1st San Diego Comic Con (or Comic-Con 
International: San Diego if go by the official name, but I prefer SDCC 
until they move the convention somewhere else), as well as my western
excursion on the week of SDCC. 

Since I knew I'd be out west, I decided to hit Las Vegas for a few 
days.  I picked up a yucky cold on my first night there, and it didn't 
make for the most enjoyable experience at SDCC, but I persevered.  For 
those who are planning to visit Las Vegas in the summertime, bring a 
thin sweatshirt with you and take it around with you.  With temperatures 
hitting 108 F, and the extreme air conditioning in the casinos, it's 
very easy to pick up colds.  I'll know better next time. 

On Monday, I wound up losing $40 on blackjack, my first time I'd played
for money.  I was up $55, but being inexperienced, I just kept playing 
until I was broke.  That was a semi-expensive lesson to learn, but it 
was necessary.  Now I know better. 

My SDCC roommates were Derek Santos and Derek Spencer.  With 2 Derek's
in presence for the majority of my stay in SD, I usually had to call
them by their last names or use "Z" for Spencer and "D" for Santos. 
Don't ask why I call Spencer "Z".  Both Dereks knew I'd be in Las 
Vegas, so they decided to drive there themselves on Monday.  I caught
up with them on Tuesday and we spent the day at the nickel slot machines,
losing as many nickels as humanly possible in a 6 hour period.  I actually
didn't lose any money at the blackjack table while playing for 30 minutes.
Later in the night after being picked up by my Las Vegas friend, we hit
the brewery in the new Monte Carlo casino, some dinner, and then was 
treated to the Glitter Gulch strip (no pun intended).  I was pleasantly
surprised to have left the Las Vegas Club casino with $50 more than I 
walked in with by playing more blackjack.  It's a good thing I don't 
live in Las Vegas, the allure of gambling is too damn powerful. 

On Wednesday, the Dereks picked up me at my friend's place with whom 
I was staying with while in Las Vegas and we made our way to San Diego.
The trip took about 5 hours, I was still feeling under the weather, but
I was glad we were gettting out of the 100+ F temperature of Las Vegas,
and into the balmy 85+ F temperature of San Diego with sea breeze.  We 
managed to drive through San Diego by accident and arrived at the border
of the US and Tiajuana, Mexico.  We braved the border and took a walk 
through the tourist section of Tiajuana.  After 30 mintues, we came to
mutually agree on heading back into the US.  It was getting late, and 
we'd notice most of the other tourist were heading back and it seemed 
like a good idea.  

We checked into the Radisson hotel, dropped off our luggage and bags and 
headed for Horton Plaza for dinner.  We decided to get tickets for 
Independence Day (ID4).  We wound up with tickets for the 10 p.m. show.  
ID4 was an entertaining movie with some impressive special effects, some 
light humor and some lousy "tug-at-the-heartstrings" scenes.  It was 
worth the $7 for admission, but I didn't come out with the notion that I 
have to see this movie again.  If I do, it'll be at matinee prices.  Go see 
this movie with a crowd, it's more fun that way.  Also, it's worth to 
go see it on a large screen, not on a little TV screen on video.  Suffice
it to say, we missed the Chaputs pre-convention party (then again, I 
forgot which hotel they were staying at, so ID4 was the entertainment
for the evening.)

[Thursday] 

It's the 1st day of SDCC.  We spent half an hour waiting in line to 
pick up my badge.  The line for walk-up registrations were 2 hours.  
We walk into the convention center and was vastly overwhelmed by the
enormity of the thing.  After seeing ID4 the night before, I suddenly
knew what it'd be like to be inside one of the alien spaceships.  There
were tons of comics, dealers, publishers, displays, autograph lines, 
food lines, artist alleys, and of course, fans.  I checked out the panel
on the upcoming Gen13 cartoon which was okay.  I next checked out the
panel on An Homage to Nobility in Comics, which featured Mark Waid, Kurt
Busiek, Brent Anderson, Terry Moore, James Robinson and Paul Smith.  We 
ran into tyg, and he told us the Trivia match was set for Friday night
at 10 p.m. in Room 10.  

We wandered on the convention floor to take in all the humanity and 
comics.  I was astounded by the prices on some indies like Cavewoman, THB, 
Poison Elves, and many other indies with low print runs.  Also, Hitman
and Preacher and their early appearances seemed to be the big hit from DC.  
I didn't see too many other comics from DC or Marvel that demanded high 
prices.  The dealers had no compunction with their high asking prices.  Of 
course, I'm ambivalent with the high prices since, on one hand, it's nice 
to know some new comics will appreciate in the short run, and on the other 
hand, it's quite daunting to new fans to comic reading/collecting.  As with 
anything in life: Caveat Emptor.

We checked out artist alley and found Steve Lieber happily sketching 
away as always.  If you haven't met Steve at a convention, do so when you
get a chance, an all-around nice guy.  Oh, and if Steve gives you a sketch,
go to Jeff Parker and show him the Lieber sketch and Jeff will try to 
"out-do" Steve's sketch.  There were many others in Artists Alley, I was 
managed to find the following there: Karl Kesel, Jeff Moy, Cory Carani,
Jim Califiore, Scott Benifel, Terry Dodson, Kurt Schaffenberger, Martin
Nodell, Louis Small Jr., Joe Giella, Richard Case, Evan Dorkin, Gene Colan,
Mike Kaluta, Aaron Lopresti, Steve Oliffe, Don Simpson, Chris Warner, and
many others that I can't recall at the moment.  It was strange to see many
of them in Artist Alley and not sitting at the publisher booths, but that's 
the realities of being freelancers in today's comic market while not being
super-hot talent like Garth Ennis, Steve Dillon, James Robinson, Mark
Waid, Alex Ross, et al, who were seen mostly at the DC booth.  Oh, we 
bumped into Rich Johnston at his Twist and Shout booth.  Rich is quite
the bundle of nerves when you meet him, but once he calms downs, he's 
okay. :) 

After dinner at Horton Plaza, we headed back to the convention center 
and checked the miniscule firework display from afar.  I was very 
underwhelmed by the fireworks in San Diego, but I can't complain. 
We decided to call it a day and headed back to the hotel.

Oh, as big as SDCC, I managed to find a bookbag on one of the shuttle
buses on the way back to my hotel that night.  After looking inside
the bag for the owner's name unsuccessfully, I decided I'd take it home 
and leave it with the shuttle bus desk that was located outside the 
convention center the next morning.  I did know that the owner must have
been from Japan from the letters inside (From the looks of it, the owner
must have been an owner of a comic shop who was attending SDCC with a 
professional tilt to the trip).  As anyone who's lost a bookbag before
knows, it sucks.  I was hoping that the person who lost the bookbag 
would check the shuttle bus desk when I left it there.  

[Friday] 

We barely make it to the Lucasfilm panel, which had some neat footage 
on the new bits that will be added to the Star Wars Trilogy Special 
Edition movies that will be re-released next February.  It's amazing 
what you can do now with digital effects in movies.  I'll be there 
waiting in line next year for the special editions. 

I spent the next few hours on the convention floor checking out the 
publisher booths and displays.  DC had this elaborate booth with a huge 
video display, which played lots of DC cartoon-related material.  There 
was lots of traffic at the DC booth, and the Hitman/Preacher autograph 
lines there were also longer than I would have expected, but when you're 
hot, you're hot.  The Marvel booths were really pathetic.  Dark Horse's 
booth was always jam-packed.  The Block Party consisted of Harris, 
Crusade and Event Comics.  That was a poorly planned booth, which in 
reality was just a full-time autograph line which allowed for little 
walk-through traffice for those who just wanted to check out their 
upcoming comics.  The Acclaim booth was a mixed bag.  Since Top Cow has 
made their break with Image, they had to get a booth that was outside of 
the Image block of booths.  Within the Image block, each studio had their 
own piece of real estate.  I checked out the Extreme section for shits 
and giggles.  I wasn't let down.  I saw the Captain America ashcans that 
Liefeld was trying to see for $5.  After flipping through the ashcan, I 
had to back away while stifling my snickering.  Trust me, this will be 
a stinker.  Liefeld may know Mark Waid, but he's no Mark Waid.  The 
Wildstorm booth had a spot for the upcoming Homage Comics creator, and 
lots of posters were given away.  I flipped through the Fantastic Four 
ashcan that Jim Lee did and I liked it a lot more than the Liefeld ashcan 
of Captain America.   I wasn't impressed with the Whilce Portacio ashcan 
of Iron Man.  Erik Larsen had little presense, Jeff Smith's Bone had a 
nice display with little traffic - but the Dragon sculpture looked awesome, 
Todd McFarlane's booth was inundated with his toys.  The ladies who 
dressed up as Voodoo, Glory and Avengelyne were in fine form. 

As fate would have it, I was rummaging through the original art pages 
at the Wildstorm Art Gallery booth, and I happen to overhear a Japanese 
gentlemen explaining to one of the guys manning the booth that he'd 
lost his bookbag last night and he started to list the contents of the
bookbag.  His list matched what I'd seen from looking in the bookbag 
while looking for a name.  I walked up to him, and learned that he had 
an interpreter with him to help him out in the states.  I told him that 
I think I may know where his bookbag was after he listed the contents 
of the bookbag that he lost the night before.  I led him and his 
interpreter to the shuttle bus desk, and he produce sufficient identification
to get the bag back.  He was very happy and actually dragged me to the 
Viz booth and gave me a C-Ko screensaver on CD-ROM, and and Ghost in 
the Machine t-shirt for my troubles.  I was happy to have done the deed 
and I wasn't looking for a reward.  I thought it was important for visitors
to the US to know that we do the right thing when the opportunity arises. 

BTW, the bookbag had a nice camcorder inside, as well as a tape walkman. 
Yeah, I'd say the guy was pretty grateful. ;) 

I bumped into Jeff Mason and sat with him for a spell at the Paul Pope
booth.  Jeff's indy magazine seems to be doing well for him.  Check it 
out if you're into sampling alternative indy comics. 

I checked out the Jim Lee Q/A panel for the remainder of the afternoon. 
It was announced that a Gen13/Batman 2-issue miniseries drawn by J. Scott 
Campbell will be coming out next year.  Jim Lee comes across as someone
who's doing the best he can do without saying too many stupid things.  
Also, with the lateness of the Fire From Heaven issues, he's declared a
moratorium of crossovers within the WildStorm line of comics for the 
foreseeable future.  He mentioned that Campbell had to stay in Europe 
since emigration laws require a newly married US citizen to stay overseas
for 10 weeks before coming back to the states with his new bride.  I found 
it interesting when he described how he broke into the business, his early
approach to treating the artist job as a job by drawing each and every
day while looking for work.  He did say that he was given work from a 
Marvel editor he met at a convention and when he arrived home, he got 
another rejection letter from another Marvel editor.  The point being a 
face-to-face meeting can't hurt if you're deadly serious about being an 
artist in comics and are talented enough to get the job done.  He also 
said that most of his discoveries at Wildstorm were from the talent 
searches that his studio conducts from time to time.  He still remembers
being the hungry artist trying to get his foot in the door, so that's 
why he conducts the mail-in talent searches.  Brett Booth was also on
the panel and he tossed in a few of his own observations and tidbits. 
To offer hope and inspiration, Jim said that he's sent copies of 
the original (not-really-too-desirable) artwork that Brett submitted in 
the talent search to artists who participated in the talent search.

Next, there was a panel on ID4 with Dean Devlin, the writer/co-producer
of the film.  It was quite a lot of fun.  Dean was a good speaker and 
he shared lots of tidbits of the creative process and the improvisation
that went into the making of ID4.  

It was time for dinner, and so it was off to Horton Plaza once again. 
Afterwards, we raced to the Eisner Awards and sat through a slew of 
recipients whose acceptance speeches were confined to "Thank you". 
With the exception of Evan Dorkin, who lit up the room with his 
acceptance speech, and a fan who for the last 5 years brought to many
old-time artists to SDCC and was given an award for his efforts, it's 
was a staid evening.  Kurt Busiek walked away with a couple of Eisner,
and he was smiling big and wide. 

It was time for the Silver Age Trivia match between the Purple Pros 
and the trivia team formerly known as the Black Ink Irregulars, but 
are now known as the Rogues Gallery Revenge Squad (in deference to 
Mark Waid's performance in this year's Chicago Comic Con).  After all  
was said and done, and a towel that seemed to get passed all over the 
place once the pressure was on for both teams, the Purple Pros defeated  
the RGRS by a score of 190-170.  The rubber match will be played next year  
with hopefully a better scheduled time slot as 10:30 p.m. was a bit too 
late for those still on east coast time.  Elayne was quite giddy at the 
result.  So it looks like Sidne will be without Legion reading material 
for a whole month, whodathunkit?  Johanna looked cute in her cheerleader
outfit, I must confess... 

[Saturday] 

I decided to check out the dealer tables for the majority of the day. 
It was still hard to make it to each and every one and give the tables
a onceover.  There was just too much to see and check out.  I managed 
to get an autographed photo from the 40th anniversary playmate from one
of the booths, she was the one who said she said BigFoot when she on the 
Jay Leno show a few months ago.  I was still shaking my head at the prices
on the hot comics.  Simply amazing.  I saw lots of quarter bins as well. 
I managed to buy 5-6 comics as reading material for the plane ride home. 
I got the Stray Bullets Hardcover (reprints issues #1-#7) from Dave 
Lapham's booth.  Dave drew Spanish Scott saying "Cool Beans" on the
inside of the book for me.  Way cool.  BTW,  Dave won an Eisner on Friday 
night.  He was feeling no pain on Saturday. 

I walked by the FoL booth and caught Elayne there.  I introduced myself
(I always find it strange when I have to introduce myself using my 
net nickname since it sounds pretty silly when I say it outloud.  I may 
have to start posting under my real name, but that's neither here 
or there for now).  From our brief conversation, Elayne was all 
conned out and I can't blame her.  After my 2.5 days at SDCC, I was 
at a serious energy low too (catching the cold didn't help me).  But 
I'd say Elayne was feeling a lil' worse than me since I didn't have a 
blister on my foot. :)  Nice to finally meet you, Elayne. 

I managed to get shooed away from the Compuserve booth since I was 
talking with one of the people I knew, and the person in charge was 
concerned I was being too distracting as I was making small talk with
the person I knew.  Ah, I knew right then that Compuserve isn't for me.

Per DCO Martha's post on SDCC, I stopped by the DC booth and spotted 
her.  I introduced myself (she was checking out my name on the name tag,
and since I don't post under my civilian name, she didn't really 
recognize me initially) as Patman.  IIRC, the 1st or 2nd thing she 
asks me is if I had called her a FemiNazi...at the Censorship panel. 
I pleaded innocent and said I didn't even make it to that panel.  With 
that out of the way, there wasn't too much to say, so I got the hell 
out of the booth.  It was strange and it gave me a bit of vertigo (pardon
the pun). 

I and the 2 Dereks met up at the panel which was on the upcoming Animated
Superman cartoon.  We left it after 30 minutes.  Saw some neat designs
from the cartoon.  Instead of eating at Horton Plaza, we decide to head
back to the hotel, ate there, and was intent on going to the Masquerade.
Fate conspired against us since I had a redeye flight back home that 
night, and I had to catch the 10 p.m. hotel shuttle to the airport.  We 
took our time eating and they delayed us long enough so we never made it
to the Masquerade, though we took the bus ride to the convention center
before deciding to head back the hotel.  We did bump into the Saint as 
we waited for the bus, but he had a Wizard shin-dig to go to and he took
a taxi to the Mariotte hotel.  We'd also bumped into the Saint early
in the day as we waited on the shuttle bus too. 

I said my goodbyes to the Dereks and found myself on the plane bound 
for home, with a 2 hour layover in Chicago.  I gotta book a direct 
flight if I go back to SDCC next year.  

While I didn't introduce myself to many netters, here's who I spotted: 
Elmo (who surprised me as he was walking around with a Georgia Tech bookbag
on his back since I'm an alumnus of GT myself), Sidne Ward, David Goldfarb, 
Jim Murdoch (Master of Comics), Elayne and Steve, Jeff Mason, Rich Johnston,
Gary St. Lawrence (Saint), Tom Galloway, Steve Lieber, Johanna Draper, 
Kynn Bartlett, and perhaps a few others whose names escape me at the 
moment.  I kinda wish there was an organized effort like there is for 
Chicago Con for netters, but SDCC is simply too big and the programming
makes it tough for all the get together.  

What was agonizing was the scheduling of the SDCC programming, there were 
lots of panels that I wanted to attend but had to skip just due to 
scheduling, but it's better to have more panels than less panels, I imagine. 

I had a nice time overall, and the 2 Dereks were fun to hang out with. 
Thanks, guys, we'll have to do it again soon.