I'll Probably Get Acne Just From Breathing The Air

Once a year, the truly nerdly among us emerge from parental basements all across the country and begin the pilgrimage to the pinnacle of geekdom:

Comic Con.

For the 40th year, the Con has been the Mecca of all things geek, and since my eighth-grade school photo seems to be my membership card to this particular social demographic, I figured I'd see what all the craziness was all about.

For starters, the whole experience was sensory overload on so many levels. I say this as a bit of a disclaimer if my collected thoughts seem a bit jumbled, but hopefully I will effectively communicate just how literally awesome, in the truest sense of the word, this event truly is.

We'll start at the beginning, which is the best place to start, from what I understand.

Wednesday night, the special preview night for the four-day pass holders and the members of the media (like me!) to get a sneak peek at the Con before the gates are thrown back for the less-privileged masses.

Being a newbie to the Con, I did my share of research online before heading downtown. The first thing I found is that parking is a major issue, so I took the Internet's advice (which is always a good idea, I hear) and utilized the public transportation system.

The San Diego trolley covers most of the downtown area, and when Comic Con is going on, they run a special route from Qualcomm Stadium to the Gaslamp and back to help alleviate the parking problem. I figured that, since I knew how to get to the Q already, that would be the best way to go.

And did I ever make the right call. Not only was it fast and easy, but watching the people on the train just made my day. I'm something of a people-watcher anyway, but the Con always brings out the finest specimens of humanity. Before the trolley even left the station, we bore witness to a pair of young men in skin-tight black body suits, apparently dressed up as some kind of anime or video game characters. They waved to us, then had to wait in line to use the trolley pass kiosk like mere mortals, which kind of ruined the illusion they had going on.

But this didn't dampen any spirits, because the handful of us waiting at Qualcomm were soon off on our own Comic Con adventures! I wasn't sure if everybody on the train was going to the Con, but I'm pretty sure this kid was:


Not to pick on anybody, but let's just say that I'm pretty sure nobody thought he was going to a football game. I learned right then that the spirit of Comic Con is truly universal, but that this particular universe usually consists of people wearing glasses. And I wear glasses, so I should know. Again, I have to mention my eighth-grade school photo, which gives me license to pick on the nerds of the world. Sorry for the tangent; back to the story.

As we careened our way south, more and more comic enthusiasts came aboard, to the point where it was standing-room only on our particular train. It got a little scary when I looked over and saw this:


My heart skipped a beat before I realized that not only was the holster empty, but I'm pretty sure it was a girl wearing this getup. Maybe not; there are some pretty skinny nerds out there. Again, I should know. I'm not sure if he/she was dressed as a specific character, but it was either sexy or creepy, depending on the answer to the earlier question of gender. Not that we want to dive too deeply into that sticky situation. Moving on.

Before long, we pulled up outside the convention center and behold! The glory of the 2009 Comic Con was laid before us in all its majesty! I have never seen so many people downtown at the same time, even though I've been to a number of Padres games. I guess if the Padres had super powers, or at least could draw characters with super powers, they might draw this kind of a crowd. Maybe not, if they keep cutting their player payroll every season. But that's a topic for another column.

Either way, the line for the Con stretched all the way down Harbor Drive, practically to the Coronado Bridge. Well, maybe not that far, but at one point, those of us in line found ourselves walking on a patch of grass that none of us knew existed down there. To their credit, the Comic Con staff and security team were efficient, and the line was in near-constant motion. Despite the daunting size, the line moved quickly and got us inside within a few minutes, and all without any embarassing nerd violence. Well, I did see at least three Jedi knights, but thankfully their light sabres remained sheathed until we got inside. They probably just used their mind tricks to get in anyway. Those sneaky Jedis are always up to something.

All of this was for naught in my case, however, as my previously-established Con inexperience took me through a line I didn't need to join. Since I was able to secure a press pass, thanks to my sweet job at the Roadrunner, I got to go straight to the press pass line and get my badge within a few moments. I'm pretty sure that I got special treatment because I'm famous, too. It's not every day that they see the real-life author of the I Kid You Not columns in the Valley Roadrunner. I know they were trying to remain calm, but I could tell that they were all understandably impressed. I do my best to keep a low profile, but when you get to be this well-known, it's just hard to be seen as a regular person. What can you do, right? At least my eighth-grade school photo hasn't been released to the public. And just FYI, I'm probably going to mention that photo at least three or four more times... just so you're prepared.

With my press pass firmly (OK, draped daintily) around my neck and my grab bag full of things I didn't examine until I got home, I hit the floor of the convention center to finally experience Comic Con firsthand. On a personal side note, I was a little disappointed to not hear a chorus of angelic voices or a John Williams-conducted orchestra capturing the awe and solemnity of the moment as I strode confidently through those gray double doors that have been the gateway to geekdom for 40 years now. I guess that's reserved only for the members of the broadcast media. It figures.

Honestly, from that point on, my memory is a little hazy. Perhaps it was the pungent combination of nerd sweat and laminated paper that overwhelmed my nostrils, or the sheer size of the space, or even just the constant hum of activity eminating from all corners of the arena. Whatever the source, every one of my five senses was kicked into overdrive -- yes, even the sense of taste; when you have that many nerds packed in like cattle, the scents go beyond normal smell and creep down to the back of the throat where you start to taste whatever's coming off that dude wearing the XXXL Green Lantern t-shirt -- and my brain had to try to keep up. Thankfully, I've learned to always keep a pen and notepad handy in these situations, so I managed to scrawl a few scattered notes to help me remember some of the more noteworthy of the sensory experiences.

Throughout the evening, I overheard the most random, amazing, scary, and/or enlightening things. Outside the convention center, I listened in to an older Asian man talking about some of the things he's created, from various comic or cartoon statues to a life-size replica Master Cheif helmet from the original Halo video game. I'm not sure if the woman with him was his wife or his mom (I know that sounds awful, but it's more because I didn't get a good look and didn't want to stare, I promise), but I wouldn't be surprised either way. This guy could have been a millionaire, or he could have been living in his parents' basement. You just never know at the Con. I'll be sure to share more things I overheard from the rest of the weekend.

Despite my earlier attempt at a joke about diversity, there really are lots of different people at Comic Con. From the little babies in strollers to the older couples clinging to each other in the sea of moving humanity, or from the guys in suits to the kids with dyed blue mohawks, every type of person you can imagine is represented at the Con. To be fair, I did see a lot of glasses, a lot of goatees, and for some reason a lot of old-fashioned hats, which is cool I guess. I also saw this:

...which I can't really explain, other than the fact that it's a man with a flower hat on. Then there was this:


...which seemed out of place among the booths for cartoons. The typical reaction I noticed from the other fans snapping photos here was something like, "Oooh, a Playmate! Oh, 1998...that's disappointing." Poor girl, still riding that one accomplishment from nearly 11 years ago. I guess if it pays the bills, right?

Speaking of bills, I don't know how much some booths cost, but it has to be a lot. Even for some second-tier companies, the Con is a mandatory all-out situation. A few t-shirts clothespinned to the cubicle wall won't do; you've got to step your game up... like this:

...which is Castle Greyskull from the He-Man cartoons. Although the statue inside wasn't He-Man, but rather somebody called He-Ro, which is just weird and off-putting. I saw no signs of She-Ra or the green tiger, which was pretty disappointing. Nice work on the entrance though; I guess the Con is all about getting people to actually stop when they go by your booth. Well done here.

One of my favorites was the Hasbro booth, which was pimping the August release of G.I. Joe with all it had, and all but ignoring the latest Transformers movie after it got such poor reviews (which I still don't understand, but more on that another time). With actual costumes from the movie on display, I was instantly transported back to my childhood, to a time before my eighth-grade school photo existed and my world was filled with the simple joys of a few G.I. Joe figures. Some of the older figures we have include Storm Shadow and Snake Eyes, both of whom seem to figure prominently in the new movie. Their costumes look awesome, and I am pretty jealous of anyone who gets to wear them:

Storm Shadow, ninja extraordinaire, and his nemesis:

Snake Eyes, the coolest G.I. Joe in the box, no matter what else they came up with.

Some cool other sights included a Batman suit:

and the Bat bike:


...and whatever this is...not that it needs any particular reason to exist for us to enjoy it:


Everywhere I looked, Comic Con offered forth something amusing, interesting, appealing, or just plain cool for me to check out.

After cruising the booths on the ground floor for a while, I headed upstairs to the main ballroom to see the special previews of some new TV shows set to debut this fall.

I missed the first one when I was milling around trying not to bump into people and clandestinely snapping photos of cool things, but I made it in time to see almost all of the second showing, which was a full episode of a new show on ABC called V. Yes, just the letter "v." It makes sense because the show is about "visitors" from another planet who look like humans (only all of them are ridiculously good looking and wearing silver). I won't spoil anything, but if you like sci-fi stuff with a good story and just enough drama to make the wife happy, then check this show out. You may even have a good time trying to figure out where you've seen all the actors before, like I did the whole time. My favorite was seeing the guy who played Steve the Pirate in the movie Dodgeball a few years ago. No matter what he does with his hair, or what kinds of roles he plays, he will always be Steve the Pirate. And that will always make me smile.

The final showing was another full episode of an upcoming ABC series called The Vampire Diaries. I know what you're thinking, because I was thinking it too: really, more vampires? In the show's defense, at least these vampires don't sparkle in the daytime, and they seem to follow all the old standard vampire ways -- they can't come inside unless they're invited in, they don't show up in a mirror, etc.

The show itself isn't terrible, unless you really hate watching good-looking people walking around looking really good looking. It's set in and around a high school, so you're going to get a heavy dose of the old teen angst, but it's not anything more than similar shows like Smallville or anything else on the CW network. And this show has Nina Dobrev as the female lead, which makes anything watchable in this reporter's opinion. Not that you'd take my opinion seriously if you saw my eighth-grade school photo, but again, that's tucked away somewhere far, far away, which is the best thing for us all.

After the exhileration of my first night at the Con, the trolley ride back to Qualcomm was a welcome wind down, even though we got pretty well crammed in for the return trip. I felt a little bad for the regular trolley riders, who kept a wary eye on all of us with our Comic Con badges still proudly displayed throughout the journey. One courageous young lady finally asked if we were all together from something, and I told her about all the wonders and magic of Comic Con, which she'd never heard of despite living in San Diego. She was nice enough, but you could tell she wasn't much impressed by the notion of an entire convention about comic books. Either that, or she knew all about my eighth-grade school photo and just didn't want to talk to me. (We did it! That's three more times! Ah, that's good stuff.)

But, if nothing else, I guess the one thing I took away from my first night at Comic Con is that it isn't just a convention about comic books. Sure, they're a big part of what's going on, but really, the Con is about celebrating all the things that make a nerd's world go 'round, no matter what that might be.

I can't wait for day two.