I’m still recovering from my lightning-fast trip to San Diego for Comic-Con International. The show was amazing. Somewhere between 80,000 to 100,000 people showed up, filled the entire convention center, and taxed the air conditioning to its limits. Every morning, it was chilly in the exhibit hall, but by mid-afternoon the scores of thousands of warm bodies made the whole place hot and steamy.
Warning: Name Dropping Ahead
(What can I say? It was that kind of show.)
I flew in Friday morning and took the red-eye back on Sunday night, which meant it was a whirlwind of a show for me. I got to meet all sorts of old friends and make some new ones too. On Friday night, I hung out with the people from Green Ronin and Games Workshop (Hal, Chris, Nicole, Marco, Vince, Dan, Gary, and Tim) on Friday night and got to meet Dan Abnett, whose novel Necropolis I edited a few years back. Martin Stever, my old college buddy and former VP at WizKids caught up with me later that night for a tour of every Irish pub in the Gaslamp Quarter.
On Saturday, I wandered around at the show and had a few meetings. I ran into Bob Watts, former president of Sabertooth Games, and Lisa Stevens, president of Paizo and the Star Wars Fan Club. Lisa introduced me to Daniel Logan, who played the young Boba Fett in Attack of the Clones.
Saturday night, I made it to the IDW Publishing party, where I hung out with the IDW crew, (including Ted, Kris, Chris, Jeff, Robbie, Alex, Cindy, Steph, Katrina, Ben, and Beau). I hadn’t been to a Comic-Con International in four or five years, so this was a great chance to catch up with old friends from when I worked on the WildStorms CCG, including Sarah Becker, John Nee, and Mark Irwin. I even bumped into Fred Malmberg and Jeff Conner from Conan Properties International, who I’d worked with on Mutant Chronicles stuff years before. I also had the chance to exercise my many child-years of experience corralling children to herd the daughter of Thomas “Punisher” Jane and Patricia Arquette back to her parents.
After the party, I ended up with David Rodriguez (of High Voltage Software and author of Starkweather. We crashed a party at the Hyatt held by the World Brewing Congress, which coincidentally held its convention just two blocks away from the Comic-Con that weekend.
On Sunday, I executed my only scheduled duty at the show. I took part in a panel about young adult fantasy and science fiction. Maryelizabeth Hart (of Mysterious Galaxy moderated, and I got to chip in my two cents along with Timothy Zahn, Jeff Mariotte, Emily Drake, and Sherwood Smith. I got to see my first real copy of Secret of the Spiritkeeper, which should be in stores this weekend. Afterward, we had an autograph session in which the rest of us mostly sat and watched Tim Zahn sign lots of books. Some fortunate souls snapped up the early copies of Secret, though, and I scribbled in them without mercy.
That night, I took the red-eye back home and arrived at my doorstep at 6:30 AM. I’m still getting my feet under me again, which is why this update is a few hours late. It’s also a good excuse for me to beg forgiveness from the unnamed but wonderful people I saw at the show. I’m looking forward to seeing more of you and many other friends at Wizard World Chicago in a few weeks and to Gen Con the week after as the summer convention season rolls on.
