lillian13 | Comic Con 2010 post-game

The World's Best Niece and I took an afternoon flight to San Diego, since neither one of us had Preview Night tickets. I promptly broke my record for running into someone I know on a trip by knowing someone on our flight! (There were quite a few folks going to SDCC on our flight, and we had some good fannish discussions on the way.) Got to our rental car, and WBN guided us with her iPhone to the satellite badge pickup with only minor hiccups. Waited about an hour, but the line was very long, and it really kept moving! We had our first In-N-Out dinner of the weekend and after a detour to pick up snacks at Trader Joe's, we headed to C's place (she had graciously allowed us to stay in her house at the convention).

The road to C's place was....an adventure. It started out as a nice two-lane mountain road, then it was a very twisty two-lane mountain road, then it was a twisty one-lane paved road, then....well, the last eight miles or so were very twisty one-lane dirt road. Unlit, unmarked, unsigned dirt road. In the dark. However, our room came complete with two very large tabby cats who insisted on sleeping on the WBN--I'm too lumpy!--and a hot shower.

We headed out early Thursday morning, and parked in our prepaid space (yay!).

Overwhelmed doesn't even begin to cover it. We were warned, but nothing can really prepare you for your first exposure to the crowds at Comic Con. We were going to go to some panels, but we wound up spending the entire day in the Exhibit Hall, where I chatted with approximately eleven billion people that I knew either from being a vendor or running art shows or just being a talkative wench. :-) They say that walking all the aisles is equal to 3 miles, but I'm pretty sure we walked a lot further.

Walking around with the WBN dressed as Poison Ivy was an interesting experience. I've never been invisible before! Lots of guys wanted to take her picture, and she got interviewed by Pauly Shore and that guy from Supersize Me. By the time the room closed, we were exhausted and sore, because we were carrying around everything we bought. WBN again iPhone-directed us to an excellent seafood place, and we headed back to C's.

Friday, we were better prepared. WBN had a list of panels she wanted to go to, and I had brunch with

marialima and L, another woman who went to our high school (and her husband). Excellent pancakes! Then I wandered around and went through the art show, and got

andpuff to sign a couple of books. True to form, though, I screwed up my schedule. I'd written down that the Slasher's Dinner was Friday but I had convinced myself it was on Saturday. I got hold of

crimsonquills , confirmed that it was indeed that night, and headed out to have lots of fangirl fun. I had an excellent time!

Saturday morning, we separated early on to get into various panels. I sat outside in line for the Leverage panel for an hour or so, and got a really nice seat--fourth row center! They gave out tshirts that said "Hitter", "Hacker", "Grifter", "Thief", and "Mastermind". I grabbed a "Hitter" shirt for me (though it's too small) and a "Hacker" shirt for

dremiel .

Tim Hutton, Christian Kane, Aldis Hodge, Beth Riesgraf, Chris Downey, and as a surprise, Will Wheaton! were on the panel. Chris and Will were the most relaxed, since they're used to dealing with fandom. Tim Hutton seemed a little overwhelmed and Beth kept complaining that the echoes from the loudspeakers kept her from hearing anything, so Tim had to repeat questions for her. Aldis was just having a great time.

Most of the questions weren't very memorable, frankly, but one really stuck out--someone asked Beth if Parker had Aspergers, and she said that they didn't want to define her character that narrowly--they wanted to leave options open. Will had a lot of fun making comments like "The Internet has the Parker/Hardison romance completely covered". Will and Aldis want to have Kaos and Hardison team up to steal Comic Con! Aldis is a comic book fan and said he was in heaven. We saw an extended clip from this week's show, and I noticed that the panel was having a great time watching us watch the clip. :-)

I wish John Rogers had been there, since every other question to Chris Downey was answered with "I wish Rogers was here to answer this." And yes, Parker's name is an homage to the Richard Stark novels. Aldis said that Hardison would be ready for his own crew maybe in Season 22. Will came back with "It'll be called Leverage She Wrote if it lasts to Season 22".

Chris Kane had us all give the writers a hand, and we all did.

I decided not to stick around for the Venture Brothers panel, and headed over to see if I could get into the Teching Out on TV panel. I could, but I had to sit through a boring (to me) Art of the God of War panel first. I got some sleep. :-)

Honestly, this panel was very uninteresting. Almost everyone was there to see Pauley Perette, and while I like her OK, I really was there to see Kristin Vangsness from Criminal Minds. Ironically, for a panel about techs, they couldn't get the video clips to work! I would have loved to have seen a panel just with just Rich Catalani, a former criminologist--he had all the best answers.

I went and bid on (and won) some painted pottery in the art show--painted with Cthulhu on it! China Mieville was signing and I got my books autographed. I got my ticket for next year and made one last pass through the Exhibit Hall. We then bid adieu to San Diego Comic Con 2010.

We had In-N-Out for the last time and we barely managed to get all our loot in our various bags. We had thought ahead and brought extra bags, which was a good thing!

We took off early the next morning so we could have a sit-down breakfast and so the WBN could go to a beach before we left. We wound up not finding an actual beach, but some lovely low cliffs and rocks with tidal pools so she could get her feet wet. Then we returned our rental car, complete with mountain dirt and doggie paw prints on the door, and headed home.

Thus endeth the journey! I plan on doing it again next year!