Pictures from the 2018 Comic-Con International, part 4 (Thursday, 7/19)

Here are some more pictures from Thursday at Comic-Con 2018! I almost split these up one more time because I still had a lot from this day. But we will get through them all! Let's begin!

Midway through the day, I left the convention hall to make my way to an offsite event. The weather was pretty agreeable this year overall, especially for the first half of the convention. So I crossed the train tracks and headed toward the Gaslamp District!

Disenchantment got more advertising outside and across the street.

My destination was the Hard Rock Hotel, where another Rotten Tomatoes panel was taking place. This was a new venue for the event, and one closer to the convention center than in 2017.

People were lining up to get inside! I was happy to see it. I was a little early, so I decided to walk around a bit more before going inside.

And so I saw this Rampage display! Rampage was already in theaters by this time, so why were they advertising here? Maybe they already had the George the gorilla statue and decided to get some more use out of it? Maybe they were advertising for the eventual digital download? Maybe they just really wanted to have a display at Comic-Con? Who can say?

I do not know anything about this show. But Here's a giant fork for you.

Soon it was time to head back into the Hard Rock hall for the Rotten Tomatoes: Your Opinion Sucks! panel. This year's panel was even more streamlined and polished than ever.

One of the special guests this year was...Rob Liefeld, co-creator of Deadpool? Even though there's the obvious movie tie-in, it's nice to see a comic professional get the spotlight at an event.

Naturally, I'm thrilled that everything seems to be going well for Rotten Tomatoes in general, and Grae Drake specifically. Grae is a great person and it's exciting to see her become the face of the brand. Other than, I mean, the giant tomato.

I made another comic print for the panel this year. Will I show you all what it is? Yes, I will. In a bit.

After the panel, I ran back to the convention hall for the Mystery Science Theater 3000 signing. That's a really nice Tom Servo!

Dark Horse is producing an MST3K comic, which is out right now, actually. At the booth were Felicia Day, Todd Nauck and Michael Heisler, all of whom signed prints and promotional copies of the first issue. Is Heisler wearing a Totino's t-shirt? How does one...find something like that?

I recognize one character from this group, but I guess that's good enough.

After the show ended, I took a trip to the back of the convention hall. That's a Mayans ad draped over the Hilton.

I was kind of ambivalent about The Fifth Element the first time I saw it. But I've come to really enjoy it since. Not a bad leopard-print costume, sir.

Archer is a mainstay at this location.

Here's a shot of the harbor during what is apparently the golden hour.

Yep, the golden hour. It was a nice night to walk around after the show.

Adult Swim had a summer camp theme for their main outdoor attraction this year. It was way too crowded to enter on this particular night, but I got a good look inside, at any rate.

The canoe racing looked particularly fun.

Crossing the bridge, I saw (and probably scared) Kevin McDonald, from Kids in the Hall and Seinfeld!

Among the hundreds of thousands of people in and around Comic-Con, I always somehow manage to blindly run into Perry Zombolas every year. Perry is an all-around great guy, and he's also a storyboard artist on Bob's Burgers and now Disenchantment!

I capped the night off by checking out the Star Trek: Mirror Universe exhibit in the Gaslamp District! This small offsite had costumes and other items, mostly from the first season of Star Trek: Discovery!

The Mirror Universe is a fun concept, and I didn't expect Discovery to dive so deeply into the lore in its first season.

In the merchandise room, of all places, the walls were lined with original art from IDW's Star Trek: The Next Generation: Broken Mirror comic book series! All of the pages were on sale as well!

And that was finally the end of the night for me. It was a packed Thursday and a great start to the convention. More pictures to come soon!

Pictures from the 2018 Comic-Con International, part 3 (Thursday, 7/19)

Okay, it's time to look at some of the many, many pictures I took at Comic-Con on Thursday of the show. There are so many that I'll split this up into two posts. That's just the way it has to be, folks.

Early in the morning, we have see Iron Spiders on their way to the exhibit hall.

The first thing I did on Thursday was head over to the Disenchantment booth and display. Later in the day, I saw that the line stretched all the way around the booth and to the wall, so I'm glad that I, uh, cheated a bit and got in early.

I'm kind of surprised that Netflix, which doesn't advertise its shows very often, had a booth for this new cartoon in the first place. But what better place to have one than at Comic-Con?

I've watched most of season one at this point, and I have to say that I'm really enjoying this show. And I managed to get some free temporary tattoos and a shirt at the booth!

Alas, poor Robin.

Naturally, there were a lot of Rick and Morty costumes on display at the show, but this was one of the better ones.

I spent some time signing comics (and stuff) at the New England Comics booth, which is always a treat. Here I am with artist Ian Nichols, who drew the new issue. Great.

This is a really nice Adam Warlock costume!

This woman does not seem nearly frightened enough of the world-devourer.

Classic.

I really do like the current Captain Marvel costume.

There's always a strong Disney contingent of costumers. But I'd never seen this before.

Who would have thought that the Mantis would be a popular enough character to inspire great costumes like this? Madness.

I appreciate the classic Loki helmet here.

Here's me with someone cosplaying as Leonard Maltin. Wait, that's actually Leonard Maltin. I seem to see him every year.

The first panel I went to this year was the Bongo Comics panel, where I was greeted by this group of Marges.

You have to get one of these pictures every year. Glad to get it out of the way.

I guess Disney owns both of these characters now.

...Disney owns these characters now, too, don't they?

I find this costume to be...acceptable.

A few booths away from mine in the small press section gathered a medium-sized crowd on Thursday, so I decided to check out what the noise was about. It turns out that someone brought a copy of Action Comics #1 from 1938 to display.

The cynic in me finds it a bit of a stretch to think that this is a genuine copy of Action Comics #1. This is mostly because there are only an estimated 100 copies of this book in existence, but beyond this, the copy was only in a regular bag and board as opposed to, say, bulletproof glass, and the copy looked to be in pretty decent shape. That would mean that someone would purposely bring a book probably worth around two million dollars to set out on a table.

But the fan in me really hopes that this is a legitimate first printing, because WOW! I almost asked to smell it.

These fine gentlemen stopped by the small press booth as I was eating lunch. Both of them work on the cartoon Bob's Burgers. We had a nice chat and then they left - but on Friday, one of them returned with a lot of cool Bob's Burgers promotional items, like buttons and stickers. It was great to meet them!

Yes, I see you, Mikey.

Very nice Wonder Woman costume!

If you have a twin, this is the PERFECT costume set to wear! I really enjoyed seeing this Peter Parker/Ben Rielly pair. Excellent job.

Okay, I've got a lot more pictures from Thursday, but this seems to be a good place to take a break. I'll post the others soon!