Pictures from the 2016 Comic-Con International, part 2: Wednesday (Conan O'Brien, Sergio Aragones, Nancy Cartwright and more!)

It's time for more (very exciting) pictures from Comic-Con in San Diego, this time with images from preview night, Wednesday the 20th!

Just like Tuesday, Wednesday was a busier day at the show than in previous years. Usually, I'm able to wake up whenever I want to, eat breakfast, and head down to the convention at a leisurely pace. This year, Conan O'Brien returned to San Diego and I was able to get tickets to Wednesday's taping. That meant lining up to pick up tickets (and secure an assigned seat) at 10am. Through some stroke of luck, I actually had a whole gaggle of tickets (that's the proper term) and was able to trade two of them in exchange for Thursday tickets as well. After picking up wristbands and tickets, I got a picture with some new friends against the Conan backdrop inside the theater.

After that, it was off to try and score more tickets, this time for the Star Trek Beyond premiere that was taking place later that night. The line supposedly opened at noon. I got there at 11:30 and...it was already spilling out across the pier behind the convention center.

While I was waiting, I did get to see the IMDboat. That's about the extent of my Star Trek line excitement, though, as I went thought twice and wasn't able to get any tickets. Bummer.

I did score a pretty great sunburn, though, which you can start to see taking shape in this image. After the line didn't produce any tickets, I went inside the exhibit hall to finish setting up for the day. Here I am with the first cosplayer of the convention! Great job, lower half.

While setting up, I ran into Terry Moore, who I had seen speak the day before at the "Comics & Law" panel at the library. We chatted for a while and he left with a copy of Teddy and the Yeti. Then it was off to the Spreckels Theatre for Conan.

On the way there, I saw this fine gentleman wearing a 2014 Tick shirt drawn by Duane Redhead!

The theater was about six blocks away and the sun beat down on us every step of the way. When we made it inside, we waited in a gigantic line in a suffocating hallway on the second floor. There were a lot of sweaty people there that day. But we eventually made it to our seats just before the show started.

I had a seat near the front of the upper balcony, which was actually a pretty good view of the show. The cast of HBO's "Silicon Valley" was the main attraction, though there was a fun cameo of Will Arnett tossed in there as well.

I'm used to shows filming the same scene over and over again for hours on end, but this one flew by in right about an hour, which was surprising. It was a good time and when it was over, we all got Conan Funko bobbleheads. On leaving the theater, we were met with throngs of people asking if they could buy them.

I made it back to the convention center just about ten minutes before it opened for preview night, which was some good timing. I was able to jump in a line and pick up some cool items right as Comic-Con officially began. Preview night is such a feeding frenzy of buying that it's almost hard to imagine. Above are some folks who are probably wondering how they're going to get all of their new stuff into their car. Lookit all of that!

The Walking Dead had a big presence again, including this scene where you can pretend that you're about to get your head smashed in by the show's new villain. What fun!

Here's a shot of the floor. For preview night, it was fairly orderly.

Marvel, for some reason, commissioned a bronze statue of Captain America that was unveiled here before moving to a park in New York. I'm not entirely certain that a fictional character should get an official statue before, say, the creators of said fictional character, but I guess there's already one of Rocky and Robocop out there in the world. So to each his own...and the statue did look pretty cool.

You don't usually see a lot of costumes on preview night, but there were some to be found.

Leaving the show, I ran into none other than legendary MAD Magazine artist Sergio Aragones! One of the greats.

I make sure that I stop at the Chuck Jones Gallery in the Gaslamp District every year. This year had a small space devoted to the works of Nancy Cartwright, the voice actor for Bart Simpson and an artist in her own right. In the middle is a Bart Simpson bust! I also love the shadow it creates on the wall.

Apparently Burger King had an after party at an offsite location in the evening. The place was roped off and people who were dressed extremely well were entering, so I didn't make an attempt, though I probably should have. What in the world was happening in this place?

I managed to make a relatively early night of things as I had a busy Thursday planned. Look for those pictures soon!

Pictures from the 2016 Comic-Con International, part 1: Tuesday (the day before!)

It's time to once again check out some pictures from the recently concluded 2016 Comic-Con International in San Diego! There's a lot to get to, but let's start out slowly with some pictures from the day before Comic-Con, Tuesday the 19th. I usually arrive in San Diego the day before the convention in an attempt to function like a human being once things start on preview night, but this year was a little different in that for the first time since 2012, I was able to do some setup on Tuesday.

Getting to enter the convention hall a day early is a lot of fun, if for nothing else than the fact that it's an experience not many other people get to have. Comic-Con instituted some changes with their badges this year, sending them in the mail weeks before the show rather than having on-site pickup. This eliminated one of the long lines to enter and I appreciated that. Not everyone is a fan of the new RF tagged badges, but I had no problems with them and thought the process went smoothly.

Another cool thing about getting to enter a day early is getting to run around the convention floor before it opens. A lot of sightseeing happens on this day from exhibitors.

There was no air conditioning inside the hall on this day, which was fairly terrible as the first few days of the convention were hot and sunny. So I didn't do too much inside other than getting the boxes where they needed to be and getting the appropriate lanyards and tags.

To the left of the above picture, you can see the new electronic monitors at the entrances. Other than having to go in and out of specific doors, it wasn't too much of a hassle.

Here's the inside of Comic-Con while setup is still happening at a furious clip. In the above picture we can see DC Comics on the left and Sideshow Collectables on the right. Lotsa freight to unbox on Tuesdays.

Comic-Con sprawl continues, and on Tuesday afternoon I went to my first Comic-Con panel...before the show officially opened. This was the Lindley Lecture on Law & Comics, held at the San Diego Central Library. I signed up to attend online, and when I entered the auditorium, I was asked to write down my name and bar association number.

Apparently, a vast majority of attendees were practicing lawyers (this probably counted as some sort of continuing education lecture), but the panel was nonetheless enjoyable for someone who was there as a fan. Terry Moore (and his entertainment lawyer) was the featured speaker and it went well. It was also nice to get out of the heat for a bit.

The banners adorning the light posts this year had Dr. Strange branding. These stayed up until several days after the show ended. Maybe you can just take one? Let's find out next year, shall we?

This was easily the busiest Tuesday that I've experienced at the show in the few years that I've been attending. I had a lot of fun but it did make the rest of the show a little tougher to get through, as I didn't relax nor did I go to sleep early this night. And Wednesday came early this year, too! But I guess that's what to expect with Comic-Con. More pictures to come soon!

Gender Through Comic Books week two progress report

A few weeks ago, I mentioned that I had signed up for Ball State's open-registration online class titled "Gender Through Comic Books".  The class started up on April 2nd and it's met twice since then.  I am, apparently, one of around 70,000 attendees, making this (if the number is accurate) akin to a giant comic convention in its own right.

I've never taken an online course before, so I'm trying to pay attention to the structure of the course as opposed to just going along with the flow of things.  I'm taking down notes because if this is at all successful (and, heck, even if it's not) I might try to run my own massive online class one day.  At this point in the course, I'd say that things are going well.  If nothing else, I've had the opportunity to pick up some interesting comics as texts for the class:

Our first session centered around Terry Moore and the Strangers in Paradise series.  We read the first issue of Rachel Rising and the first two volumes of the SiP trades.  These trades were hard to find and I had to do some searching to come up with a copy for myself.  The stores that I checked were all out of the volumes in question, but they all had all of the other volumes, which led me to believe that others in the area are also taking this course.  New Dimension Comics at Century III mall came though for me in the end, though they were also out of stock of the "pocket" volume, which collects both of the larger format volumes into one book.  For the other issues, eBay has been busy tallying up my transactions, but I haven't had too much of a problem.

During each week, we have a live video chat with a comic book creator about the topic of the course, gender identity.  Terry Moore was on the docket last week, and this past Tuesday Mark Waid showed up.  In all, the class has had its choppy moments, and there's a lot of reading to do - along with selected comics, there's also an academic article to read every week, videos to watch, surveys to take and posts to make on discussion boards.  I can't imagine how much work this must be for the developers of this course.  After the class ends in May, I plan on trying to bend the ear of the teacher to get some tips, and we'll see where it leads.

I'll post some more updates when we're further into the class.  For now, I'm excited to be a part of this big event.  I'll bet that the creators of the books we're all buying are also pretty excited.  They must be getting a nice bump!