Pictures from the 2015 Comic-Con International, part 5: Saturday (Game of Thrones, March, Nerd HQ and more!)

Well, two things have been established regarding this blog, I think: first, I can't stay away. Second, I will always have pictures from Comic-Con to post. Here are some more, even though it's January and I told myself (and Larry) that I wouldn't do this again this year. So much for that! Here are some pictures from the Saturday of the show, the busiest day of the event.

Let's start off with some Game of Thrones characters.

And follow that up with some more Game of Throne characters.

And finally, more from Game of Thrones. This last one is great. If they need a stand-in for Petyr Baelish, I hope they call this guy.

I managed to luck my way into line for a signing by the creative team behind the incredible graphic novel series "March", including Congressman John Lewis. This was one of the highlights of my trip to be sure.

These guys did a really nice job. They added in a few other references as well, which I appreciated.

Look, it's Wonder Woman, and...someone else! Wait...is that Rocket Raccoon? Yes, I believe it is.

C-3PO did a great job with this costume. There was a real live person in side and he even had a voice modulator to talk in the character's voice. Really incredible.

The Tick and Arthur came to the NEC booth. Townsend Coleman (voice of The Tick in the animated series) is in the center.

I, of course, had to get my picture with them before they left. I learned that these guys are actually from Pittsburgh. How is it that I don't know them already?

Jubilee and Captain America. I like this. That is all.

I got tickets to the Nerd HQ "Mystery Panel" this year. There were six guests from different ABC shows and Zach Levi.

The person in the middle was probably the only one I recognized? She played in "House" and was also Captain Kirk's mom in the 2009 Star Trek movie.

It was a fun hour.

I still need to watch...SOMETHING that Zach Levi is in. He does such a good job at putting this together every year, and he seems like a genuinely nice guy. Wait, I guess I did watch the Thor sequel. So there's that!

Taking a break after a long day at the convention.

Comic-Con after hours.

Weird things happen on the streets of Comic-Con after the show ends. I'm not sure how much is obvious from this picture, but there was a group dressed up like Buddhist monks (maybe they were actual monks? You can never tell at Comic-Con) dancing in a circle. Plenty of people joined in.

It was back to Nerd HQ to finish up the evening. Plenty of photo opportunities there, including this one of my butt.

I jumped into this picture at the last second. I don't know who anyone else is. But they were all pretty cool.

These folks danced around in these raptor half costumes for quite a while. It's a shame that they had to compete with this:

That's a full-size Chewbacca costume, complete with lifts or stilts or something. The guy in this danced for hours and must have lost ten pounds over the course of the evening. Every once in a while he'd take the head off and you'd see him sweating profusely. But he was a real trooper (haw) and kept at it. He got invited to the VIP section after a while. He worked for it.

Here's more Weird Al vandalism. I admit no guilt.

I hit a bit of a wall early on Saturday, and I don't think I took as many pictures as I did on other days. Comic-Con hours take their toll and I really felt it this day. But my second wind finally came during the afternoon and Sunday finished up strong.

Are there more pictures? YES! Will it be another three months before you see any? Hopefully not! See you soon!

Pictures from the 2015 Comic-Con International, part 1: Tuesday (TMNT art show and more!)

Comic-Con 2015 is in the books and the show is as big as ever.  2015 was my fourth year in a row at the San Diego event, and I feel like I'm just starting to get a handle on things.  I had a great time and took a lot of pictures...those two things bring us to this new addition to the long-running blog tradition of inundating the Internet with pictures from the show.  So let's get started and see where it takes us.  All of the pictures, including the picture of someone's grandpa riding a Conan O'Brien escalator at the San Diego International Airport, are from the Tuesday before the show.

Conan had a big presence at the convention, and he filmed several episodes of his late night talk show  near the convention.  Tickets to these tapings went fast (of course) and I wasn't able to get any.  Apparently, Funko gave away an exclusive Conan bobblehead at each taping, many of which naturally were then sold for lots and lots of cash online.

After checking into out house for the week, I took a drive downtown and saw some of the Comic-Con setup.  I highly recommend arriving in San Diego at least a day before the convention to battle jet lag, and also to get some bearings for the days to come.  One of the signs of Comic-Con's imminent arrival are, well, the literal signs that hang from lampposts all about town, but especially in the Gaslamp district.  Many of this year's banners featured Ant-Man.

I wonder what happens to all of these banners after the show?  They remain hanging for a few days after the convention ends, and I'm always tempted to get a ladder and try to grab one.

As in years past, many of the exhibits were still being constructed on Tuesday, with some not reaching completion until just before the doors opened on Wednesday (and sometimes even later).  I guess the show "Heroes", for whatever reason, is being revived by NBC this fall, and there were a lot of promotional items for this across the convention hall and outside.  Zach Levi, he of NerdHQ fame, has a role in the show, and he even got a giant standee of himself.  If I was on one of these, I'd probably try to take it home with me.  But where would you put it?

Here's the outside of the convention center.  This was taken after the hall was closed to exhibitors for the evening, and a lot of people wearing pink badges were streaming out at this time.  Even though I had a badge of my own waiting for me (an orange professional badge), it's hard to not get anxious seeing other people with access to the inside.

THE EYE!

Walking up the steps to the top of the convention center, you could see inside the Sails Pavilion as it was being put together.

Across the street, the Hilton had a giant tongue banner draped over its side.  Okay.

The Adult Swim attraction, always one of the must-see outside exhibits, was located behind the convention center this year, right along the water.  There was a carnival theme to it this year.  In the background you can see the Meatwad's Dome exhibit, the only holdover from 2014.

Rick and Morty (one of my favorite new shows) had a big presence at Comic-Con this year.  This display wasn't interactive at all...but it was still pretty cool.  Again, what happens to this after Comic-Con?

Here's the back.  You can see Rick carrying a bag.  I took a peek in it once or twice, thinking that there might be some kind of prize inside, but as far as I could tell, the staff just used it for trash.  That might have been a cover...who knows?

This was the last picture I got before some of the security workers yelled at me to stop taking pictures.  I suppose Adult Swim didn't want their setup leaked before the show started.  Being outside, though, I'm sure that was impossible to prevent.

And here are some bridge shots, a requirement at Comic-Con.

Here's the convention center from the bridge.

I never actually made it to the offsite area across from the convention center.  This was partially because the Adult Swim event moved away, partially because the events that took its place didn't really inspire me to make the trek across the bridge during convention hours, and partially because there was so much to do in other places.  The above picture is the framework for another carnival-style ride, which was apparently a pretty popular theme this year.

Later on the convention, they brought a terrifying, giant mutant dog to lay on top of the house.

The Pirates were playing the San Diego Padres this night and a few nights during the convention.  They were of course playing in Pittsburgh, but I thought it was funny that we switched places for a week.  I was also lucky because I was able to catch some of the games on local tv and radio while we were in town.

The big event for the night was a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles "Shell Shocked" art exhibit at the Basic: Urban Kitchen and Bar in downtown San Diego, just a few blocks from the convention center.  There were also some official Comic-Con events going at the year-old library this night, so Comic-Con has formally started to take over Tuesday night as well.  I went there and, what do you know, the Pirate game was playing, so it was a double treat.

There were a number of displays, as well as some live art going on.

This was probably my favorite of the art displays - a senior turtle and mouser.

I don't know who these people are - I just thought it'd be fun to take a picture with them.  And it was!!

Someone involved with the exhibit also had some of his collection on display.  I ended up buying some cheap art and spending about an hour at the bar before heading back to get ready for Comic-Con's first day.  Won't it be fun to see some of those pictures as well?  YES IT WILL BE.  And oh, we'll see them.  Soon.

Pictures from the 2014 Comic-Con International, part 10 (Nathan Fillion & Alan Tudyk @ NerdHQ, the Taco Truck and more!)

Ah, Comic-Con.  Where has the time gone?  We're closer to the 2015 show than we are the 2014 version, and yet here I am, still showing pictures from last year.  What can you do?  All of these pictures are from Sunday, the final day of the event, which was, all things considered, fairly low-key but still included a lot of great moments.  Here are a few.

Parodying the Comic-Con protestors never goes out of style, and sometimes includes horse masks.  The handles are, I guess, Instagram accounts, because they don't show up on Twitter.  A shame.

A big part of Sunday, for me, was spent back at Nerd HQ for their "Conversations for a Cause" series, which, as I've stated before, is pretty incredible.  I got tickets (thanks to Larry) for the Nathan Fillion panel.  The 2013 version was so much fun that I had to make it back this year for an encore.  It was more laid back as I already had a year under my belt.  Still, it was fun to see Fillion and Firefly companion Alan Tudyk again in this intimate setting.

As always, the very generous Zach Levi introduced the panel guests.

Fillion was gracious and funny as always.  He mentioned that he sometimes walked the convention floor, dressed in a costume that also covered his face, from time to time.  I wonder how many celebrities do something similar.  It's not a bad plan for blending in.

Firefly will never die, even if Wash did.

There were a lot of great items auctioned off this year.  I'm amazed at how much people are willing to spend.  It's great that all the money goes to Operation Smile, Levi's charity of choice.  I'd like to win something one day (one day...).

The NerdHQ team handled the photo booth better than they did last year, which included a mad rush after the panel had ended.  This year, if you had a ticket to the panel and $20, you could get your picture taken with both Fillion and Tudyk.  My wife and I are fans of Fillion's well documented photobombs, and so we asked to be included in that storied history.  I'd say we got a good one.  So we didn't lose our nerd cred, we were also wearing Futurama brain slugs at the time.

One of the walls at NerdHQ was dedicated to the people who donated to help fund the event.  I had to chip in a little as I take advantage of this offsite event at different points during Comic-Con.  My name made it on the wall right about...

...here.  The entire monstrosity is up online here (search for yourself!  Or search for me!): http://www.thenerdmachine.com/wall-of-honor-updated/

After the panel and picture session ended, it was time to head back.  Do these Pokemon outfits count as onesies?

And it was time for another trip across the bridge, which called for yet another picture of the convention center and the city...but this time...it was a panoramic view.  How nice.

One thing brought about by more events taking place on the back lawn is a longer line to the vaunted Taco Truck.  It was a bit distressing...but there was still a fairly short wait to the front of the line, and the Taco Truck is worth every minute spent waiting.

Here's the man in charge.  I love him.  And his burritos.

Here's a fairly prescient costume, given the ending of the Guardians of the Galaxy movie.  Good on this kid, though I'm surprised that anyone under 30 knows who Howard the Duck is.

Let's call this "battle damage Iron Man".  A nice job.

Another nice job by Aquawoman, unintentionally standing by a Ghostbuster.

It's strange to look behind you and see someone dressed like this following you.  Kudos to him for taking the picture in stride.

Here's a picture that illustrates how everyone feels at the end of a long convention.

This gentleman probably had the best costume at Comic-Con.  Apocalypse here is affiliated with the Cinema Makeup School, and questions as to if this "counts" as a legitimate fan costume are brought up.  I think it counts.  Either way, it's a heck of a costume.

Catwoman was standing next to Apocalypse.  She did a nice job, but that's a tough act to follow.

Battle Damage Dr. Mrs. The Monarch.

Love the original Trek uniforms.

To the side of the Cartoon Books booth stood this life size RASL statue.  Really cool.

How many times did this guy get described as "outrageous"?  Heck, what's one more time?

This is not the end.  There are still more pictures to show.  And show them we will.  Soon.