San Diego 2005: Greg's journal - Wednesday (#2)
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San Diego 2005: Greg's journal - Wednesday (#2)
WEDNESDAY (07/13/2005):
The San Diego Comic-Con preview night was Wednesday evening,
which meant we had all day to do whatever. We took the phonebook
from the room and decided to visit local comic shops. After a
trip to Starbuck's (where we determined that Justin's laptop
had some kind of keyboard malfunction), we dropped in at
a comic book shop labeled "COMIX" on the sign, but called
"Amazing Al's" in the phone book. We had called around 11am
to determine their location and store hours. They told us
how to find them and that they would open at noon.
When we arrived at noon, a sign on the door said they they
would not be opening until 1pm, so we called again.
Chris spoke with the manager and told him that we were
in the parking lot, so he agreed to open "early".
It turns out that his Wednesday orders were larger
than expected, and his staff still needed to sort
and pull the books from the order. A large sign in front
of the store indicated that they were having a "10 for $5" sale,
where any back issue priced at $5 or under could be purchased
for $0.50. Since we were there for back issues anyway,
this suited us just fine.
We found a few of the later Acclaim issues, particularly 1996 Valiant
and 1999 Acclaim. Chris also looked for other publishers' books,
since his own collection has a bit more variety than my own.
One copy of Shadowman Volume 3 #2 Good, Bad, and Very Ugly variant
changed hands about three times before we had left the parking lot.
For $15, I managed to obtain 30 books, while Chris had $25 worth,
and Justin, I believe, also spent in the $15 to $25 range.
(For the record, the books were not $0.50 each, they were
10 for $5... if you had 13 books, you either needed to find
seven more, or return three of them. No "odd" numbers allowed.)
We met 'comikxguy' from the ValiantFans.com messageboard,
who is an employee at Amazing Al's. Luckily, the bargains
we found there had not come to his attention sooner.
After Amazing Al's, we noticed three listings for "Comics N' Stuff"
in the San Diego phonebook, so we made our way to the nearest
location. The first was in a shopping mall, and did not yield
any purchases, however, we did get a nice orientation to San Diego
in terms of people and places. The manager of the shop gave
us a card with a total of nine Comics N' Stuff locations,
as opposed to the three listed in the phonebook.
At our next stop, back issues were priced at "cover",
or slightly higher, but we did come away with three copies
of Armorines Volume 2 #4 for $2.75 each. Luckily, that
was a simple case of one for each of us, so "sharing"
was easy. We felt like there might be more copies underneath
the back issue bins, but the store manager was quite adamant
that we weren't supposed to be looking in there.
This comic shop did not encourage shopping for comics.
The next location of Comics N' Stuff appeared to be an old
automotive shop of some kind, as it could easily have been
a place for getting tire changes, or customizations, as opposed
to being a back issue comic shop. I managed to find a mid-grade
copy of Shadowman Volume 2 #16 Glow-in-the-dark (my first copy) and the
Retailer Review edition, but I don't believe that any other purchases
were made there.
A fourth Comics N' Stuff location in another mall near the
food court yielded nothing, apart from allowing us a place to eat...
and more people-watching.
The time had come for our first visit to the San Diego Comic-Con,
with the Wednesday Preview Night. We parked in the parking deck,
and found our way to the pick-up windows for our Four-Day Badges.
My own badge was supplied to me by CGC, since I have done some
articles and number-crunching for their website, so I was able
to track down my contact and find my badge with no problem.
After locating Chris and Justin in line for the "freebies table",
which turned out to be little more than flyers for independent comics,
we headed down onto the convention floor. I had been to the
Wizard World Chicago convention in 2004, so I had some idea of
what to expect. San Diego is by far larger than Chicago, even
though Chicago is the second largest convention.
We entered the convention about midway, and the first booth we
stopped at belonged to Neal Adams. Knowing that I would probably
have few chances to meet Mr. Adams, I bought a Green Lantern / Green Arrow
trade paperback from his table and had it signed "To Greg" in no time.
Neal Adams at his booth, my signed book
Bernard Chang had arrived and was setting up his booth, so we said 'hello'
and let him get back to work. We met Chris Morrill (x-omatic) and saw
his booth for Project IV, and his new book Hired Gun #1. Justin, Chris S.,
and I each bought the first copies (in that order), and had the artists
(Chris and Sirac) sign our books. Rodney Ramos was in artists' alley,
and also posed for a quick photo.
Sirac and Chris M. (x-omatic), Rodney Ramos
We met up with Magnus, who had taken the family to Sea World, and learned
that the Shamu show was quite wet due to the only seats available being
in the front row. I got the impression that the kids loved it,
but Magnus..."ah, not so much."
My only "mission" for Preview Night was to find an exclusive King Randor
statue, or "staction figure", for 'Byrneout' on the messageboard.
Before the night was over, I had obtained the piece, so just wandering
around the floor the rest of the time was enough to make the evening a success.
Chris Scott's primary focus for the week was obtaining sketches from
artists for donation to the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation (CFF). Chris had
backerboards printed with "Fighting Cystic Fibrosis" in gold lettering
on the bottom (thanks to boardmember 'X-O Hobojoe'), and any artist
who could spend a few minutes working out a sketch would be donating to CFF
because the artwork was/is being auctioned.
By the end of Preview Night (9:00pm), Chris was talking with Billy Tucci,
and being introduced to Mark Sparacio. The convention security team
was rounding up anyone not wearing the all-important "pink badge",
which signified an exhibitor as opposed to a member of the 'public'.
Since my badge happened to be pink, I lingered in the hall waiting
for Chris S., and spoke again with Bernard Chang. Chris joined me
at Bernard's table and Justin walked right past a member of security
to re-enter the convention floor and also meet us at Bernard's table.
Just before 10pm, the three of us we were heading back to the parking garage,
and planning to meet up with Magnus again after he took the children back
to the hotel. Once Magnus joined us at Motel 6, we attempted to go across
the street about a block to Denny's Restaurant. The restaurant was empty,
except for about five tables, but we were told that we would need to wait
behind two families already waiting in the lobby because they were understaffed.
Needless to say, we left, and found another Denny's location at the very
next exit. We were seated immediately, had excellent service, and
were able to talk with Magnus again until the wee hours of the morning.
The room lights in the Motel 6 went out about 4:00am, as Chris and I again
chatted for a while and attempted to check the internet, but dial-up
didn't allow much quick access before I eventually just gave up and went to sleep.
-Greg Holland
The San Diego Comic-Con preview night was Wednesday evening,
which meant we had all day to do whatever. We took the phonebook
from the room and decided to visit local comic shops. After a
trip to Starbuck's (where we determined that Justin's laptop
had some kind of keyboard malfunction), we dropped in at
a comic book shop labeled "COMIX" on the sign, but called
"Amazing Al's" in the phone book. We had called around 11am
to determine their location and store hours. They told us
how to find them and that they would open at noon.
When we arrived at noon, a sign on the door said they they
would not be opening until 1pm, so we called again.
Chris spoke with the manager and told him that we were
in the parking lot, so he agreed to open "early".
It turns out that his Wednesday orders were larger
than expected, and his staff still needed to sort
and pull the books from the order. A large sign in front
of the store indicated that they were having a "10 for $5" sale,
where any back issue priced at $5 or under could be purchased
for $0.50. Since we were there for back issues anyway,
this suited us just fine.
We found a few of the later Acclaim issues, particularly 1996 Valiant
and 1999 Acclaim. Chris also looked for other publishers' books,
since his own collection has a bit more variety than my own.
One copy of Shadowman Volume 3 #2 Good, Bad, and Very Ugly variant
changed hands about three times before we had left the parking lot.
For $15, I managed to obtain 30 books, while Chris had $25 worth,
and Justin, I believe, also spent in the $15 to $25 range.
(For the record, the books were not $0.50 each, they were
10 for $5... if you had 13 books, you either needed to find
seven more, or return three of them. No "odd" numbers allowed.)
We met 'comikxguy' from the ValiantFans.com messageboard,
who is an employee at Amazing Al's. Luckily, the bargains
we found there had not come to his attention sooner.
After Amazing Al's, we noticed three listings for "Comics N' Stuff"
in the San Diego phonebook, so we made our way to the nearest
location. The first was in a shopping mall, and did not yield
any purchases, however, we did get a nice orientation to San Diego
in terms of people and places. The manager of the shop gave
us a card with a total of nine Comics N' Stuff locations,
as opposed to the three listed in the phonebook.
At our next stop, back issues were priced at "cover",
or slightly higher, but we did come away with three copies
of Armorines Volume 2 #4 for $2.75 each. Luckily, that
was a simple case of one for each of us, so "sharing"
was easy. We felt like there might be more copies underneath
the back issue bins, but the store manager was quite adamant
that we weren't supposed to be looking in there.
This comic shop did not encourage shopping for comics.
The next location of Comics N' Stuff appeared to be an old
automotive shop of some kind, as it could easily have been
a place for getting tire changes, or customizations, as opposed
to being a back issue comic shop. I managed to find a mid-grade
copy of Shadowman Volume 2 #16 Glow-in-the-dark (my first copy) and the
Retailer Review edition, but I don't believe that any other purchases
were made there.
A fourth Comics N' Stuff location in another mall near the
food court yielded nothing, apart from allowing us a place to eat...
and more people-watching.
The time had come for our first visit to the San Diego Comic-Con,
with the Wednesday Preview Night. We parked in the parking deck,
and found our way to the pick-up windows for our Four-Day Badges.
My own badge was supplied to me by CGC, since I have done some
articles and number-crunching for their website, so I was able
to track down my contact and find my badge with no problem.
After locating Chris and Justin in line for the "freebies table",
which turned out to be little more than flyers for independent comics,
we headed down onto the convention floor. I had been to the
Wizard World Chicago convention in 2004, so I had some idea of
what to expect. San Diego is by far larger than Chicago, even
though Chicago is the second largest convention.
We entered the convention about midway, and the first booth we
stopped at belonged to Neal Adams. Knowing that I would probably
have few chances to meet Mr. Adams, I bought a Green Lantern / Green Arrow
trade paperback from his table and had it signed "To Greg" in no time.
Neal Adams at his booth, my signed book
Bernard Chang had arrived and was setting up his booth, so we said 'hello'
and let him get back to work. We met Chris Morrill (x-omatic) and saw
his booth for Project IV, and his new book Hired Gun #1. Justin, Chris S.,
and I each bought the first copies (in that order), and had the artists
(Chris and Sirac) sign our books. Rodney Ramos was in artists' alley,
and also posed for a quick photo.
Sirac and Chris M. (x-omatic), Rodney Ramos
We met up with Magnus, who had taken the family to Sea World, and learned
that the Shamu show was quite wet due to the only seats available being
in the front row. I got the impression that the kids loved it,
but Magnus..."ah, not so much."
My only "mission" for Preview Night was to find an exclusive King Randor
statue, or "staction figure", for 'Byrneout' on the messageboard.
Before the night was over, I had obtained the piece, so just wandering
around the floor the rest of the time was enough to make the evening a success.
Chris Scott's primary focus for the week was obtaining sketches from
artists for donation to the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation (CFF). Chris had
backerboards printed with "Fighting Cystic Fibrosis" in gold lettering
on the bottom (thanks to boardmember 'X-O Hobojoe'), and any artist
who could spend a few minutes working out a sketch would be donating to CFF
because the artwork was/is being auctioned.
By the end of Preview Night (9:00pm), Chris was talking with Billy Tucci,
and being introduced to Mark Sparacio. The convention security team
was rounding up anyone not wearing the all-important "pink badge",
which signified an exhibitor as opposed to a member of the 'public'.
Since my badge happened to be pink, I lingered in the hall waiting
for Chris S., and spoke again with Bernard Chang. Chris joined me
at Bernard's table and Justin walked right past a member of security
to re-enter the convention floor and also meet us at Bernard's table.
Just before 10pm, the three of us we were heading back to the parking garage,
and planning to meet up with Magnus again after he took the children back
to the hotel. Once Magnus joined us at Motel 6, we attempted to go across
the street about a block to Denny's Restaurant. The restaurant was empty,
except for about five tables, but we were told that we would need to wait
behind two families already waiting in the lobby because they were understaffed.
Needless to say, we left, and found another Denny's location at the very
next exit. We were seated immediately, had excellent service, and
were able to talk with Magnus again until the wee hours of the morning.
The room lights in the Motel 6 went out about 4:00am, as Chris and I again
chatted for a while and attempted to check the internet, but dial-up
didn't allow much quick access before I eventually just gave up and went to sleep.
-Greg Holland
Last edited by greg on Thu Sep 22, 2005 9:55:36 am, edited 3 times in total.
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