The last day we got to the convention center at 7:30 and waited in one of the shorter lines I waited in that weekend (only about 2 hours). This one was the line to get into the exhibit hall (things don't start until 10 in there). The reason for the wait to get in we were trying to keep on the DL, since it wasn't highly advertised and we didn't need any more competition or crowds. In October, Marvel is releasing a new comic based on the character in Castle's old series, Derrick Storm. So yeah, a comic about a character in a book that only exists in a TV show. It seems somehow existential to me, but I guess I shouldn't dwell on it too much.
BUT ANYWAY, since this book is coming out, who else but Nathan Fillion would be be at the Marvel booth signing autographs! So we got in line to get into the hall, to hurry over to the Marvel booth and wait in line there for a while to do a drawing to see if we could actually get his autograph. Basically, you pull a card out of a bin and you either get a winning ticket or you don't. I made Jon stand in line with me to increase my chances. A bunch of the girls from the Castle Fan dinner were in line in front of me so I waited with much anxiety as they all took their turns. Some won, some didn't. It came to me, and I reached my hand in and tried to summon a winning card. My hand passed over a big stack clumped together and I decided those were probably NOT winners so I ignored them. I eventually drew a card out and mentally squee'd because I had gotten a winning ticket!!
Jon did not get a winning one, but if he and I both had, I might have been stampeeded to get that second one. It would have been totally lame to have to pick someone. I don't do well under that kind of pressure. After getting my ticket, the booth people gave me another paper card and said I had to have them both to get my autograph. Also, that I had to come back in 2 hours for the actual signing. Anticipation was built up already but I was pretty dang used to waiting by then. Also, this was not in a line, so that was something! I got to walk around the exhibit floor again for a while. I made my way over to the Jason Palmer booth and picked up a set of Castle buttons and scoped out all the other artwork he had available for Serenity and other things. It was really good!
Then we made our way to the section with the various fan groups. R2-D2 was out so I took a pic with him.
There were a lot of Starwars fan groups, which I guess is not that surprising. I was surprised to see a booth for Jericho, a show that was on a couple years ago that I really liked, but then that big writers strike happened and when it came back from a hiatus, they didn't do a very good job of advertising it so a lot of the fans didn't know to start watching it again. There was a big fan revolt involving sending peanuts to the network, and the show was brought back for another half-season but that was it. I learned they continued the story in comic form, so that's something I should get around to reading. After that, I wanted to find something cool to have Nathan sign other than the small poster they'd give you if you didn't have something. I stopped by the California Browncoats booth and after chatting with the gal there, I decided on a Serenity comic book.
Jon wanted to look through some of the comic booths then so I let him go look through one of the giant comic store booths for a while. I saw Lou Ferrigno (the oldschool Hulk), so snapped a shot. I could have paid $40 for a pic WITH him, but.....eh.
Then it was time to head back to the Marvel booth. They had a guy out in the new Iron Man suit on a rotating platform. So that's what the Iron Man suit is going to look like in the next movie, folks.I kinda dug the redder suit better, but since when do movies usually do what I think they should do. I mean, look at the casting for Green Lantern and the newer Spiderman.
Finally it was time. I had to wait in line along the side of the Marvel booth, where they were doing a demo of an Avengers video game...one of those ones that measures your movement and you don't use a controller at all. It wouldn't have been so bad except there was a line of little kids right next to us wanting to play that game. I was too far back in line to see when they brought Nathan out...wish I could've seen what all went on when he got out there; there was a lot of cheering. Slowly we made our way up. Nathan was up on the stage where the Iron Man suit guy had been (see above), so we all had to go up on the stage to get our signatures. I tried not to think about all the strangers seeing the backside of me while trying to get a glimpse of Nathan. I took my camera off my right wrist in anticipation of a handshake. I gave the booth guy my paper card (got to keep the fancier one that said 'winner') and then I got to ascend the stairs. When I finally get in front of him, he takes my hand and says, "and your name is?" with a smile. I tell him, and try not to smile like a giant dork. Smiling, of course, but not like a giant dork. I may not have succeeded, but only Nathan knows for sure.
They'd told us we couldn't try to take pics WITH him, but yeah, I snapped a shot of him while he was signing my book. So, here's a pic of the top of his head taken with my nervous hands:
When he hands it back to me, he says, "make sure you let this dry before you put it back in the bag," and winks at me. I thank him and float away. Lindsay said she saw it, too, so I know I didn't imagine it! *sigh* And so ended my 4th Nathan Fillion experience of the weekend. So in summary, I got to be in his presence 4 times, touched him twice, spoke to him twice and got winked at. Goal for next year: either a hug or a picture WITH him. I know these will be more challenging, since most of the fan events they drill into you not to ask for personal favors like hugs or pics with. But step 1 for that goal is complete since I just bought my tickets for Comic Con 2013 this morning! Woot! Only 11 1/2 months to wait... After all this excitement, it was time to look at more booths, this time in company of my whole family group. David and Lindsay only came for Sunday, so they had pretty much everything left to see. David promptly bought a horses head mask. This thing was so ridiculously funny....
Then we went back to the chap selling the wooden moustaches we saw on the first day and each bought one, with the plan to wear them on Space Mountain the next day. I bought 'classic' for myself and 'dapper' for Jon. Here is David with horse-head and Lindsay with moustache...
Then we wandered around and David photobomed some people, which was amusing to no end. We even came across a unicorn chick. What luck!
Had I thought of it, I should have David wander around and I'd take some crowd shots and then we could play 'where's horse-head' later. Oh well...
We saw this lovely Admiral Akbar portrait. I am preeeetty sure I'd never own any Starwars artwork, especially something that costs multiple hundred dollars, but this one made me laugh.
At the Mattel booth, they had a big to-do about the Hover Board! We got to hold one! Granted, it doesn't actually hover, but it was still kinda badass. Also, they were giving out big buttons that say, "save the clock tower! Buy a Hover Board!" so you know I grabbed a big handful of those.
Then we saw this giant fake toy packaging and of course we had to horse-mask it... And then one with me and Jon, too.
There wasn't a whole lot more that went on, so here's a bunch more horse-head shots....
It was nearing time to go, so I took a panoramic shot of the crowd from the second level, and then we went out to the Batmobile display, out between the convention center and the Omni hotel. They had all 6 batmobiles.
One of the stupid looking ones...
my favorite one
The oldschool one. Evidently the only one that's fully functional in terms of all the bat-gadgets and features as opposed to CGI or anything else.
Two batmobiles from those middle batman movies...I don't really have much to say about them, sorry.
And then another stupid-looking one
So that concluded my Comic Con 2012 experience. We went to Disneyland the next 2 days and then flew home. I woke up sickly on the day we flew home, so I dealt with that the next several days, but luckily I didn't have to be back at work for 4 more days. I'm sad it's all over, but like I said before, I already bought my tickets for next year since they had badge sales for those who went this year. It was a similar process to buying tickets before, except this time we were able to get all 4 days in 1 go. Single days as opposed to a 4-day, but I'm ok with that. This year we also had 4 single days but they converted it to a 4-day at badge pick-up, so it could work out like that. So who wants to go with me next year? Want to start over? Day 1 Here
Begin the blog on day 3! How fitting it is at 3am... Jon wasn't up for a second night in a row outside, so he figured getting up at 3am would be a suitable alternative. Maybe it was for him, but I was of another opinion. It was lame. We made it down to the convention center around 3:30, and the line at that point had only wound it's way through all the ziz-zags under the tents, across the street and down the sidewalk along the grass between the convention center and the marina. We sit ourselves down on our giant swag bags (which make really good sit-upons, btw) and sleepily say hello to the line-mates near us. The guy immediately behind us spends some time trying to inflate an air-mattress with a hand-pump, but after he while he gives up. Apparently he grabbed the wrong pump? I don't know, I stopped paying attention because the noise stopped. One thing I will say about the backside of the convention center was that is was QUIET! No shuttle, trolly or train sounds whatsoever. Also there was a bit less lighting, so I took advantage and hunkered down to try and recapture my snoozes. I did not fall successfully to sleep this time, unfortunately, because around 4am the sprinklers on the grass came on. They weren't spraying directly on us, and even the faint mist that made it to us wouldn't have been so bad but then the water started trickling it's way across the sidewalk towards us. Most of us took a few mins to re-adjust our things to places the rivulets weren't flowing and then it was ok....until the water made it to the dirt on the other side of the sidewalk and the ants came out. Then there was a lot of standing. And grumbling. By this time, the line had gone all around the grass to the sidewalk between the grass and the marina. Eventually the ant activity subsided enough that I figured I'd deal and laid back down. There was a light breeze coming off the marina, enough to make me cold, so I put on a couple more t-shirt layers, put my hood on over my face, headphones in and lay there in a sort of fetal position on the cement with my backpack and a pillow for cushion. I'm not knocking the pillow for my head, but curvy hips and laying on the cement do not go well together. I zoned out for a while. There MUST have been some actual unconsciousness in there. I was aware of enough time passing that it can't have been much though. Eventually I couldn't stay in that position any longer (shoulder fell asleep) and had to sit up. I'm sure I looked awesome. Right before driving to the convention center, I'd showered, and left without drying or otherwise doing anything to my hair, so I had bed-head from it drying while I lay there. Also I hadn't bothered with makeup yet, but the sky was just light enough that I figured it was time (I really don't consider myself a girly-girl, but I reeeeally don't like being out in public without the basics on). As I was doing this, I noticed Jon was talking to the guy behind us, only it was a different guy now. I guess the one who failed at the mattresses wasn't doing so well so his friend relieved him and sent him back to sleep for a few hours in an actual bed. I envied him. The friends of his who took his place were Phil (an Asian with freckles) and Benal (a really friendly and cool chick). Phil as an actor who also works at Universal Studios as a character. He had a lot of interesting stories about various things he'd worked on and famous people he'd worked with. I guess he's had a lot of guest spots on soap operas, but not following soaps myself I couldn't say whether half a dozen appearances on one is a lot? He did take me and show me the bathroom in the lobby of the Omni hotel so I didn't have to deal with that bathroom nazi from the previous night so that was really cool. Apparently there were a lot of guys there in line inside that bathroom at 6am so after I was done and waiting for him, it was like a clown car watching guy after guy come out of there before Phil did. Upon returning to the line, we discovered they'd begun the condensing process, so Jon and our other line buddies were not where we left them. We followed the line upwards and Phil had a really accurate guess of where they'd probably end up after the condensing was finished. There was a little bit of awkward walking through flowers and bushes to get to them but we got there. Then we all settled down in condensed fashion to wait another few hours. If you haven't gotten the theme of comic con yet, it's a lot of hurry up and wait. A LOT. I used this time to load the pics from the previous days onto the netbook, using the pocket-chair as a really handy little desk. To give a little perspective of the line, here are some shots. Under EACH row of white tents, the line goes up and down 4 times.
And then to the far left there, where it looks like it ends, the line goes across that street to this...and yes, all those people are in the line.
When we got in line at 3:30, were about the center of this pic, on the sidewalk to the right side of that square of grass. I think it was around 8am when the people with the signs showed up. You know, those uber-religious 'save your soul' types. They showed up trying to save some sinful comic-con attendees. Well, the sign guys typically don't go out of their way to bother people overmuch, but there was this one guy who showed up with a megaphone and proceeded to preach to those of us in line. I could only kinda see him through the zig-zag line and not even really hear what he had to say, but some of the guys in line nearer him were getting really agitated and started to hassle the guy. A lot of people perked up when they thought punches might be thrown. In the end, no violence happened, but if it had, I wouldn't have felt bad for the megaphone guy...he really should have some better common sense than to rile up the sleep-deprived nerds.
Eventually we were let into the hall. Hall H, the biggest hall. This one even had a bathroom inside, which was good since we were to be spending 10+ hours in there. We rushed in and found some seats, staying with the group we'd been sitting with in line. Then it was more waiting for an hour or so and then finally the movie panels started! First was the new Quentin Tarantino movie Django Unchained, about a former slave turned bounty hunter in the deep south. Generally I'm not a Tarantino fan, but this could be interesting, Then there was End of Watch, a funky-looking cop movie focusing on a lot of POV camerawork, which is not my favorite. Then a bit on a new Silent Hill, and they had a really creepy mannequin spider. Here are some pics Jon thought were important to take of directors and such during these...
Then there was Pacific Rim....or as most people describe it "giant robots vs giant monsters". They opened up some side-screens that had everyone in a frenzy.
There was a teaser-trailer for the new Godzilla movie that's coming out, which threw people into an even bigger frenzy. Sorry, it was a short bit and they wouldn't let us take any pics or anything of it. I suppose if you like godzilla it will be good, but I'm not really down.
They even threw in a surprise panel! It was for the new Will Ferrell and Zach Galafianakus movie 'The Campaign'. The trailer made it look semi-interesting, but the banter between the two up there, and with the Q&A people was making me laugh so hard there were tears.
Oh, and there's going to be a new Superman movie, and here's the new Superman...
He can 'man' his 'steel' anytime, as far as I'm concerned...*wicked evil grin* But seriously, most people who have heard me talk about movies know I generally hate reboots. This one I may actually go see though. So for me, that's high praise. I wasn't as moved as one of the Q&A guys who was literally in tears from emotion after seeing the trailer. Chris Hardwick (aka Nerdist) was the moderator of this section of movie panels and he ran down and hugged the guy.
Glad it rocked his workd, I guess?
Then we got to see 12 minutes of footage from the Hobbit, which included the first AND the second movie, evidently, though they didn't say what was what.
And they even let Elijah Wood come on the panel for honorary purposes.
OH, but the craziest part was when they had the guy that plays Gollum talk in ''the voice", and so I heard Gollum say 'fuck' 3 times.
Here's a panoramic of the crowd in Hall H...180 degrees of people and more people.
This blurry line of doods that stretches back to that square of light at the other side of the room is the line for the men's room.
Then Iron Man! Robert Downey Jr came out from the back of the hall and literally danced his way up to the front, down the aisles and through the crowds. Don't believe me? Here's a video...
Then we saw some pretty cool footage and some interesting banter with the Q&A people. One girl said it was her birthday and so RDJ led the entire hall in 'happy birthday'. Here's some more pics.
Sorry my antics aren't a little more interesting for these ones...half of the movies I had no idea what they were before that day, and by this panel, we'd been in the room for 10 hours after waiting outside for 6. My brain was kindof dead, and reflecting back on it now, I'm feeling tired all over again. Jon is even reminding me now how they had a bit about an Ant Man movie that they'll be making and I'd totally forgotten about it.
This panel ended at 7pm, and the plan was to quickly bolt the few blocks to meet the girls for the Castle fan dinner. Well....plans don't always work so well in a mass exodus. Here's a shot of us waiting for 15 mins to cross the street . Doesn't help that 2 trollies and a train came by, slowing things further.
So...I think we went the 3 blocks in about a half hour. Luckily there was a wait on the restaurant. While sitting outside with the other girls for the fan dinner (SDCC Castle Fan Dinner represent! Woot Woot!), we saw this van...
There was some other interesting people watching for the next hour and a half as we waited for a table to become available, but then finally we were in! I'm sure the restaurants both love and hate the Comic Con weekend in the Gaslamp district . Yeah, there's a shit-ton of restaurants in there, but with tens of thousands of people wanting food on Saturday at dinnertime, there's going to be some ridiculousness out there.
During the dinner we discussed all manner of things ranging from our various Nathan Fillion and other Castlesque experiences so far and those yet to come on the weekend to food to where everyone was from (quite an international mix!) to boobs and other 'lady topics'. I brought the Castle t-shirt I decorated and (by default) won the prize of a signed picture of Nathan Fillion. You know I treasure this.
But uh...if any of you gals who got pics of my t-shirt have links handy, feel free to send to me and I'll update this cuz I didn't really take any pics of myself with the shirt that night. I'd be eternally grateful!
So then we all parted ways and I was walking with a few of the girls towards the Hard Rock hotel for a few mins to see if any celebrities happen to come out when out of the corner of my eye I see Zac Levi emerging from a restaurant. Instantly in my brain I'm thinking, 'Nathan Fillion often hangs out with Zac Levi, especially at Comic Con...' and then I notice someone walking behind him holding a magazine up to cover his face, but sure enough I recognize that hair. It can only be Nathan Fillion. The only regret I have of this weekend is not shouting out that we had just come from a Castle Fan dinner and beg him to take a pic with us, but it all happened so fast and his people were rushing him down the sidewalk. The only thing I can say is that my hand touched is arm as we passed each other on the sidwalk. Yes, I may have ever so slightly reached my hand out in order to do so, but that's besides the point. Then the entourage disappeared inside the EW party with some nasty looking bouncers outside. Invite only. The few of us girls sat there in dazed amazement that that just happened. Did any of you get a pic? Cuz I didn't. It was an epic fail, I know, but that's how my Nathan Fillion encounter number 3 went down. We hung outside the Hard Rock hotel for a little bit, and I saw Yvette Nicole Brown from Community rush by, but not much else. Besides, what could top Nathan? So, I went back to the timeshare and passed out around 1am. Day 4 Here
