By: Revanche

San Diego Comic Con 2019 recap

August 26, 2019

Our travel cost breakdown

1. Food and lodgings, $125
2. Gas, $235
3. Trolley: $40
4. Gifts for other people: $117
5. Gifts for us: $127
6. Badges purchased last year, $501
6. Dogsitting, $200
7. Stupid tax, $0
Total: $1561

This year was the 50th Comic-Con! I’m pretty sure it was my 16th, PiC’s 13th, and JB’s 5th if you count the year ze was in the womb and couldn’t opt out of attending.

I very carefully packed the badges FIRST so as to avoid the stress of the stupid tax incurred last year.

Wednesday

Was a BUST. Everything that could go slightly wrong did. We didn’t get there early enough to pick up JB’s badge, they didn’t communicate that we needed to be there before Preview Night started, the lines for the off-site activations were capped early, we missed our trolley stop.

Even if we haven’t had Preview Night tickets for years, I’ve been deeply restored by the act of walking on Harbor Avenue soaking in the early sights and the feeling of being in San Diego, on vacation, and not working. Not so, this year. My feet hurt and I was a bit disgruntled.

Thursday

We rode the trolley in, this is usually pretty fun on SDCC days. Two ladies sitting in front of us thought I was a super on top of it mom for having tissues for JB’s boogers and lotion for random itchies. I’ll take the compliment!

My soul demanded restitution for the unsatisfying previous day. As much as I meant to take lots of breaks and pace myself, I was driven by a need to visit everything on my list now now now.

We hit 10000 steps but it (mostly) felt worth it.

• We split up at first. PiC and JB went to pick up a Child badge, I tried to pick up my lanyard at the separate books, bags, and lanyard line. I was cut off when we were nearly at Sails Pavilion – they’d capped the line and could we come back in several hours. That made no sense, but we stepped out of line to set up a meeting place with PiC and JB. Ten minutes later, they reopened the line, which of course we were not in. Many eyerolls. I should have gone with PiC and JB after all. I borrowed a makeshift lanyard and went on with our day.
• Took pictures with a giant She-Ra statue.
• Picked up a Con exclusive book for a friend at Star Wars and scoped out a couple books we’d like for JB to buy later.
• Found Elhoffer Design and oops we each bought something. I’ve wanted the oversized Forest Neighbor sweater for ages, the blue and pink ones were retired a long time ago. They popped up at this Con in grey, the perfect color!, and I scooped it up.
• Auntie went to the Disney booth with JB and they picked out a book together.
• We stopped at Franco and Art’s Tiny Titans booth and picked up an Itty Bitty Hellboy TPB.
• Watched some karaoke at the Stephen Universe booth.
• Ogled the art at Stan and Julie Sakai’s booth.
• Lunched in the lobby without being hassled by red or yellow shirts.
• Ran into Gail Simone at the Lionforge booth with NO LINE! We got a picture with her and picked up Lionforge lanyards.
• Admired massive blind boxes.
• Picked up a handful of free temporary tattoos and a few activity sheets for JB to work on later. Ze is surprisingly good at mazes.
• Stopped at the Lego booth and built free minifigs (they cost $10 for 3 at the stores!)
• Colored on a cool canvas with the fancy dual tip Prisma markers at a coloring book booth. Such a clever way to draw people in, they made sales! I very nearly splurged on a Tentacle Kitty coloring book, myself.
• Dinner was a healing zucchini lasagna, I ate way too much and felt better than ever before when I woke the next morning. HEALING.

Friday

• Today was Uncle’s day to buy a gift for JB. After two days of deliberation, they selected a Star Wars coloring book.
• We explored Hall G through D today, skipping the Sesame Street gang when JB decided at the last minute that they were going to be scary. Same for the Big Bird who came to visit the Hasbro booth
• We did get new family pictures at the Sesame Street stoop, though, sans Cookie Monster replica.
• I spotted a Sesame Street nail polish giveaway at Hasbro so after we wended our way over to Lego, where the line wrapped around the booth so never mind, and back, PiC stopped to pick up free She-Ra tiaras and foam swords for the family while JB and I headed for the free nail polish. Fun for all and a gift for a friend!
• Our packed lunch was enjoyed in the lobby where we could watch the cosplayers and JB would shout their names: Iron Man! Starfighter! Ant-Man! Maui! Ze proceeded to have a serious conversation with Maui. I thought ze knew he was just in costume but… After that conversation it’s really not clear.
• I’m pleased to see that ze is getting more comfortable with cosplayers. Ze even wanted to take a picture with the Pikachu, Squirtle, and Ash cosplayers. Last year ze would have run screaming from them. And though “Deadpool is scary, momma”, ze had a favorite Deadpool cosplayer ze waved to about six times. He waved back every time.
• Actually, every single Spider-Man and Deadpool cosplayer noticed zir waving and waved back. We didn’t have such luck with some of the Disney cosplayers that ze recognized.
• Scholastic had K-2 books for 25% off, we snagged a couple Acorn books as gifts with an adorable free tote with purchase
• Fortuitous timing when we passed by the PJ Masks and Peppa Pig booth – we picked up some free headbands for the cousins as gifts.
• We stopped by the Mattel booth to do free green screen pictures for She-Ra/Masters of the Universe. For a short line, that was an incredibly long wait but it was a fun picture.
• On our way out, there was hardly a line at the Lego booth so we created another minifig each.
• We’ve been trying to get into the Detective Pikachu activation for days but still no luck.
• JB asked to go home at 3, so we wrapped our day early. With 2 more days to go, we didn’t want to flame out too early.
• If this seems like a fairly JB-centric Con, it was. Ze was fully engaged this year. Luckily, everything ze was interested in was something I wanted to do anyway, so I didn’t mind tailoring a mostly kid-centric experience.

Saturday

• Yesterday JB: Deadpool is scary.
  Today JB: Deadpool! Deadpool! Deadpool!
• Our family picture was photobombed by a Sabretooth.
• We found Ursula Vernon for a book signing!
• We got free ARCs of Steel Crow Saga from Paul Krueger. Highly recommend! It’s fantastic.
• We stopped by the Mattel booth to do another green screen picture for She-Ra/Masters of the Universe because I forgot to get in the picture yesterday.
• Super gross dude on the trolley kept following me and JB around trying to guess my ethnicity and then pulling out random stories about people of that ethnicity: “there was this 20 yr old Chinese lady who got arrested in Vegas for scamming people! These two Chinese people in Ohio were killed!” WTF, dude. Of course I didn’t know if he was going to get violent if I told him off and I had to protect my child, so I just said “excuse me” and maneuvered our way over to PiC across the car. Ugh. I hate creeper men.

Sunday

• JB wanted to do ONE MORE She-Ra/Masters of the Universe picture. It was a really slow moving line so we said no. Two is enough!
• This was our farewell day – we had a very long drive ahead of us and so we just hit the Con floor for a short period to say good-bye. Leaving Comic-Con is always hard for me. A return to reality, a return to work, to my daily life which, when I first started attending some 15 years ago, was frankly no fun at all.

Leaving Comic-Con is now hard for JB. It’s the end of a super fun week of spotting favorite characters, fantastic food from Grandma, being doted on by aunties and uncles who buy zir books and play games with zir.

I’ve never heard “Comic-Con was so much fun” in such a tone of recrimination, anger, and bitterness as when we left this year. Hah. I hope ze always loves it this much and I hope we’ll continue to be able to attend.

This is not a cheap summer vacation but it’s the best one I can think of.

:: What’s your favorite comic, tv show, character?

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