San Diego Comic-Con 2004

Wednesday (Preview Night)
''Do ferrets have tails?"

So, we get there on Preview Night, do our time waiting in line for the badges, and get out on the convention room floor.

Viz, as usual, outdid the other anime booths by giving away canvas bags to the early birds. Thank goodness this time it featured Saikano and Kenshin, and not the YuGiOh swill they tried to get away with last year.

Anyway, l digress. Preview Night swag was at a low, so Ice, my friend limsweet & myself went around the floor getting signatures and con sketches from Penny Arcade peeps and Fred from Megatokyo and PVP.

While we were at the Penny Arcade booth I decided to ask for a sketch as well. Gabriel, the main inker at Penny Arcade, asked me what he should draw... and I had no idea for what. he should do. (for me, if I need to provide inspiration for any reason,. I'll most likely draw it myself). So, I just said "...I don't care, draw your finest interpretation of a ferret on fire or something." So he did.

Now, for the booths. I am so incredibly disillusioned after looking at the Geneon (Pioneer formally)'s booth. It really is a sad state when ADV blows the other anime booths back into the Stone Age. Not only did ADV have Anime Network pens to hand out, they also had full size and mini posters, their preview did. And I am also positive they had book markers and post cards too.

Although I am disappointed at the actual Geneon booth, their swag was as creative as usual. They had Dokkaida antenna balls, Ikkitosen wet-naps, Gungrave mask/fans and Saiyuki Reload temporary tattoos... and the promo DVDs. They has some Gungrave goods displayed, and they looked too heavy to steal (Just kidding guys!).

The Tokyopop booth has the Rave Master glowing sword and a giant pile of their promo manga books... whose number is only competitive against the Viz madness. Speaking of Viz, I haven't been surrounded by so much Inu Yasha since Great Eastern turned my Suncoast into a living HELL. But, maybe I am biased. I'm still angry about the Ceres manga size change and DVD box set sham. Bandai, great as usual, was Teen Titans-land.

Media Blasters, US Manga Corps and Urban Vision had booths by Funimation. Funimation gave away posters of Kiddy Grade, Fruits Basket and Tenchi Muyo! GXP and were also selling beanie hats of the Fruits Basket characters as animals. Urban Vision gave away Vampire Hunter D Bloodlust posters, and US Manga Corps gave away posters and stickers of Dead Leaves. Media Blasters... sold stuff. Honorable mentions: Sci-Fi, Cartoon Network and Manhwa. Cartoon Network's booth is always great but their stuff is so expensive that I don't bother much anymore. Manhwa (a Korean publishing place thing) didn't sell anything but had nice free plastic bags... like the Sci-Fi booth.

Against the wall we saw an artist doodling in his sketchbook in back of an adult comic booth. Ace was hit by the muse of inspiration. "I'll ask him to draw me a sexy girl." Okay. I see how it is.

So, while he was playing around, I was tempted by the siren sounds of Under 17... so I had to buy their DVD.

Preview Night is always so short.

Thursday
"Shoryuken! Shoryuken! Hadouken!"

Continuing on our quest for convention sketches, Ice and I wandered the convention halls aimlessly while limsweet was at work, we ended up going by the ADV booth again, and they apparently changed their poster lineup. So... I got more. While wandering the booths, we came across Yamato USA (which I think was called Toycom, even though the company didn't change products). In front of the booth there was a sign indicating that Kia Asamiya would sign there at 2:30 that day. Well, I almost peed myself with excitement. I went up to the nice people at the booth to try to get a feel for the amount of people they were expecting or would accept if there were a huge crowd. She then proceeded to tell me that DC Comics were also planning on having him there at noon that same day. Thank goodness I brought a ton of archival card stock and a fistful of Sharpies and Copic markers!

So, Ice and I head over to the HUGE DC Comics booth and try to figure out what the deal is. So, we ask one of the guys with the red shirt and headsets what we have to do and he has no idea and tries to make contact with the mother ship. After 15 minutes of waiting for something that resembles an answer we decided to ask the people at the DC Direct table (which was the middle of the booth) what the deal was. They didn't even know that Kia Asamiya was supposed to do a signing. Okay, a step backwards. So, we go to another one of the headset people to see if they knew something else. We went back and forth between the headset people and the DC Direct table until we just sat in front of the table and eventually he showed up.

The new Batman comic that Kia Asamiya was plugging at the convention looks beautiful. Right before the signing the table staff pulled out a bunch of Batman figurines based upon his sketches... and I was floored. The Catwoman figure was my personal favorite, and not just because she had long hair. The figure was beautifully crafted and stayed very true to his style. Anyway, back to the autograph session. Ice and I both got sketches. Ice asked for Batman and I asked for Catwoman. I know, why didn't I get something anime related? After all, he does have Steam Detectives, Nadesico and Dark Angel under his belt. Heck, I could have asked for a giant Ruri if I were so inclined. I opted for Catwoman because I personally wanted something very unique. I think Ice asked for Batman because he has yet to read any of Kia Asamiya's original manga. I hugged my sketch and decided to move on.

We kept on walking around and ended up at the Gold Digger table. Ice had to ask some of the guys there for sketches of sexy women for his collection. I got bored and I went to a starving artist at the same table and asked for a sketch of Black Chii. That image he drew was so beautiful that I now have to find space on my wall. Afterwards, Ice and I continued on the side of the hall where we left off before the Kia Asamiya signing.

Soon, we came across the Capcom booth, where they were selling an exclusive comic (crossover between Rival Schools, Dark Stalkers, and Street Fighter) and a sketch. Personally, my heart belongs to SNK (I always play as Athena in my Capcom vs. SNK 2 EO). Ice just about had a heart attack. He loves to play as Ryu or Gouki (Akuma) and cream me with his cheap uppercuts and fireballs. So, as were waiting in line he was trying to decide which cheap bitch he would have drawn. After debating what to get for awhile, he decided to ask me what I would get if I were him. I told him that if I were a male, I'd ask for a drawing of Morrigan or Felicia. So. that's why he keeps me around. while the man was in the middle of drawing, one of his buddies showed up and the artist stopped and proceeded to grunt the Ryu attack moves at the buddy. Anyway, Ice ended up getting his Morrigan on, and we continued down the booths.

Along the way we came across a booth labeled "Manga University." One of the girls there is an aspiring Mangaka, and she giggled a lot when I asked her to draw me a bunny.

In front of the Manga Corps booth there was a sign "Ask us about exclusive passes to the Stan Lee autograph Friday and Saturday" or something like that. Okay, that's weird. How the HELL an anime company got that I'll never probably know. I go up to the guys at the booth and asked them what a girl's gotta do to get one of those passes (which really ticked Ice off). "Just ask." "May I have a pass?" "Sure." And he gave me a headshot of Stan Lee. So, after that, Ice asked for one, and we were on our way.

I... am a unique girlfriend. I am unique because I recognize the difference between "smut" and "porn" and "art". We came across this artist that happened to do acrylic paintings of mostly naked women. I thought the art for it was AWESOME. It wasn't pornographic, but very beautiful, in my opinion. Anyway, Ice got all worked up about this man's art and asked if he did Con sketches. He laughed, and said "No, not really, but I have a sketch I do for people that ask." So Ice hands him paper and a sharpie, and he draws Ice a picture of a happy face wrapped in duct tape. I was highly amused. He recommended that if I like that art to go visit a friend of his at a similar kind of booth on the other side of the hall. I go over to the friend's booth and HAD to get a print.

Ice and I collect swords. Every year we go to Comic-Con we buy at least one sword. We went over to this one booth called Sword and Staff to take a look at the year's selection. As we were looking around Ice noticed that some items he saw the night before mysteriously disappeared. According to the man staffing the booth, there is an active movement to not have swords and other various bladed weapons at the convention. That brought my day down.

On a funnier note, the people that watch the time forgot to make the announcement of the floor closing, so we all got to be there a little later, which is why some of the booth pictures seem void of people.

Friday
''I want to be known as mangaka"

I woke up bright and chipper this morning because I only had ONE thing that meant the world to me to visit- and that was the Monkey Punch panel. Oh, yes. That and I get to get an autograph from Stan Lee.

We arrive as early as Ice could get us there and we camped at the absolutely BARREN autograph area where the master himself was supposed to be. I brought my headshot and my Mallrats DVD (Just in case) and waited patiently munching away at my $3.50 Mrs. Fields chocolate-chip cookie. There were some kids that were showing up trying to make camp and the autograph people told them "You need a pass for this." All hell broke loose. "I CAME ALL THE WAY UP HERE FOR STAN LEE!" and some other things I didn't understand because his pubescent voice cracked often enough to break glass. They both got into a "discussion" and eventually the kids left, but that poor volunteer was left pretty beaten.

Still an hour left until Stan-ness. One of the other volunteers (obviously seasoned in comic book fandom) let us in to the autograph pen where the actual signing would begin. He sat at the front of the line (Where Ice and I were) and proceeded to tell us stories about early comic book conventions in people's houses and in hotel rooms. It was awesome. In hindsight I wish I taped the guy because he made that morning not suck. It was also just as amusing to hear him verbally kick the crap out of people trying to give him lip about the passes. This volley continues for the remainder of the hour.

The Man finally shows up, with the guys from US Anime (Did I mention I have NO clue how that works out?), and many bodyguards. He sits down at the happy table and the volunteers tell us the rules of the signing. He only autographed the head shot, and if you wanted something else signed you had to go back to the end of the line (which was huge by now), but he would only sign 200 items in total. Okay, I just did the head shot and left, it was already cutting in to my quality floor time.

At the Bandai booth, they were giving away Gundam Seed T-Shirts and Wolf's Raid beanie hats at the Wheel of Shame. However, in order to receive a ticket to participate in the Wheel, you had to play either the .hack game, Ultimate Muscle game, or the Navia Drapt game. We chose the Navia game because it looked like checkers. Foolish Nuri, checkers also looks like chess! I won anyway, so I shouldn't complain. I wasn't too jazzed about the game, but Ace sure was. I think he wants to buy it. Imagine: HeroClix as anime. My problem is that although the game is interesting, it is complicated in it's rule set and I think that kids will have a hard time playing it. However, I put a flower on Ice's monster's head.

So, immediately after playing the Navia game, someone at the Bandai booth gets on the bullhorn and announces "The Teen Titan signing will begin in 25 minutes! Be sure to go to the man at the front of the booth and get a red ticket to participate in the signing." Did I mention I watch Teen Titans? Not religiously, but I have read most of the original comic books and Raven owns the universe (if you truly know me after a drink, you probably met Raven). I was highly interested to go to the signing in case Tara Strong (voice of Raven) showed up, and because I was there. Here's who did show up: Glen Murakami (Producer), Rob Hoegee (Story Editor), Amy Wolfram (Story Editor), Greg Cipes (Voice of BeastBoy), Ron Perlman (Voice of Slade), and David Slack (Producer, showed up after we left). Bandai had the first issue of Teen Titans Go! that everybody signed, and we went on our way. On the way out of the mess, they handed you a limited edition Robin figure.

At least I wasted enough time in the hall to bring me to the Promised Hour: Monkey Punch panel. I raaaaaan (dragging Ice) over to the room in question. We were 15 minutes early, because popular panels tend to have lines (and real JERKS sit in the panel pervious to get in to the popular panel). Luckily, we were first in line. I got in the room, Lupin III Sideburns in hand, and sat in the middle of the room waiting patiently for Munch Punch to arrive.

He arrived and the room went nuts. There were two Cosplaying Lupins in the crowd, one was great and the other one wasn't bad. The questions were pretty stale, but some of the answers are worth repeating. He was about 90% inspired by the James Bond craze. Lupin's jacket changes between green and red because at the time, the "colors" in the manga were limited to either green or red (with black, I assume). His favorite Lupin jacket is green. Although Miyazaki did Castle of Cagliostro, he doesn't have any relationship with the anime Godfather. Monkey Punch is 30% Lupin.

There was one part of the panel that I found particularly disturbing. Someone in the middle or back rows of the room asked a question but obviously had NO idea of what he was talking about. "Uh, I was reading something somewhere about a series or something you might have been working on about a detective Ranma or something? Detective Ranma was it's name or something, maybe." I wanted so badly to punch the man, and so did my entire row, and the feeling echoed throughout the room. We all knew it was Cinderella Boy, because we do things like, LOOK IT UP. Who the hell asks an uninformed question to an anime legend if he's too lazy to pop open Google? Eventually enough people yelled "Cinderella Boy" at him for him to get the hint that maybe people thought he was a major idiot, and I hope he reads this. For CRYING OUT LOUD, USE YOUR HEAD.

On a happier note, at the end of the panel the Tokyopop people had a DVD Player giveaway (no, I didn't win ._.) and gave out a bunch of manga. Monkey Punch had to run downstairs to the floor where apparently a line was forming for sketches. I have a hard time running downstairs (medical reasons, fan boys) so I politely asked one of the guys if Monkey Punch would mind quickly autographing my sideburns. He decided to give me a sketch instead! I was so happy. Monkey Punch is a great man, very kind and sincere.

I don't often take pictures of cosplayers unless I think their costume rules. In the Monkey Punch panel there was a guy there dressed as Kiba from Naruto. He even made an Akamaru plushie to go with his outfit. I was so happy to see Akamaru (which is my second favorite character in Naruto, btw) that I had to get a picture. Also, to the people that made fun of him during the panel and barked at him when he walked by, piss off. Go Kiba.

After that panel we headed back down to the floor. Ice was pretty exhausted from the Lupin-ness, so he went back to his quest for sexy girl sketches. This time we went to the opposing end of the hall looking for prospective sketchers. We ran into an independent artist named David Kruse and we ended up asking him for a sketch. He was very cool. He drew a ninja for Ice. A few areas down there was the Kaptian, who always does anime caricatures at AX and Comic-Con. Just for giggles, Ice asked him for a sketch of a sexy anime girl and he drew a fairy. About two minutes before the floor closed we went to another artist and he had them do a quick sketch that looked an awful lot like Minmei...

Saturday
''What is your dogs name?"

I spend a long time the night before thinking. Ice has his sexy anime girls, and I have needs too dammit. For those of you who know me well enough know that I have the cutest little puppy, DustBunny. She's half-Pomeranian and half-Brishon Frise. I also love her very very much. She's my baby after all. So, after 15 minutes of truly difficult contemplation, I decided to put some images of DustBunny on Ice's PDA and off we went to Con in search of sketches of my dog.

I am a big supporter of small press and independent artists, so naturally I went there first. We came across a table with some of the most adorable images and sketches I have ever seen. I politely asked for a commissioned sketch of my puppy, and Mike Bocianowski went to work.

Mike draws this comic called "Yets!" and I had to pick up some issues up. I'm a real sucker for cute things. He is even selling a little maquette of a Yet! which I think I will pick up next Comic-Con. The finished sketch featured my puppy and one of those critters with the title "DustBunny has Yet! a new friend". I melted into a little puddle of goodness.

Near the back end of the Convention Center (closer to Funimation and Urban Vision) there was the most... interesting... advertisement for Species III. I will let the image do the talking on that one. Needless to say, that walkway was crowded ALL THE TIME.

So why would I subject myself to the torture that is fan boy traffic jam for love? Two reasons: Viz and Urban Vision. Viz had a special appearance of one of the Japanese producers of the Inu-Yasha Movie (1) and Urban Vision had the director of Vampire Hunter D Bloodlust. Now, that could have been worse. I was at the end of the line for the Inu-Yasha signing, and near the beginning of the Vampire Hunter D one. The fans were the worst, I think. Any time fans were told "This is the end of the line" they got upset. You know what fan kids, grow up. You're not going to get in line because of rudeness. Viz was handing out posters to have signed, and Urban Vision also handed out posters. Being me, I asked him to sign my DVD cover instead. It's easier to frame. While waiting in line in front of Urban Vision we did get a Ninja Scroll TV blow-up katana and beach ball. When I think of Jubei, I think beach volleyball.

With goodies and autographs in hand, Ice and I head back to the other side of the Convention Center. Because Bandai in right in the middle of it, I seem to always walk right past it. Well, I heard the familiar call of the Teen Titans cast autograph session and went back to being a sheep in line. I was hoping this time, and this time it really paid off. David Slack (producer) decided to show up on time! I'm glad I brought my comic back from the other day, so I continued the autograph collection. One of the original concept creators showed up, I was pretty happy. Glen Murakami drew a picture of Raven for me and Tara Strong (voice of Raven) signed it. I was pretty happy. Now, this is the part that gets me every freaking time. See the last picture? This is Scott Menville, the voice of Robin. Maybe what I said didn't get through. Every time he said "Titans, Go!" I almost fell. I'm not one to judge people on how they look, and I think he's a great voice actor. But, he's Robin?

Alas, it is nearing the end of the festivities, and I was getting ready to head off to the Adult Swim panel (a Saturday night must). On our way there we ran into a droid. Yes, R2D2 decided to cut me off on the way past the freebie table.

Ice and I finally get to the Adult Swim panel, and my stomach decides it's time to go home. So, I go home. Anti-climactic, I know. Don't feel bad, I didn't get any of the freebies either.

Sunday
''We are trying to do the best that we can"

After dealing with the stomach pain from the 9th circle, I go to the hall, bright eyed and bushy tailed (>_>). Exhausted from so many days of not-so-hard work and spending, I look up and behold! My salvation.

I continued my quest from the day before to obtain sketches of my puppy. Once again, I go to the independent artist section. We came across James Burks' booth. He is the artist of the web comic Martin's Misdirection. I don't know how familiar anybody is with the web comic, but Thurston, the rabbit, is so adorable. So, I asked James to draw my puppy. It was very interesting. I gave both James and Mike the same image to refer to, and the drawings came out completely different!

Now, this is the part of the story that gets confusing and hairy. Dark Horse comics was hosting Yasuhiro Nightow (creator if Gungrave and Trigun) and early in the weekend hadn't decided whether or not to make it a raffle. I went to the nice people at the Dark Horse booth and they did decide to make it a raffle drawing. No problem, I can respect that. Ice and I get our tickets, and decide to come back when the tickets are drawn.

A few hours later we return to the numbers list and our numbers aren't on it. No big deal. We did the best we could, right? I brought my trusty Trigun LD (the one with Legato on the cover) and hugged it instead. Legato loves me.

Ice and I decide to take this quality time to go around the booths and see what else we missed.

Needless to say, we missed a lot. I mean, the Deleter cat! Anyway, I digress. Ice and I, after spending too long staring at the Aliens vs Predator statue, decided to go back to Dark Horse and see what Nightow-san looks like.

Wait a minute. These people don't have wristbands. They didn't win the raffle. WTF? I wan't ticked, just utterly confused. I was thinking I missed the memo. Did I miss the memo? Ice didn't think so either.

So I went to ask some of the people working the booth a few questions, and the one that was uber-nice to be was Dirk Wood, Trade Show Organizer for Dark Horse Comics. I could see this man had answers.

It turns out that not many of the raffle winners actually showed back up for the autograph, so they started letting the non raffle winners in, and then eventually let any fan in. Fans were getting pretty ticked off and a good portion were ready to beat the place down. Nightow-san stayed there longer than he needed to, to try to get everybody in that wanted an autograph. I can respect that.

After I determined that the answer he gave me was sufficient, I asked for an interview and he was very kind to accept. So here you go! It only took me 4.5 days to get an "exclusive" interview for APA and MT:

Me: Was Dark Horse expecting this kind of turnout and attention?
Dirk: It's what we hoped to see. He (Nightow-san) seemed to be very happy.
Me: How did Dark Horse go about getting such a famous Mangaka in America?
Dirk: Dark Horse is slowly going more and more into the market. Dark Horse has been involved with bringing Japanese manga overseas for years, and this just seemed natural. This was very hard, but it was worth it.
Me: Would you consider this event a success? As I can see, there are a lot of angry fans.
Dirk: That's hard to determine. Our goal was to get as many fans as possible over to see him. That's why we made the decisions to go from the wristbands (raffle winners) to the fans. We are trying to do the best that we can.
Me: Is Dark Horse considering bringing more artists from Japan?
Dirk: We aim to bring more Japanese artists.
Me: Would Dark Horse like to have Japanese artists as guests on a regular convention basis?
Dirk: *takes a deep breath* We hope to make it one.

Present Day, Present Time
Final Thoughts

Thanks again to Dirk over at Dark Horse Comics for the interview. Since I came back from Comic-con I've been trying to calm some of the fans down that are fans of Anime Project Alliance and MiniTokyo that happened to attend, and after that interview I felt pretty good about defending Dark Horse.

There were a few snafus, but this is a Convention after all. Times are tough and nothing ever runs perfectly, we can just do our best, for whatever that's worth.

I would have like to have seen a stronger anime presence there. The bootlegs seem to grow and the good stuff seems to go away.

Many thanks to all the people at Comic-Con International for making this another great year. I'll see you next summer!