Tag Archives: comic-con

comic-con 2014: part 2

Posted on by

I know San Diego Comic-Con has come and gone but I still have a few more photos I’d like to share so hopefully you’ll indulge me. 🙂

As much as I enjoy the panels, I actually think my favorite part of SDCC is walking through the exhibit hall. It’s a visual treat with all the booths promoting and/or selling a variety of products. It does get incredibly crowded, though, so we visit the hall a little bit each day.



Guardians of the Galaxy was about a week from its release at the time of SDCC so there was a lot of buzz and excitement surrounding the movie (I highly recommend it, by the way — definitely one of my favorites of the year).



The Marvel booth had this great green screen photo opportunity. We didn’t realize it was a line-up, though, or Rob & I wouldn’t have posed so close together, heh.



We got a first look at Peter Quill’s mining pod.



With Rocket Raccoon, my favorite!



We found this awesome Iron Man Hall of Armor at Sideshow Collectibles.

Continue reading →

comic-con 2014: part 1

Posted on by

This past weekend Rob & I celebrated our 6th anniversary.



Here’s one of my favorite pictures of us from a trip to Disneyland. It’s been the best six years of my life and I look forward to many more adventures with you by my side. 🙂

So… it’s that time again for my Comic-Con recap!

For the past few years, Rob & I have gone in thinking “one last time.” And each year, without fail, despite the headache of registering for badges and the intense crowds and lines during the actual convention, we come home after having so much fun and immediately start talking about next year. We’re suckers! Unfortunately, getting badges has become increasingly difficult (we really lucked out this year with the start of the new lottery system) and who knows what the next year will bring… but wishful thinking doesn’t hurt. 🙂



Here we are again in San Diego!

SDCC has really expanded well beyond the confines of the convention center — every year there are more and more events and activities held outside. Some of which don’t even require a badge!



To promote the upcoming fall show Gotham, FOX set up an awesome themed zipline. As soon as I heard about it, I knew I wanted to try it. I’ve never been ziplining before and it seemed like a ton of fun.



And it was! I did get nervous while I was getting strapped in and I questioned my judgment in that first second as I stepped off the platform, but after that, it was amazing. I even felt brave enough to pose for the camera. LOL.



It was way too short though. Here’s a bird’s eye view of the zipline (30 ft high, 130 ft wide). But it was a great teaser and I can’t wait to do it again!

Continue reading →

comic-con 2013: days 2-4

Posted on by

Finally getting around to the wrap-up of Comic-Con 2013!

Friday, July 19
On Friday, my ONLY goal was to make it in to Ballroom 20 for the Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. panel. Spoiler: we made it in! But before the main attraction, we sat through some other fun panels like…



The Big Bang Theory writers’ panel. Melissa Rauch moderated and we were treated to a fun cameo by…



Johnny Galecki! He was dressed as Princess Leia’s Bounty Hunter and surprised the audience when he took off the mask while asking the writers panel a question. The following day I saw him just lounging around outside of the Hilton Bayfront. So cool to just randomly have celebrity sightings during Comic-Con.



I stopped watching Bones a season or two ago but the panel was still super entertaining… because David Boreanaz was so over the top and ridiculous. He was making snarky comments, talking over the other members of the panel, basically being an attention whore. UGH. So disappointing.

THEN!!! IT WAS TIME. The Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. panel! The entire main cast was in attendance along with the writers/producers and Joss Whedon himself.



The fresh faces — Chloe Bennet, Iain De Caestecker, and Elizabeth Henstridge.



The veterans + one more newbie — Clark Gregg (COULSON LIVES!), Ming-Na Wen (gawd, she doesn’t age), and newcomer Brett Dalton (cute!).



And Joss.

After introducing the cast, they went straight to questions, which is a little weird but ok. There were 1 or 2 real fan questions until a “plant” asked when we were going to see clips from the pilot. Joss responded that there would be no clips due to ABC/Disney legal issues so instead they were going to show the entire episode. !!!

I don’t know if I was caught up in the moment of watching the pilot for the first time with an entire ballroom room full of other excited/crazed fans but I *really* loved it and I’m crossing my fingers that it does well (it’s up against juggernaut NCIS). There’s a lot of potential with this show to add depth to the current Marvel/Avengers cinematic universe. The cast was solid (the majority of them are pretty green but Joss has a proven track record of finding talented unknowns so I’m not too worried), there are tons of Whedon-esque touches from the pacing of the dialogue to the quick quips, and just enough mythology to get you invested without giving away too much right away. I can’t wait to see it again when it premieres on Tue, 9/24. WATCH IT!

Continue reading →

comic-con 2013: days 0 & 1

Posted on by

And yet another month goes by in an absolute BLUR. I was sick for most of July and thought I’d gotten over it in time for Comic-Con but ended up pushing myself too much while in San Diego and got sick all over again. GRRR.

I’m much better now. 🙂

So it’s time for my Comic-Con recap! It was our 5th year attending the Con and we had a FAB time (well, despite some bad decision-making on our part on Saturday – LOL, I’ll explain later). Can’t wait until next year! Until then, I thought I’d share some highlights…

Wednesday, July 17

On the way down to San Diego, we stopped at San Juan Capistrano for brunch at Ramos House. Oh man, it was SO GOOD! SJC is only about 20 minutes south of where we live but neither Rob nor I have visited since we were kids. It’s so beautiful — I wish we had more time to explore.



Ramos House is located in Old San Juan right next to the train station and the seating is outdoors. It was opening day for the Del Mar Race Track so we had a great view to people watch (I especially loved the women in their snazzy hats!).



We shared crab hash and salmon lox and it was all incredible. Even the complimentary scone with apple butter was to die for. I wish I had picked up a jar of the apple butter to take home. Next time!

We were lucky enough to have 4-day Comic-Con badges with the extra preview night so once we arrived in San Diego, we hit the exhibition hall to scope out all the booths and of course, the TOYS & merchandise! It was WAY more crowded than it’s been in past years so we ended up spending most of our time in lines. To be expected, though — Comic-Con is well known for its abundance of LINES!

That night, we had free tickets to the midnight screening of Psych the Musical. WHEE!



Based on Twitter reports, the Psych cast arrived at the screening in the Weinermobile! And on our way to the movie theatre, we spotted it driving around. So awesome.



We arrived about 45 minutes to showtime so we were pretty far back in line. Unfortunately, this meant we sat in the very first row of the theatre and this was our view.



But this ALSO meant that we were THISCLOSE to the cast when they came in to greet all of us. WOOHOO! (Yeah, sorry… terrible pic, I know).

The musical is scheduled to air in December and it doesn’t really make ANY kind of sense in the context of the show right now BUT it was a lot of FUN!

Continue reading →

comic-con 2012: days 2-4

Posted on by

Here’s the wrap-up to Comic-Con 2012!

Friday, July 13

We decided to stay away from Ballroom 20 (the venue for the Firefly 10th Anniversary panel – people were camping out all night!) and see some of the less popular panels.



We ended up at Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles for Rob. Pretty cool to see actors like Sean Astin and Jason Biggs so excited about their voice work on this upcoming animated show.



And I chose the Cult panel. Pretty much only for Matt Davis. Heh. Oh, and Alona Tal. Love those two actors. We got to see the pilot, which was… underwhelming. It’s centered around a TV show about a cult that is inspiring real life disappearances. Yeeeaaahhh. I don’t see myself obsessing about this show next season.

After these two panels, we finally hit the convention floor!

Continue reading →

comic-con 2012: days 0 & 1

Posted on by

Before I get into my Comic-Con recap, I want to extend my thoughts and prayers to the people of Aurora, CO. It’s still hard for me to wrap my head around the senseless shooting that occurred there last week. It’s been on my mind all week long.

On a lighter note, it’s been over a week now since Rob & I got back from our 4th trip to Comic-Con. We had a blast as per usual. 🙂 Thought I’d share some highlights!

Wednesday, July 11



Well, hello there San Diego! I’m back again!

Continue reading →

comic-con 2011: days 3 & 4

Posted on by

The last installment of my Comic-Con report. Woohoo.

Saturday, July 23



Ok, here we go! Downtown.



Before going to the convention center, we headed over to Nerd HQ to check out their gear. I ended up with this NERD t-shirt and I love it.



Went over to the exhibition hall for a bit and had another celebrity sighting! This time Eddie McClintock and Saul Rubinek from Warehouse 13. YAY.



There weren’t any TV panels we wanted to see so we decided to try our luck getting into Hall H. Normally this is the ballroom that features all the major studios and their upcoming tentpole movies so it’s typically packed with a line forever long. Not this year. I think we spent maybe 5 minutes in line AND the room was not crowded at all. Definitely a completely opposite situation from Ballroom 20 where TV panels were filled to capacity and many people were being turned away. I think it’s because the movies scheduled for this day weren’t very… errr, high profile.

Anyhow.



The first movie up was The Immortals. It looks interesting, I guess, but the panel was totally forgettable. The only thing I clearly remember is that Kellan Lutz wasn’t taking any of the questions seriously. When describing his character (he plays Poseidon), he kept saying he’s the “god of wetness and moisture.” He said that multiple times during the panel. Weirdo.

Oh! I also remember thinking that Freida Pinto and Henry Cavill are gorgeous. 🙂



Next up was Knights of Badassdom. I’d never heard of the movie but it featured lots of actors I was familiar with — namely Ryan Kwanten, Danny Pudi, Peter Dinklage and Summer Glau.

I thought the director was trying a little *too* hard to hype up the movie and actually talked over a few of the actors (ugh, annoying) but besides that, this panel was an unexpected treat. The movie is about Live Action Role Playing (aka LARPing) and features a supernatural twist. A couple of tidbits I remember —

— When describing his character, Peter Dinklage said “Howie’s the opposite of Tyrion. He’s miscalculating. His nickname is ‘Hung,’ for reasons you can guess.” HEH.
— During fan questions, someone asked the actors who they would dress up as for Comic-Con. Jimmi Simpson chose Master Chief from Halo, Ryan Kwanten picked either Han Solo or Astro Boy, Summer Glau selected She-Ra, which prompted Peter Dinklage to say, “Summer just took mine.” He’s pretty awesome on panels.



The final movie panel I attended was for Snow White and the Huntsman. They hadn’t started filming yet but they had some pictures of the costume design to show and this definitely looks like it’s going to demystify the story of Snow White. I mean, she’s wearing full armor! A few highlights —

— Kristen Stewart was asked if she’s well-behaved or a prankster on set. She said “I’m very well-behaved. You better not mess with me because I take myself very seriously.” Then Charlize Theron piped in and said “You’ll be fine, Kristen. I’m an Oscar winner so we take work really seriously here.” BWAH. Charlize was surprisingly hilarious throughout the panel.
— One of the producers was talking about his choice of Charlize for the role of The Evil Queen and he said that she’s had experience playing imposing characters. She responded by saying, “So basically you just said you hired me because I’m a bitch.” LOL.
— A fan was asking Chris Hemsworth about the casting challenges for the Huntsman and mentioned other actors in consideration for the role including Viggo Mortenson and Tom Hardy. He said he took the role because “the teaser was impressive, the script was fantastic. I’m pretty simple. Either I like it or I don’t. This sounded like fun. Plus there was no one else left.” Awww.



The final panel we attended was for the new TV show Alcatraz where they aired the entire pilot and series stars Jorge Garcia and Parminder Nagra were on hand to answer a few questions afterwards. The pilot was… ok. It’s intriguing but I think it’s basically going to be a procedural.



Later that night, after dinner at Hooters (LOL) with friends, we all went back to Nerd HQ for drinks and video games. Fun night to close our time at the Con.

Sunday, July 24

After 4 days, we were TIRED. So we took one more spin around the exhibition hall for last minute purchases, then hit the road back to Orange County.



All the stuff we came back with. The free loot included books (Game of Thrones!), TV show t-shirts (Psych, True Blood, Covert Affairs), magazines, reusable bags, a Ringer stool. We also bought Nerd t-shirts, Mighty Muggs – Avengers and Spider-Man (Rob), Polly Pocket She-Ra (me), Domo & Bender figurines. Whew.

And that’s a wrap on Comic-Con 2011. Til 2012!

All the other pics are on the Flickr here. 🙂

comic-con 2011: day 2

Posted on by

The amount of blog entries I write decreases exponentially as I get older. F.

Oh well. I guess that’s life. You just have to keep trudging forward. With that in mind, here’s the next part of my Comic-Con trip report. From over a month ago. LOL.

Friday, July 22



The day started out promising. Here we are SUPER early in the morning heading first to Starbucks before making our way to the convention center.



We took a few moments to admire the view of the marina while our friends picked up their badges.

We spent the morning walking around the exhibition hall and taking pics with…



the Justice League and…



Darth Vader. SO COOL.



For lunch, we went over to the Hard Rock Hotel where SyFy had taken over Maryjane’s again and converted it to Cafe Diem. The fries were excellent. Mmmm.

Afterwards, we decided to try and check out the Eureka and Warehouse 13 panels. BAD MOVE. We thought getting in line at 1pm for a 3pm panel would be enough time but it wasn’t. There were at least 5,000 people in front of us and we should have seen the writing on the wall. But we stuck it out until the bitter end — we got so close! We were about 40 or so people back and could literally see the door to the ballroom. Frustrating.

BUT.



Rob and I did make it to the 5:30 True Blood panel. YAY! Welllll, ok… YAY for me and not so much for Rob. I’ve only watched the first season, though, so parts of the panel went right over my head. Some interesting tidbits (not sure if any of these have already aired in the current season) —

— At some point, they’ll reveal how Eric made Pam.
— There will be a moment on the show where Sookie and Eric are in a shower together. And it may be weirder and dirtier than the scene in the book.
— When a young fan asked Deborah Ann Woll a question about Jessica’s relationship with Jason, she said “Oh, you’re too young to watch our show.” She was SO CUTE when she said this.
— Before asking a question, another fan told Alexander Skarsgard that she loves him. He responded “I like you a lot. ‘I love you’ is a little strong. Baby steps. But there is potential.” LOL.

Annnnnd that’s it for Day 2. We were so tired from all the waiting (it’s crazy to think how WAITING can make you so tired) that after the panel, all we did was meet up with friends and have dinner.

Last Comic-Con post coming soon…

comic-con 2011: day 1

Posted on by

UGH. So busy! But in the midst of it all Rob & I celebrated our 3rd year anniversary. YAY!

AND today is Rob’s birthday. 🙂 It’s a big week in our household.

SO. Here’s the next installment of my Comic-Con trip report (click pics for bigger).

Thursday, July 21
On this day, our plan was to spend the ENTIRE day in Ballroom 20 and catch most of the television panels. The first panel was at 10am for Burn Notice: The Fall of Sam Axe and we got in line at 7:45am. Even 2+ hours early, there were at least 1,000 people in front of us. We were pretty much guaranteed a spot, though, since the ballroom seats 4,000+. The only thing to do was… wait.



So close! The entrance to Ballroom 20 is in sight!



Annnnddd… we’re inside. YES. So much closer to the stage than last year.



The Burn Notice panel featured actor Bruce Campbell (he is freaking HILARIOUS) and creator Matt Nix. They were the highlights of Comic-Con 2010 and they didn’t disappoint this year. Some gems —

– Bruce Campbell opened the panel by poking fun at attendees — he said that the # of showers taken by Comic-Con attendees is 0 and reminded everyone that showers are free at the hotels. He also said that Comic-Con sees the most people wearing basketball shorts who don’t even play basketball. LOL.
– Then he even took a shot at a show on his own network — “For all you sleep-deprived fans, the Covert Affairs panel is up next.” EEEKKK.
– Unfortunately, Jeffrey Donovan had to work and couldn’t make the trip but that didn’t stop Bruce and Matt from talking about him — aka making fun of him.
— We learned that Jeffrey directed The Fall of Sam Axe and he was STILL #1 on the call list.
— Bruce discussed how Jeffrey started going up the list of potential directors for the movie. Apparently Jeffrey approached him and asked “Did you enjoy working on that episode I directed?” He responded “Sure, you did a great job. What do you think I’m going to say to the star of the show? It sucked. You were an asshole?” BWAH.
– During the question and answer portion, a fan dressed as Draco Malfoy went up to mic. Before she even asked her question, Bruce said “Harry Potter’s dead. It’s over. Might as well put a chain saw in his head. Oh, I’m sorry, am I making fun of your most beloved character ever?” She looked SO PISSED. LOL. Matt Nix covered the awkward pause by saying it was “important [for him] to keep [his] hostile relationship with [his] fans.”
– A fan asked what Bruce did to prepare for the TV movie. He responded by saying “I did two things to prepare for Sam Axe. Jack and shit. Thank you for asking.” OH MAN.

Pure entertainment.



I don’t watch Covert Affairs so I was pretty lost during the panel. It was pretty awesome to see Peter Gallagher, though. He even joked that he’s excited that they “used one of [his] eyebrows in the Comic-Con poster.” Hehe.



Next up – Psych! The panel opened with the creator Steve Franks and the writers singing the theme song live. Awesome! The best tidbits —

— Learning William Shatner will be guest starring next season. Other guests include Malcolm McDowell, Joey McIntyre and Danny Glover.
— The announcement that the season 7 premiere will be a musical episode.
— And Dule Hill will be tap dancing in a future episode. YAY!
— When discussing similarities to The Mentalist, James Roday said that “The Mentalist may have more viewers, but we have better fans.” Awww.
– Dule constantly with his head down… tweeting! Case in point. When asked by a fan whether he and Roday are friends in real life, he looked up, paused, and said “Sorry, I was tweeting. What was the question?” LOLARIOUS.
– Sometime during the panel, Dule tweeted that fans asking questions should end with “hashtag get Roday to tweet.” Someone finally did and he told her to “hit me up and I’ll hit you back. Say hi it’s meeee!” OMG, he’s so awesome.



Ringer marks the return of fan favorite Sarah Michelle Gellar to TV. I’m a huge fan of hers and I have high hopes for her new show. My favorite moments of the panel —

— Learning that Kristoffer Polaha auditioned for the role of Riley on BtVS.
— Ioan Gruffudd hadn’t heard of the CW before working on this show.
— Ioan also said that at age 37, he’s happy they even allowed him on the network.
— On the switch from CBS to the CW, SMG initially thought “Yes! I’m getting better clothing!” LOL. A girl after my own heart. Also, SO TRUE.
— When asked what she would wear if she participated in Comic-Con cosplay, SMG said “If I dressed up as Buffy, you guys would tell me I was a lame version of Buffy. I want to dress up as a Real Housewife of Beverly Hills.”

I really really want this show to be good.



And our last television panel of the day was for Game of Thrones. We’re really lucky we got into ballroom 20 so early in the day. This panel was incredibly popular — supposedly upwards of 7,000 people were in line but couldn’t get in because there wasn’t a lot of turnover from panel to panel. It sucks and I wish there was a fair way to handle admission into each panel but I don’t know what that solution is. So, the highlights —

— Emilia Clarke. She’s stunning! And has dark hair.
— Jason Momoa yelling in Dothraki in the middle of the panel.
— George R. R. Martin was the moderator and he asked the actors about their favorite scenes. Nikolaj Coster-Waldau (Jaime Lannister) said “Well, Isaac was really annoying, so pushing him.” As the audience laughed, he quickly shook his head to take it back. LOL.
— One of the creators (can’t remember which one now) promised lots of supplementary material on the DVDs/Blu-ray, like the actors’ audition tapes, of which Jason Momoa’s was a highlight. He said “No offense, but I hadn’t heard of you before. I hadn’t kept up on my Baywatch.” Hee!
— Jason Momoa talked about reading the book and discovering that Drogo died. Talking directly to GRRM, he said “I f*!#ing hated you, man. I was like f*!# this.”
— A fan asked the actors how they would end the series — Peter Dinklage said “Dance number.”
— GRRM is asked about the books and he reveals that he’s a fan of bittersweet endings and that’s probably what we’ll get when the book series is complete.

Excellent panel!



Later that night, we had dinner with friends and decided to check out Nerd HQ, which was a bar taken over by The Nerd Machine, Zachary Levi‘s company. As soon as we arrived, we spotted the entire cast of Psych! SO COOL! I think they were heading to a party nearby. We weren’t quick enough to snag pictures with them but I did manage to take a random picture of them posing with some other people. LOL.

It was a great day at the Con — but looong. And there were 3 more days to go.

To be continued…

comic-con 2011: day 0

Posted on by

PHEW. July was a busy month and after almost 2 weeks away, I’m finally back HOME (sweet home). With my doggie. 🙂

Doing “trip reports” helps me re-live my vacations so I guess it’s finally time to start my Comic-Con recap! I’m going to do this in 4 parts (click pics for bigger) starting with a (very) quick post on preview night…

Wednesday, July 20
We left late morning to get to San Diego by lunch.



Domo kept me company in the backseat and we got there in no time. WOOT. After lunch (at Hash House a Go Go – yummers), we headed downtown.



See those people in line under the tents? They’re waiting for the Twilight panel, which wouldn’t start until the next morning. !!!



The new pedestrian bridge that connects the convention center to Petco Park. It looked cool so we walked across it. LOL.



View from the bridge – pretty!

Finally, we went over to the convention center to pick up our badges and check out the exhibition hall. I’m glad we had preview night tickets because the crowds were pretty light (especially compared to the crowds we’d see when the Con actually started) — plus we got to scope out the merchandise ahead of time!). I didn’t do a great job at taking lots of pictures but I’ll share what I have…



I found Chewy and Domo!



Marvel’s Avengers booth. Excited for this movie! I think they were giving out free t-shirts but I didn’t get one. I was too lazy to try and get in front of the crowd.



Ooohhh. Lego Hogwarts!



The DeLorean. So cool.



There was a large Voltron figurine on the floor and a live one walking around.



There were quite a few gaming stations on one end of the hall so Rob tried out the Captain America game in 3D. The 3D was so crisp!



The aisles were crowded but not nearly as bad as it would be in upcoming days.



After 3 hours of walking the floor, we headed back to the hotel to rest up for the next day. Bye for now!

To be continued…