Brad & Christian at Comic-Con, July 2008

Father & Son, 4 Days, 125,000+ Fans, and 1 steady diet of Buffalo Chicken Tenders

Christian's 17th birthday present was a trip to Comic-Con, the largest gathering of comic book & pop culture fans in the world.   Their first convention was held in 1970 with 300 people in attendance.   In 2008, it will exceed 125,000 attendees, making it the largest of its kind in the world, filling the San Diego Convention Center to capacity.   This year, tickets to each day of the show were sold out weeks in advance.

Originally showcasing comic books, science fiction/fantasy and film/television, the convention has expanded over the years to include pop culture elements such as horror, anime, manga, animation, toys, collectible card games, video games and webcomics.

We arrived in San Diego on Wednesday night.   Checked into the hotel, zipped over to the Convention Center to register & collect our badges, and had a few minutes to checkout the Exhibit Hall before it closed for the night.   Then we took a short walk down 5th Street in the Gaslamp District to grab some dinner. Brad couldn't pass up dinner at Masala, a great Indian restaurant, then back to the hotel.

Up early on Thursday morning, we head out to catch the shuttle bus in front of the hotel.   There were a few people already there, waiting for the next bus.   A quick conversation reveals that 2 of the girls were from Rochester, NH.   We travel 3000 miles across country, and the first two people we talk to at the same hotel & and the same bus line are from NH. Now THAT'S a coincidence.

The first panel I attended was "75 Years of Doc Savage".   The first big news of the day: A Doc Savage movie has just been approved.   Too early for any casting or script news, but as a long-time fan of this under-appreciated character, this news made my day.

Here are some photos from The Visionaries: Comic Creators panel:

Grant Morrison ("JLA", "Final Crisis") & Coleen Doran ("A Distant Soil")

Robert Kirkman ("The Walking Dead")

Mike Mignola ("Hellboy") & Matt Fraction ("Iron Man")

More Mike Mignola

John Cassaday ("X-Men") & Jim Lee ("X-Men", "Batman")

A couple more shots from the day: Ed Brubaker at a Marvel Panel:

Kevin Smith drops by the DC Panel to announce he's writing a Batman mini-series:

Thursday night, Christian went to see the Video Games LIVE concert, where the San Diego Symphony performs the soundtracks from video games. Brad attends the screening of the "Will Eisner: Portait Of A Sequential Artist" documentary.

Now to get ready for Friday...