Drunken Comics Rage

Yeah, we're back from the con.  Nothing like coming back from the world of beautiful, perfect weather, gorgeous women, extreme nerdery of many flavors, and great restaurants and bars to 90+ degree weather, jungle-like humidity, work, and Real Life ™. 

Meh.

The con and the whole con experience was, of course, amazing.  Second time around was perhaps even better than the first, in some ways.  I generally knew my way around, which is a major thing for me as one of the horrifically directionally impaired.  I also didn't stress about missing any of the events at the con…well, other than the Iron Man screening, which I was going to see if I had to slay the people in line ahead of me until blood ran in the halls of the San Diego Convention Center…unlike Year One, where every overlapping session seemed like a missed opportunity.

I also made it a point to try to walk every aisle of the expo-floor-thing.  I'm sure I didn't see it ALL, but I gave myself a pretty good shot.  Its possible that I might be somewhat anal retentive about some things.  Possible.  This year, I did my damnedest to start at aisle-freaking-100 and walk up and down the aisles from one end to the other, relentlessly-Terminator-like.

It was a little daunting the first day…having not made it even to 1000 because I'd been tackled by a number of vendors and forced, FORCED I say, to flip through box after box of half price trade paperbacks and collections.  But I think I eventually hit damn near every aisle, which was a good feeling.

And on the subject of half price trades…sheesh.  I walked away with several Marvel Essentials volumes…Avengers, Daredevil, Uncanny X-Folk, Nova (What?  It was like $6), and Defenders.  I also snagged what appeared to be a DC equivalent collection for Green Lantern.  Aside from the Essentials, I picked up New Avengers hardback collections 2-5 (which may be a post of their own) and the Fell paperback collection.

Which in turn brings us to Warren Ellis.  Saw only the last perhaps half an hour of his talk on Saturday night, and loved it.  Wish I'd seen it all.  Even more wish I'd seen it all and there'd been a cash bar in the back.  Sunday he was signing at the Avatar booth from 10-12:30ish…couldn't pass it up.  Drug DVO around looking for an Ellis trade, and settled gleefully on Fell after passing up Authority and others.  Would have loved to have found the first NextWave in hardback, but couldn't, so I stubbornly passed on it in paper.  Snagged Fell happily, got his signature on it, then 20 minutes later found the same collection in hardback.  Ah well…by which I mean "fuck me".  Also snagged his novel, Crooked Little Vein, for him to sign…I look forward to reading that, as I'm sure its utterly depraved.  After cleverly responding to Ellis asking me "What's your name again" by saying "What?", I made it a point to make eye contact with him, thank him for the signing, and in particular to thank him for coming to the con.  I'm certain he'll come back now that I've done that.  You're welcome.

What else, in this unplanned and rambling overview of the experience?

Scored a bunch of t-shirts I'll likely never wear.  I also agonized over buying a new t-shirt.  Green Lantern was the haul last year, and I found myself coming back to this one Captain America shirt, with the shield design on it.  After looking at them only about 17 times across the 4 or 5 madhouse shirt places, I pulled the trigger on one Sunday. 

(Why Cap?  Yeah, I dunno.  Mebbe cause they put a bullet in his brain and I thought it was fucking dumb.  Yeah, that makes no sense, but I'm going with it.)

As Ghost and DVO both mentioned, geezus did we do some drinking.  Last year, if I recall, we really only got out of hand one time…and joyfully drug EvilArtist and Mrs. EvilArtist down with us, resulting in only-partially digested sushi splashing onto the street somewhere around the Marriott Gaslamp.  Thankfully none splattered onto Petco Park. 

But I digress.

This year, we stepped up the imbibing.  Thursday night, as DVO described, I recall having to close our tab three times…although the second bill was a mystery 'til I checked my credit card statement yesterday.  And I remember vividly looking at the Captain Morgan (Got a little Captain in you?) and diet coke line on the first tab and having a big WTF!?! moment when I saw…wait on it…16 of them.  DVO and I were both drinking them, but damn…we were essentially just getting started.  And I remember Patrick from Pixar, who was a fun and interesting fellow to hoist a couple or nine together.  AND…I remember being cursed by Ghostshark the next day because I don't get hangovers.  Those are always great moments, because I know he really means it.  Good times.

And while we did drink at every reasonable opportunity between then and Sunday, the capper was in fact Sunday, when Ghost and I found an Italian place, on 5th I believe, and had a nice dinner and a couple innocent glasses of wine apiece.  We then walked up the road a bit to a fine mostly-open-air sports bar that had caught my eye earlier in the week…and the wheels came off.  There wasn't even the rattling you often can hear, if you are paying attention, in those situations.  One minute we're fine, the next you are musing aloud whether those wheels you see careening down the road in several different directions are actually yours or not.

We convinced EvilArtist and Mrs. EvilArtist to join us, then promptly browbeat them into having a drink with us.  Somewhere shortly thereafter, it was time to go.  I recall walking back to the hotel, along the way wondering if Ghostshark actually cleared his tab or not.  EvilArtist, the next morning, had a tale or two of the walk back that was entirely news to me, though, so I was not as together as I had thought.

The next morning my eyes clicked open, I stared at the clock, and put together that our flight was in about two hours.  That's not good.  We scrambled to pull our bags and shit together, get out of the hotel, and get to the airport.  All proved to be well…we even ran into EA and Mrs. EA, along with another friend…but it was a bit close.  Throughout, Ghostshark was clearly not feeling particularly well…the whole cross-country-flight-hungover-without-even-a-shower thing must have sucked.

Glad I don't get hangovers.  w00t

Filed under: Comic-Con