man, my feet are KILLING me.

Met Gene Simmons today, but he wouldn't sign my DVDs despite the fact that I bought one of his comics (the booth people said he would sign one item besides the issue, but Gene refused because he was only doing the "comic book" promotion). Got a great picture with him, so it was worth the 90min standing in line.

Went twice in line for the raffle for a Matt Groening autograph, but lost out. Guess I'll have to wait another year to complete my personally autographed Simpsons family set.

Told George Romero to get a new agent. He's always saying how he has no money and never got anything for his movies, but if he still didn't make anything off "Land Of The Dead" or the remake of "Dawn Of The Dead" he's got to get some new people on his side.

Met Tura Satana. That was cool.

Went to see Ray Bradbury speak. Turns out the moderator on my panel was an old high school teacher of mine for a science fiction class I took 23 years ago! Got to say "hi" for a second, but he was working, so I left him alone. Hopefully we can catch up tomorrow.

Don't know where the time went today. I guess most of it was spent standing in line. Then the couple bars I hit to rest up didn't help.

Is it just me, or was this Saturday not as crowded as other Saturday's at the Con? I may have left during peak hours, but it just didn't seem as bad as Thurs/Fri. Seemed kind of like Wednesday night. Could've been lighter crowds because many people had Thur/Fri/Sun passes. Tomorrow is probably going to be the most crowded day.

You're right - I always remembered Saturday as being THE big day for people to go. The day that you don't go on, specifically because it was so packed -- it honestly didn't seem to bad though (and again it could have been because the other days were so crowded (I never saw a preview night that crowded)).

Apparently all memberships have been sold out but according to someone in management, Fri/Sun were sold out to "Government Limits" while Saturday had quite a number more memberships sold (not quite sure that that means).

I left around 3:45 because I didn't want to fight my way back through to the other side of the convention center, but overall it didn't seem that bad.

I was hoping for a quiet day on Sunday, but with it being sold out it doesn't seem like that'll happen. I'm also broke now so if I play the "$45? but I only have $30" game, I'll be telling the truth!

Did any of you go to the Dark Horse event with Josh Whedon? Is it true that he said that he plans to bring "Ripper" to the BBC next year?

Never mind. I found this thread on the TV Talk forum and the link to this site:

http://whedonesque.com/comments/13859

I think one of the reasons that the main exhibit floor didn't seem so crazy is that there were tons of people inside (and in line) for Hall H and Ballroom 20. I also noticed a lot of people outside enjoying the nice weather.

Another reason could be that they closed down Saturday awhile ago. They may have realized that too many people are bad and they notched down the number of people for Saturday.

I got a nice surprise yesterday. Got a ticket for the Jenna Jameson signing. Boy, the new autograph area went nuts when she showed up. She was very nice to meet amid the hubbub.

Here's my favorite booth babe pic of the day. I may actually go back to her booth to see what she's selling. You can click for a larger version... be warned, as with most booth babes, it's slightly NSFW.

How was she looking Tom? Most recent pictures of her made her look like a sick person.

My friend went on Saturday dressed up as a Spartan. Here's a pic:



He did a write up on our blog:

nerdsociety.com

Daddy like......

-p

Take a look... these are about as recent as you can get.

Thanks for the pictures Tom.

I still think that she doesn't look all that great.

She is a tad on the thin side. I was more surprised by how short she was.

Going at the last minute caused some minor stress, but overall I had a fun con. I had two other crews there who were doing most of the high-profile stuff, so I just ran around doing misc things. Highlights were:

- Interviewing Danny Trejo where he asked a huge assembled crowd to shout to my camera and tell Bob and Harvey to make "Machete."

- Following around Dee Snyder for a couple hours while he was out promoting "Hatchet." Met Robert Englund and Kane Hodder (who's huge), both of whom star in the film.

- Making "Galactica" star Katee Sackhoff laugh a bunch of times. She's so cute. I want to pinch her cheek.

- Hanging around one of those surreal comic-con parties where comic book superstars mingle with Hollywood A-listers. At one point, Ed Norton and his gf were brushing against my left side while Joss Whedon was talking to Stan Lee in front of me. My colleague sat on JJ Abrams coat. My favorite overheard line of the night in reference to Jenna Jameson dropping by -- "She's HERE?? WHERE?!" -- uttered to Jonah Hill by the tiny kid who plays McLovin' in "Superbad." Only in San Diego.

id still pee in her butt

Here's a pic from The Bionic Woman panel where she plays the first bionic woman (part of the story line and the two fight during the pilot).

Iron Man was OFF THE FUCKIN” HOOK!!! And that metal statue/costume they had in the crate? Holy Mackerel! I saw it on Sunday and my camera had run out of power, but my buddy got some pics of it and is gonna send me a disc. I think I stared at it from both sides for about 30 minutes (keeping low for people taking pics). God that was good.

I had a sprained toe for Thursday and Friday but I was able to finally self medicate with a cocktail of ibuprofen, vodka and a really tight ace bandage overnight and I could walk on Saturday. People. Do not take walking for granted. It is a wonderful privilege.

Clive Owen was awesome in a minimalist fashion and Shoot ‘em Up looked great. It lifted from other movies (Raising Arizona and the first Aeon Flux cartoon) but embellished the scenes to my satisfaction. I was laughing to the point of tears (and my ass fell off).

I saw a guy with an OCP shirt and could not find it anywhere to buy. If anyone knows where I can find one please let me know. I will search later today, but right now II’m gonna eat and watch a movie. Yay! I got The Host in the mail too.

What an awesome vacation this was. We laughed for half an hour straight on variations of a tar tar sauce joke on Sunday. Not the joke from The Simpsons, one from real life.

Oh yeah. Right At Your Door and The Strangers both look like theater runs for me.

Erin Moran stopped by the FunKo booth while I was working on Saturday, loved our stuff, I got some pics that I'll post soon.

You work at Funko? Do you think you could maybe put limits on the # of items that you sell that are limited exclusives? No one could get the Futurama Bender bank because you guys were letting people buy 15 copies of them at a time. Nice way to screw over the fans!

Anyone see Clive Barker? Supposedly he was so drunk, he had to be helped on and off the stage for whatever panel he was on.

The man's a crazy ass hedonist. I worked on costume and set designs his Freak Show maze back when Universal Studios still did Halloween mazes. I guess you don't go up against Knott's Berry Farm when it comes to Halloween.

But, yeah. He was big into fisting. Creative types.

Damn! I should've been bugging you for a signed HTF wobbler ...

It was nice meeting you at the Funko booth. I now have enough wobblers to last me until next year.

Tom, it was great meeting you, too, my first face-to-face Otter encounter! Thanks for stopping by the booth (both times!).


nodeerforamonth, I don't actually work for FunKo, I'm a collector, and I have worked at the booth for them the last couple of years (just on Preview night last year, helping with crowd control, but full time Wednesday through Saturday this year, including setup during the day on Wednseday). So, as a collector, I can understand your frustration. I'll definitely say something to the owner to see about placing some sort of limits, at least until the weekend, but the best advice I could give you is to hit the booth early on Preview night to get what you want. The SDCC is the only venue where FunKo sells directly to collectors (with the exception of some online limited editions). They have gone from having one or two exclusives 4 or 5 years ago to having 25 exclusives this year. The owner was kicking himself for not producing more of those Bender banks. The intent is not to create demand through limited supply, but to guage the demand correctly so that the supply is right on target. That's why there were 96 Goth Freddys (FunKo's trademark character, quite unknown to the general public) and 1008 ShockTroopers. In the case of the Bender banks, the run was 240, and they were gone early Thursday morning.

The biggest problem as I see it is tracking the purchases of so many different exclusives. I know that the Mattel booth, in past years at least, has had a couple of major exclusives, and you enter a daily raffle for a chance to get one of each. If you win, you can buy either or both, but you can't get one and then come back later and decide to get the other, it's an all or nothing deal when you show up to make your purchase.

That would be a lot tougher at the FunKo booth, without discouraging a lot of return customers who decide later in the day they want to add something they didn't get on their first visit. I don't see how we could reasonably mark their badges to show that they already purchased the Marvin Martian, the Devil Betty Boop, and the Scooby Dum, but they can still get any of the other 22 exclusives if they want. The best we could do (and what I'm going to recommend to the owner) is that we impose a "3 per" limit on each transaction, and simply do our best to enforce it without marking badges. That would mean that some people will slip through the cracks and come back to get more than 3. I think it would also create a greater impression of value and encourage some people who would've only bought one to buy the limit, and you might see even faster sellouts.

I'll see what I can do about getting you a Bender bank. They truly are sold out at FunKo (they don't hold back), but collectors were allowed to preorder the entire set of exclusives, and some people only want 50-80% of what they get, and then sell the rest. If you're interested in one at cost plus shipping directly to you, let me know, I'll try to find someone and put you in touch with them.

achau9598, yours will be tougher, so don't hold your breath, but I'm going to see what I can do about the HTF wobbler for you, too.

hey, thanks man! much appreciated

I posted photos of the sketches I got this year on my blog. I got some good ones this year.

I hope posting the link is okay. I just don't want to post almost 20 photos here.

Awesome sketches... do you have the rest of the sketches in your book elsewhere on your blog? These are only the ones from this year, right?