2008 marked the 4th consecutive year I have gone to the San Diego Comic-Con. I can say without a doubt it was by far the best (and the most crowded one) yet.

This year I went with amazing painter and character designer Jenna Smith, aka Channel^Square. We flew in to San Diego Wednesday evening. This year we were going to get to go for the full 4 days, unlike the last where I believe we only were there for 2 or 3. We pretty much relaxed when we got there to prepare ourselves for all the walking and sensory overload we were going to experience the next couple of days. We also had the priveledge to stay at a good friend's house, so we didn't have to pay for a hotel. He even let us borrow one of his cars! So we were very lucky and mobility was not an issue. The only thing is that parking would burden us the first day or two.

Every year the SDCC gets more crowded. Last year it was estimated that 100,000 people attended. This year, that number has jumped to 125,000. It was so crowded this year that you had to be pre-registered in order to attend. Which - in my opinion - is a good thing, because last year they were a little unorganized, and pre-registered people had to stand in the same line as people buying tickets for that day. Last year we stood in line for about 2 hours waiting to get inside. This year, we walked right in, got our badges, and started adventuring. They had probably three times the amount of people working badge registration this year, and I attribute the ease of getting in to the organizers of the SDCC. So good on them.

So our first order of business was finding swag for C^2 of Azuma Kiyohiko's Yotsuba!& books. She wanted a Yotsuba figurine and Volume 6 translated. But even though we had arrived only hours after CC's official opening, all the manga and the good figurines had sold out. However, we did find one figurine of a girl who dresses up as a robot made out of cardboard boxes that lit up. She bought that and was happy enough. But it wasn't the last of things we got our hands on. Needless to say we were broke by the end of the trip - everything at CC is grossly overpriced. Everyone knows this, but you can't help it. There's never another time on the planet when there's a larger concentration of art-related merchandise you'd love to have for no other reason than to say you have it.

I'll go over some of the other stuff we got our hands on later. But I suppose I'll go in list format about some of the booths and panels that caught our eye this year:

• Newgrounds/The Behemoth: Newgrounds and The Behemoth - a game studio with a few big NG names behind it - have teamed up this year for a booth a tad more spectacular than last years. A nearly-complete demo of The Behemoth's upcoming title Castle Crashers, slated for release on August 27^th of this year, was on a big-screen with 4 controllers. Needless to say it was probably the main attraction. I'm not gonna lie - I was intending to try out the game, but never got around to it. But i'll be able to try it myself on a 360 console in due time. Also, my first real exposure (if you want to call it that) at CC was this year because Ravi (one of my characters from Project Freetown) was on the big Newgrounds poster this year! So it was cool to see that, and thanks to Johnny-Utah for putting it on there.
  
• Cartoon Network's booth was the sight of multiple appearances and signings. They had awesome lifesize sculptures of the stars of their new cartoons Chowder and The Marvelous Misadventures of Flapjack, a beta-test of their new MMO FusionFall, and a lot of giveaways. I got a Flapjack and Chowder keychain charm out of that. Sadly, I have to say that FusionFall is looking downright awful. The idea of bringing all the worlds of their cartoons into one world is a good idea, but it's not surfacing in the game. I know the game isn't done yet, but the look of it is pretty muddy, and the gameplay is pretty run of the mill. They have a lot of work to do. Hey, at least the concept art looks good.
  
  
  
  Powerpuff Girls magnet signed by the creators and VA's.
  But the coolest part was the signings. We met and got autographs from the crew of the Powerpuff Girls for the show's 10th anniversary. Craig McCracken (creator), Lauren Faust (writer), Tara Strong (voice of Bubbles), Cathy Cavadini (voice of Blossom), Elizabeth Daily (voice of Buttercup), Tom Kane (voice of Professor Utonium and HIM), and of course Tom Kenny (voice of the Mayor). On saturday it was Chowder - C.H. Greenblatt (creator), Dwight Schultz (voice of Mung Daal), Tara Strong again as the voice of Truffles, and John Di Maggio (voice of Schnitzel, haha.) Then on Sunday, the creators of my personal favorite, the new and insane cartoon The Marvelous Misadventures of Flapjack - Thurop Van Orman (creator and voice of Flapjack) and the creative director and writer, whose name escapes me (i cannot for the life of me read his signature.) I skipped the Ben 10 signing, I'm not a fan of the show, personally.
  
  
• We also got to see most of these folks again at the Chowder/Flapjack/Underfist Panel on Sunday, where the creators of each show came to speak about the show and their process. Both shows have a very strong fanbase, especially Flapjack, which is very encouraging because the show is practically brand new. I think Flapjack has the potential to explode as a new cartoon phenomenon because of its wide appeal. And the creators are absolutely hilarious and creative. Also, in case if you're wondering what Underfist is, it's Maxwell Atom's (creator of Billy & Mandy) hybrid of B&M's secondary characters in a half-hour special due to air this Halloween. Long story short, it's about evil Halloween candy from hell exacting revenge on the Earth. Atoms did confirm Billy, Mandy and Grim would be in it, but they will be playing different roles than the stars. I'm not familiar with many of the characters from the show, but the main characters are villians from B&M that create a fighting force called "The Underfist". You'll recognize the style instantly - it's no departure from the animation look of B&M.
  

There were countless other places we had checked out. C^2 picked up an original sketch from Ashley Wood's booth. Strangeco Toys had a lot of amazingly bizarre creations, even better than last year. Craig McCracken and Lauren Faust could be seen at the Firefly booth where Faust is promoting her Milky Way and the Galaxy Girls characters. The fanbase seems to be growing for that. And of course, let's not forget all the shops that ran away with our money in exchange for some wonderful merchandise. I picked up a Vegeta figurine (haha), a Death Note keychain (only 3 bucks), a Tenchi Muyo artbook (that brought back memories), and a Cowboy Bebop artbook full of lots of memorable illustrations, and also the character design process for the show.

We also met lots of people we know online this year at SDCC. Our first encounters were Alex Calhoun (redmongoose) and Kenny (Thuberbaer). Somehow, Thuberbaer recognized Genndy Tartakovsky - creator of Samurai Jack - standing in a crowd with an overpriced convention center pizza. Alex walked up to him with his and my sketchbook, and he drew a picture of Jack. We also went to the first ever Newgrounds Comic-Con afterparty at a loft downtown on Friday night. Headed by none other than NG creator Tom Fulp himself, tons of faces from Newrgounds and The Behemoth showed up to the party. It was interesting and exciting to meet them all, and we had a lot of fun. It does a lot of good to meet people face-to-face, you get a lot more done and everything's a little more real. I hope that it happens again next year.

Downtown San Diego is also a pretty nice place. There's plenty of good food, great sights, and the weather is always nice when I go down there. I'm sure it's a lot less smoggy than its much larger sister city Los Angeles, where I could very well end up once I graduate. I think the SDCC is a little too big for SD's britches though, but I don't think that is going to stop thousands of people coming every year for the event. It's truly memorable, and i'd much rather spend it there then smog-ridden LA. SD just needs to build about two dozen more high-rise hotels and add another square mile to the convention center, then they could take care of those capacity problems, haha.

Well, there's probably a lot more that I could yap about but this is getting too long and that's everything significant I can think of. Can't wait for next year and I hope to see you there too. I hope you've enjoyed reading this as much as I enjoyed writing it.

Just kidding, I've been meaning to write this thing for a long time and it took me like two hours.


More images: Gaslamp Quarter | a building at night | outdoor area at the house we stayed at | another view from the roof of the house | outside of house at dusk | Craig McCracken and Lauren Faust @ PPG 10th anniversary panel | Chowder autographs | McCracken's doodle of Buttercup | Pluto, one of Faust's MWATGG characters | PPG autographs