Did anyone here actually go this year?  I only went today myself with very low expectations and going off of less then 2 hours of sleep.  Needless to say, I wasn't in the best of moods to start off with and given my shitty financial situation, I probably would definitly not have gone if I hadn't already registered prior.

Given there was definitely shit that pissed me off, mainly fucking kids...i hate kids, and moronic rude fans who literally shoved their way around, and also horribly organized panels, I found myself overall very pleased.  If I had a choice I would have gone Thursday simply for the Doctor Who/ Torchwood panels but as the con was sloppy by not releasing scheduling anywhere near the time tickets sold out, that was a no go.

Amazingly though from what Friday had to offer, I actually did everything I wanted to do.  Met and got shit signed by the Luna Brothers, got a copy of Comic Book Tattoo with dozens of autographs,  & met and got a fabulous signed/numbered print from Hoang Nguyen.

In contrast, some of the panels were just downright horrible.  Example, I went to the DC Vertigo panel which ran for an hour and included around a dozen artists including Mark Buckingham, Bill Willingham, Brian Wood, Grant Morrison, and Brian Azarello.  All these guys are seriously huge enough to easily run their own panel, which a few do such as Will for a whoel Fables panel tomorrow.  The problem was already apparent that they tried to fit in literally Vertigo's whole line of flagship authors/illustrators into one hour. Knowing this we still went hoping for the best in hopes of hearing some of our favorite artists and writers talk about their work.  Well...we didn't even get that.  The editor of Vertigo thought it a better idea to dictate the whole panel herself and do this horridly useless slideshow of upcoming issues which was completely useless.  This resulted literally in each person talking for less then 15 seconds...I shit you not.  She actually in all seriousness asked each guy to sum up their work (that she picked whcih was often some upcoming release or what not she was trying to sell hard) in less then 7 words.   The first to speak made a mockery of this and did just a she said.  Once she realized her idiocy she corrected herself, do a summary within 7 lines (I guess she meant sentences).

Anyways we should have just left then but we stuck it out in hopes that the 15 min Q/A would be better.  Surely the attendees would be more interesting and ask actually "relevant" questions.  First guy literally runs up to the mic, and asks some questiion pertaining to Y: The Last Man, another Vertigo title.  Hmmmm, only problem is moron, Brian K. Vaughn the author of said piece and the illustrator Pia Guerra was not on this fucking panel.   At this point we realized we fucking just wasted a good con hour and left in frustration.

Too bad about the panels :/ I drool at your purchases though. I also read on ANN that Tite Kubo was there for signings. I'm not a huge Bleach fan but even still, that's pretty cool. I generally like cons... I'm just still sad that my friends pooped out on me for Otakon ; -;

How was Saturday, if you went?

i still had an enjoyable time just walking around the con honestly.  only went for friday actually since i'm poor and also don't live in SD anymore.



sucks about otakon....are you still going or just skipping it?  id actually love to go myself if i lived on the East Coast simply for Jo Chen who I seriously think is one of the best illustrators in the business today.

some of the more entertaining panels from the con:



Torchwood panel is epic, in its entirety below:

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

Part 5

Part 6

Part 7

Clip of John and Naoko duet-ing



Dr Horrible Panel with Joss Whedon, Neil Patrick Harris, Felicia Day, Nathan Fillion:

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

Part 5







Also it seems Brian K. Vaughan did quite well for himself in this years Eisners.  He took the win for both the Best Continuing Series for Y The Last Man, and New Series for Buffy alongside Joss Whedon.  Pia Guerra & Jose Marzan, Jr also took the award for Y for Best Penciller/Inker team.







 

I'm still kinda on the fence about Otakon, since I'm not really familiar with most of the names on the guest list right now. I'll keep checking for the final guest list to see how it pans out, but sadly I'm leaning more towards "no"  right now. I remember last year being a blast with my friend. We just went for the one day (even though we meant to go on Sunday) and did all the fun silly things (karaoke, DDR) along with the usual panels/shopping fare... The venue for Tomokazu Seki wasn't marked clearly enough, so we missed the first half trying to find him, but he was flipping awesome. Chiakiii~~

id say if there isnt anything on the lineup that immediately gets your attention, then you probably wont regret not going much....