Wednesday, July 28, 2010

San Diego Revisited, Part 1: The ComicCon!

I've now returned from the ComicCon, where, defying predictions, I never did contact the dreaded Pony Rot. So I guess I can call it a success. And that's not the only reason: those of you who remember last year's GREAT LOOMING PIKACHU ASS OF DEATH will be pleased to know I found a worthy - if not quite equal - successor in the Great Lego Buzz and Woody:



Let me tell you, these guys were popular. More Con attendees were interested in getting their pictures taken with old B. and W. here than with, say, Angelina Jolie. Side note: curiously, despite being an American and therefore exposed daily to more Angelina Jolie images than air molecules, I would probably never recognize her in person, whereas it took me approximately .05 seconds to recognize MythBusters' Grant Imahara in the crowd outside the convention center, an anecdote I related with great enthusiasm to my sister, a loyal fan of the series:

MY SISTER: Like you even care about the show.
(Beat.)
ME (Cleverly): Shut up.

My other Celebrity Sighting occurred while my dad was doing signings, when some guy from some TV show walked by the booth. I have no idea what TV show or who the guy was, but I am assured it was awesome. So I just wanted to share the experience with you. Thank you.

Here is my father (on the left) at his signing, alongside author Alan Dean Foster:



I will of course refrain from mentioning those four Pibgorn books on the table, available respectively for $26.99, $16.99, $19.99, and $18.99 from Pib Press, pibpress@gmail.com, and not mentioned in this paragraph.

But you and I have not yet discussed the most pivotal, the most fundamental - yes, the most meaningful - part of the ComicCon: namely, finding a lot of perfectly useless products you absolutely totally desperately need NOW NOW NOW. I refer specifically to the following journal, distributed by Chronicle Books, which has cute little anthropomorphized internal organs on the cover. Every home should have one:



I don't know for a fact, but I like to think they have names, like Sally Spleen and Patrick Pancreas. (DISCUSSION QUESTIONS: If you were an anthropomorphized spleen, how would you feel? Do you think it would be difficult to be a girl spleen? Explain.) Either way, Chronicle Books has become hands down my favorite publishing company, easily eclipsing all the other publishers I pretty much never had any opinions about anyway. Not just for the internal organ diary, but for the following notecards, suitable for familial communications:



Thus it is with a heavy heart that I return to "the grind" back east, with an entire ComicCon-devoid year stretching before me, a year of no parasitic bloodsucking supervillains whatsoever, at least not unless I feel like going over to the university Career Counseling Center. So I'm a little melancholy right now, but it'll pass. After all, there's always next year. I'll be back at the ComicCon before I know it.

Who knows: I may even be moved to send you a notecard.

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