So San Diego Comic Con 2014 has come and passed. And I was not there again this year and I’m okay with that.
Why would I be okay with it? Well that answer is as simple as saying that I don’t like crowds and waiting in lines (a reason why Disneyland can be conflicting to me).
But I have had the great privilege and pleasure to have gone to TWO Comic-Con Internationals in San Diego in my life. That’s two more than a lot of people.
It’s been years since my last Comic-Con experience and every year I hear how it keeps getting bigger and bigger. Comic-Con in San Diego is the biggest event that San Diego holds every summer. And big name celebs and directors all come here to reveal movie, book, and TV plots and pilots.
I want to throw it back to the old Comic-Con years I went to and how I felt so out of place at the convention they call ‘for the nerds’.
***
My first time at Comic-Con I was still in High School, my sister and her fiancé got me and my sister tickets to Comic-Con (as a bribe for me). And this was back in 2008 where it was easy to still get tickets a few weeks before and not have to fight to get these sold out tickets now.
I’m not as hard-core and was totally fine with a day pass instead of the full Comic-Con weekend experience. And let me tell you, I had never been so overwhelmed by an event in my life.
It was crazy.
So I was slightly obsessed with Twilight at this time. I read all the books and now the movie was coming out and the cast of Twilight was going to be doing a panel at Comic-Con! And so I had to go.
While, yes, I’m probably the worst Comic-Con fan out there because I’m not huge on comic-books and all the so called ‘nerdy’ things. But I still found Comic-Con an experience I’m glad I went through.
The panel for Twilight was insane, this was when the books blew up and the cast blew right up along with them. Me and my sister waited in the longest line imaginable to get into that panel.
It was crazy.
But funny thing now is those panels that have the huge celebs; people are camping out days, even weeks before just so they can get in and sneak a peek at an Avenger or whatever celeb their heart desires. See, that’s a reason why I didn’t want to go. I’ll just wait for those exclusive sneak peeks during the panels on YouTube, thanks.
After the panel and line waiting took about half our day out. We were already pooped, but still had the rest of the convention. So we walked that entire convention hall length and went from booth after booth after booth of every imaginable Comic-Con-y thing you can think of.
The highlight of that day was, besides seeing Robert Pattinson and Taylor Lautner on stage, was winning this raffle at some Comic book booth called Radical Comics.
They were handing out these raffle tickets to every person walking by and gladly me and my sister took it. Then by a certain time we had to all go back to the booth and wait for the raffle tickets. Well it was the 1st place prize and then the grand prize left and me and sister had not been called. But who could we blame; there were thousands of people at Comic-Con on that day alone.
They called a ticket and if someone doesn’t claim it, they pick again and call out more numbers. Well I was standing there not really paying attention, and then my sister goes. “Yvonne that’s your number”. I was so dumbfounded and confused. But she was right, they actually called my raffle ticket.
Out of thousands of people there, my ticket was called. I had never felt so lucky! I didn’t win the grand prize of an iPod touch, but I did a get a few t-shirts, a hat, a jacket, comic-books and the pride that I won a raffle filled with thousands of tickets! The designs to the shirt and jacket were cool and I still wear them to this day.
After that moment, me and my sister were dead after looking at millions of sailor moon outfits and costumes everywhere. I was done for. Comic-Con was truly an experience that opened my eyes to the video gamer, movie lover, and Comic-book reading world. And I have to say it was tons of fun.
Watch out for my next post about Comic-Con. I call it Comic-Con Flashback Part II (Fancy name huh)
But for now, cheers to all my nerdy peers out there that went to SDCC, hope you enjoyed it!