The crowd at Comic Con can make or break a fun day.
It is a veritable array of the outlandish—and sometimes the outright frightening! The one thing that is a constant though is the sheer amount of people you are confronted with while trying to get from point A to point B. Since the convention is so massive, it can take 25 minutes just to go from the sales floor to any of the panels on the second floor. It is real work to do that.
While doing that, the con goer has really no chance to stop and gawk at the coolness that is on the convention floor in the form of presentation. I’m sure some of the booths—like the Star Wars, Marvel, or DC booths—probably cost several hundred thousand dollars to create, if not more. They are quite literally works of art by themselves. You would never know it though, because the entire time you are too busy worrying about bumping that Slave Leia from behind.
Slave Leia does not like that, believe it or not.
I swear, finding a path through the multitudes is the hardest thing to do at Comic Con.
Needless to say, I’m not one for crowds. I attended the 200,000 person Woodstock in ‘99—yup, the one that burned down—and I have decided that humanity gathered in mass is the ugliest of things. Even though Comic Con is a wee bit smaller, it has the same effect on me. Therefore, I snuck into Comic Con on Saturday morning before the hordes could enter, leaving me alone with forklifts delivering crates of boxes to booths and booth attendants manically trying to put out their wares before the floor opened.
Here are some of the photos I took from that “empty” floor:
An Aspen Studios statue, Fathom I believe, in bronze. I really wanted this piece because it is gorgeous -- but I didn't go through with it.
Voldemort about to cast a spell at Harry Potter. This statue was a corner statue at the Gentle Giant booth. It is normally in their front office.
Optimus Prime had to be one of the best statues I saw at the Sideshow Collectibles booth. The detail was absolutely amazing! Now where's Bumblebee!
Here is a stunning statue of Neytiri from James Cameron's Avatar. Now where's my Thanator!
Darth Maul was just about the only good thing to come out of Episode I. So I thought this was a cool statue, showing his return via cybernetic legs.
The size of Iron Monger caught my eye. I had to have a photo. Apparently this is one of the suits from the movie and it was being auctioned off for charity purposes during the convention.
The other Iron Man suits!
The other Iron Man suits!
A part of the DC booth, this floor to ceiling banner highlights Wonder Woman's new costume and... err... curves...
Graphitti Designs sold t-shirts. I loved that they had the Blackest Night Lantern shirts. Very cool! Below, you can see how many boxes they would go through that day.
Here is part of the Marvel Booth, which is a built recreation of the Asgardian set used for the movie Thor!
A Green Lantern's battery. I thought this was pretty cool at the DC booth.
Sucker Punch is the new movie by Zach Snyder (Watchmen, 300), from which I will posting the trailer shortly. It looks badass, and so are these statues from Gentle Giant!
Here is a close-up of a Sucker Punch heroine! Super detailed, as you can see. Might have to get this!
I remember as a kid playing the arcade game that I wanted a light bike. Well, here it is, at the Gentle Giant booth!
My favorite Transformer, Bumblebee. Odd that there are two of them in the same photo...
Thor's hammer, Mjöllnir, at the Marvel booth! Can't wait for the film!
I have more pictures to post tomorrow, this new set devoted to authors, panels, and fans!
Stay tuned!
Thank you for the pictures. The floor was a madhouse as always. It was hard to really see it all and trying to take a pic of something….well, that was another story. We were able to meet some of your guests and get some books signed at the Del Rey booth. Meeting Alan Dean Foster was a real treat for us. Thanks for all the work you all put in for this years Con.
You did better than me – I got as far as The Walking Dead comic booth and a redshirt threw me out. No exhibitor pass!
That’s because I took Kyle’s Exhibitor badge while he as sleeping. hehe Shhh, don’t tell…
Dennis, glad you had a great time at the booth. Alan is a great guy. Thanks for the comment and well wishes!
And, as of this comment’s post time, there are only 70 days, 22 hours, and 30 minutes to go before we open the doors to New York Comic-Con!
Who’s ready?!
..too soon?