Back from LA, Disneyland, and Comic-con!
We had a ridiculously good time in California this past week and change. I haven't quite recovered enough to post coherently about the whole trip, but (with some minor, mostly traffic-related exceptions), we had a blast the whole time. Got to have dinner and spend time with yellow3, which was fantastic, because it's been ages (aaaaageeeeeees!). Disneyland was more fun than I expected, and I got to ride my childhood favorite Mr. Toad's Wild Ride for the first time in decades, since the Magic Kingdom version was shut down.
Comic-con was pretty much non-stop fun, despite the sore feet and aching shoulders, and I got into some great panels that I really enjoyed -- including the MST3k 20th Anniversary panel!! (Stopping here with the exclamation points to avoid accusations of insanity, but it was great and a huge surprise to actually have made it in -- the line was unbelievable.) Also got autographs from Joel, Trace, and Frank! I'm not usually an autograph hunter, but I came across their booth quite accidentally and managed to get in line shortly before it closed, so it seemed meant to be. I picked up a fair bit of nifty Tick gear (and some Tick comics before the con; we found that comic store, yellow3!), a Penny Arcade book, the new Fables book, a rather cute Zoidberg figure, some T-shirts, quite a lot of buttons... and probably several other things I've forgotten.
The other panels I saw, in some cases just as a side benefit of trying to get into rooms for later panels, were
Comic-con was pretty much non-stop fun, despite the sore feet and aching shoulders, and I got into some great panels that I really enjoyed -- including the MST3k 20th Anniversary panel!! (Stopping here with the exclamation points to avoid accusations of insanity, but it was great and a huge surprise to actually have made it in -- the line was unbelievable.) Also got autographs from Joel, Trace, and Frank! I'm not usually an autograph hunter, but I came across their booth quite accidentally and managed to get in line shortly before it closed, so it seemed meant to be. I picked up a fair bit of nifty Tick gear (and some Tick comics before the con; we found that comic store, yellow3!), a Penny Arcade book, the new Fables book, a rather cute Zoidberg figure, some T-shirts, quite a lot of buttons... and probably several other things I've forgotten.
The other panels I saw, in some cases just as a side benefit of trying to get into rooms for later panels, were
- The Powerpuff Girls 10th Anniversary/Foster's Home panel, which was one of those side-benefit panels but quite a lot of fun; I had no idea the voices of Spongebob Squarepants, Eduardo from Foster's, and the Mayor of Townsville were all the same guy.
- The Spaced panel, which was terrific and if you're a fan of Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz, geek-favorite movies like Star Wars, comics, games, and/or British comedies at all, the DVDs are finally available in the US and are quite worth checking out.
- Some sort of "influence of comics on the media" panel, which was another accidental one that turned out to be quite a nice surprise, as it featured Paul Feig (creator of Freaks & Geeks and director of episodes of Arrested Development, The Office, and 30 Rock) and graphic designer Chip Kidd, among others, and was quite interesting.
- The Pushing Daisies panel (a hard choice between this one, the one for Chuck, and a Fables one, but the timing on the Fables one didn't work out, and I figured Adam Baldwin would draw a lot of Firefly fans to the Chuck one, making it hard to get into. Little did I realize the frightening power of Kristen Chenowith fans... but it was a very fun panel nonetheless. The show is extremely clever and funny once you look past the sometimes twee cutesiness.