San Diego Comic Con Recap - Part 2
Here's part two of my Comic Con adventure. Find part 1 HERE.
I changed to my grey dress (from the failed apology scene in IM2) for the afternoon. I found a very tired Sami napping in the room. She and Kevin are sickeningly adorable together.
Once the convention center closed at 7:00, Liz and I went to meet up with Tally and co. who were eating at a little Irish pub a few blocks away. While we were there, somebody alerted us to the fact that Jon Favreau had retweted a pic somebody sent him from the con. We whipped out our Blackberries to look, and what did we find…
That’s right. I’m on Favreau’s Twitter!
That night there were plans for more party hopping. Tally, Liz and I hung with Keith and Tracy for a while. Then we went to find some other people and ended up in their hotel for about two hours. Then we wandered around everywhere trying to meet up with the other half of our group… and by the time we did, Liz and I were both hungry and kinda over it, so we said our goodbyes and had a super late dinner at the Café Diem in the Hard Rock. We may or may not have stolen Café Diem pens.
Saturday morning started with me in my grey dress again, and Liz in her Spider-Girl (Peter and Mary-Jane’s daughter in an AU storyline, not to be confused with Spider Woman).
I met up with Adam again, and we had fun with the Mark VI full-size statue at the edge of the Hasbro booth.
Then it was back to the hotel for Tally to change into her Rescue Armor, and me back into my comic Pepper (this time with a modified Ironette light under my shirt for the arc reactor - not fantastic, but pretty good in a pinch). Tally ran off to meet up with Keith while I finished getting ready. And, for the second time that weekend, Matt Fraction ran into them outside the hotel. I was actually really upset that I didn’t get to see his reaction to seeing Tally’s armor for the first time - I had been looking forward to it. So Liz and I went off for real food, because I was starving and a starving Kirsten is not a happy Kirsten. Once fed, and feeling better, we all rendezvoused at the Marvel booth, and whose yellow shoes did I see from across the way but Matt Fraction’s! It was about a half hour before his comic signing. Tally is very particular about not bothering celebrities and didn’t want me to go up and “bother” him. To which my response was basically, When ELSE do *I* get my turn to talk to him (30 seconds after waiting in line forever was SO not enough for me), and he was at the Marvel booth before a signing, not out in a restaurant with his family or anything, and really, I was not willing to wait any longer and let Tally have all the Fraction fun times. So I just stared at him, totally not trying to communicate with him telepathically, until he turned and made eye contact with me. I smiled, then he smiled, and then it was on!
The whole group was there, me, Tally, Liz, Keith, and we talked about everything. Fraction sent a picture of Keith off to Salvador Larocca to show him how identical he is to Robert Downey Jr. I told him how the day before I recognized him walking across the con floor not because of his face, but because of his crazy yellow Bruce Lee/Kill Bill shoes, which I knew about because I follow his Flickr account. I told him his two children are just adorable, and he told me he planned to kiss the skin off their faces when he got back home. He again complimented Tally’s armor, and my little comic Pepper costume. Tally asked him to sign the back of her helmet. In silver, he wrote, “You are my favorite superhero! -Matt Fraction”. Then I took out something I had made, a little Rescue helmet pendant made from Sculpey clay. I told him it wasn’t quite as big and awesome as Tally’s, but hoped he would sign it. Judging by the look on his face, he loved it. So he took it, and about a half a second later he looked up at e and asked, “Can I swear on it?” No joke. I of course said yes. He wrote, “This is fan-fuckin’-tastic. -MF” on the back. It was awesome.
So by then I was just happy as a clam, and then I remembered something I had been wanting to do for a long time. So I looked at him, smiled, said “This is gonna be awkward, but I promised myself I would do it anyway.” And then I hugged him. Yup. And he didn’t think it was awkward at all and hugged me right back. And then I got to hug him AGAIN when Liz asked if I wanted a picture. He was totally hamming it up for the camera.
And STILL the conversation was not over. We talked about how Tally dressed as Madame Masque the day before, and Fraction said we needed a Maria Hill for a group costume. We of course agreed. He went on to talk about how he’s one of about three people at Marvel who actually LIKES Maria Hill. He told us a little bit about what’s coming up in Invincible Iron Man (not too much, of course). Apparently Tony will still have his old unrequited feelings for Pepper, but she, remembering what happened when he was losing his mind, will be kind of over it and just want to be friends. We told him we looked forward to it, since we Tony/Pepper fans love some good UST. Tally Told him how her goal now is sort of to have a costume from his comic that’s bigger and better each year. He said he would know he had REALLY screwed up the comic if we ever show up one year all dressed as Spiderman characters or something. To which my exact words were, “Um, yeah, you could fuck this up worse than anything has ever been fucked up in the entire history of comics, and I would still love you for THAT [point to Tally’s armor].” He laughed. And I absolutely have not been saving up that line for months. Not at all.
We told him that we’re really hoping to see Rescue in Iron Man 3. He told us about how he felt when he was writing The Order and first heard Gwyneth Paltrow had been cast. Basically his plan is that if he’s ever in an elevator with her, he’s going to turn to her and go, “Hi, I’m the guy that turned you into a superhero.” Oh, what I wouldn’t give to be riding in THAT elevator. I told him that having Thor call Pepper “That spirited ginger woman” was pretty much the most awesome thing ever. He of course agreed, and basically said the world needs more strong women characters. Fuck yeah, Fraction. Fuck yeah.
We said our goodbyes to the coolest writer around, and wandered around the conf or a bit, taking a million and one pictures.
We even got some awesome group shots at the Stan Winston booth in front of the armors!
After that we changed back into normal clothes, had some drinks. I took a little nap. Liz and I got Subway again, in case we couldn’t find anything fun to do for dinner. Eventually we decided to go to dinner with Sami, Kevin, Katie, Adam and some other friends while Tally went out with Keith. On our way to the restaurant, we saw a classic police car and truck! Two San Diego cops were there, taking pictures with people for donations. We had tons of fun.
Then it was off to dinner at a little place called Xavier’s! Appropriate for some Marvel geeks, yes? After that we went to the bar at the Hard Rock. It wasn’t as crowded as it had been the last few nights, and we had a good time for a while. I was seriously insanely hyper from drinking lots of caffeine and meeting Matt Fraction. It was awesome.
Sadly, Sami, Kevin and Katie all had to leave that night. I was very sad, but we all hung out and talked for a while and had good times. Somehow Sami got into my head. I started talking like her. It was pretty freaky.
Sunday was pretty lazy. We got up early and packed our things and checked them in the lobby and checked out. Our first stop was the Hasbro booth, since we all wanted the SuperHero Squad Rescue action figure. Why does the first figurine of her have to be a derpy orange one?
But alas, they weren’t selling it. I still have yet to find mine, but Tally was able to snag one on Ebay. So we just went around, had some lunch, checked out the different booths. Liz and I broke off after a while and tried to find Fraction again. I somehow got it into my head the night before that I should tell him about that dream I had a while back, where I saw an Iron Man 3 poster of Iron Man and Rescue hugging, hoping he would love it and try to get a variant cover out of it. A girl can dream, right? Alas, we had no such luck, but did get to catch the tail end of his panel, which was full of the usual Fraction Awesomeness and fun.
Liz spent the day going between Mary Jane and Hellcat.
She was lucky enough to meet the husband and wife writers who wrote the mini that introduced her to Hellcat, one of her favorites. They signed the back of her costume.
The day was winding down, so we said goodbye to Adam and a few other friends, and headed back to find Tally. She only just remembered that she wanted to buy her pass for next year. Liz did too (I already had mine) so we all went back and waited in the line together. We got there just before they cut it off at 5:00. Turns out it was a good thing we got there when we did, because the four-day passes with preview night were ALREADY SOLD OUT!
Once we all had our tickets, we got our luggage, said goodbye and all went our separate ways. I went home and promptly passed out.
Overall it was an awesome con! I can’t wait until next year!
I changed to my grey dress (from the failed apology scene in IM2) for the afternoon. I found a very tired Sami napping in the room. She and Kevin are sickeningly adorable together.
Once the convention center closed at 7:00, Liz and I went to meet up with Tally and co. who were eating at a little Irish pub a few blocks away. While we were there, somebody alerted us to the fact that Jon Favreau had retweted a pic somebody sent him from the con. We whipped out our Blackberries to look, and what did we find…
That’s right. I’m on Favreau’s Twitter!
That night there were plans for more party hopping. Tally, Liz and I hung with Keith and Tracy for a while. Then we went to find some other people and ended up in their hotel for about two hours. Then we wandered around everywhere trying to meet up with the other half of our group… and by the time we did, Liz and I were both hungry and kinda over it, so we said our goodbyes and had a super late dinner at the Café Diem in the Hard Rock. We may or may not have stolen Café Diem pens.
Saturday morning started with me in my grey dress again, and Liz in her Spider-Girl (Peter and Mary-Jane’s daughter in an AU storyline, not to be confused with Spider Woman).
I met up with Adam again, and we had fun with the Mark VI full-size statue at the edge of the Hasbro booth.
Then it was back to the hotel for Tally to change into her Rescue Armor, and me back into my comic Pepper (this time with a modified Ironette light under my shirt for the arc reactor - not fantastic, but pretty good in a pinch). Tally ran off to meet up with Keith while I finished getting ready. And, for the second time that weekend, Matt Fraction ran into them outside the hotel. I was actually really upset that I didn’t get to see his reaction to seeing Tally’s armor for the first time - I had been looking forward to it. So Liz and I went off for real food, because I was starving and a starving Kirsten is not a happy Kirsten. Once fed, and feeling better, we all rendezvoused at the Marvel booth, and whose yellow shoes did I see from across the way but Matt Fraction’s! It was about a half hour before his comic signing. Tally is very particular about not bothering celebrities and didn’t want me to go up and “bother” him. To which my response was basically, When ELSE do *I* get my turn to talk to him (30 seconds after waiting in line forever was SO not enough for me), and he was at the Marvel booth before a signing, not out in a restaurant with his family or anything, and really, I was not willing to wait any longer and let Tally have all the Fraction fun times. So I just stared at him, totally not trying to communicate with him telepathically, until he turned and made eye contact with me. I smiled, then he smiled, and then it was on!
The whole group was there, me, Tally, Liz, Keith, and we talked about everything. Fraction sent a picture of Keith off to Salvador Larocca to show him how identical he is to Robert Downey Jr. I told him how the day before I recognized him walking across the con floor not because of his face, but because of his crazy yellow Bruce Lee/Kill Bill shoes, which I knew about because I follow his Flickr account. I told him his two children are just adorable, and he told me he planned to kiss the skin off their faces when he got back home. He again complimented Tally’s armor, and my little comic Pepper costume. Tally asked him to sign the back of her helmet. In silver, he wrote, “You are my favorite superhero! -Matt Fraction”. Then I took out something I had made, a little Rescue helmet pendant made from Sculpey clay. I told him it wasn’t quite as big and awesome as Tally’s, but hoped he would sign it. Judging by the look on his face, he loved it. So he took it, and about a half a second later he looked up at e and asked, “Can I swear on it?” No joke. I of course said yes. He wrote, “This is fan-fuckin’-tastic. -MF” on the back. It was awesome.
So by then I was just happy as a clam, and then I remembered something I had been wanting to do for a long time. So I looked at him, smiled, said “This is gonna be awkward, but I promised myself I would do it anyway.” And then I hugged him. Yup. And he didn’t think it was awkward at all and hugged me right back. And then I got to hug him AGAIN when Liz asked if I wanted a picture. He was totally hamming it up for the camera.
And STILL the conversation was not over. We talked about how Tally dressed as Madame Masque the day before, and Fraction said we needed a Maria Hill for a group costume. We of course agreed. He went on to talk about how he’s one of about three people at Marvel who actually LIKES Maria Hill. He told us a little bit about what’s coming up in Invincible Iron Man (not too much, of course). Apparently Tony will still have his old unrequited feelings for Pepper, but she, remembering what happened when he was losing his mind, will be kind of over it and just want to be friends. We told him we looked forward to it, since we Tony/Pepper fans love some good UST. Tally Told him how her goal now is sort of to have a costume from his comic that’s bigger and better each year. He said he would know he had REALLY screwed up the comic if we ever show up one year all dressed as Spiderman characters or something. To which my exact words were, “Um, yeah, you could fuck this up worse than anything has ever been fucked up in the entire history of comics, and I would still love you for THAT [point to Tally’s armor].” He laughed. And I absolutely have not been saving up that line for months. Not at all.
We told him that we’re really hoping to see Rescue in Iron Man 3. He told us about how he felt when he was writing The Order and first heard Gwyneth Paltrow had been cast. Basically his plan is that if he’s ever in an elevator with her, he’s going to turn to her and go, “Hi, I’m the guy that turned you into a superhero.” Oh, what I wouldn’t give to be riding in THAT elevator. I told him that having Thor call Pepper “That spirited ginger woman” was pretty much the most awesome thing ever. He of course agreed, and basically said the world needs more strong women characters. Fuck yeah, Fraction. Fuck yeah.
We said our goodbyes to the coolest writer around, and wandered around the conf or a bit, taking a million and one pictures.
We even got some awesome group shots at the Stan Winston booth in front of the armors!
After that we changed back into normal clothes, had some drinks. I took a little nap. Liz and I got Subway again, in case we couldn’t find anything fun to do for dinner. Eventually we decided to go to dinner with Sami, Kevin, Katie, Adam and some other friends while Tally went out with Keith. On our way to the restaurant, we saw a classic police car and truck! Two San Diego cops were there, taking pictures with people for donations. We had tons of fun.
Then it was off to dinner at a little place called Xavier’s! Appropriate for some Marvel geeks, yes? After that we went to the bar at the Hard Rock. It wasn’t as crowded as it had been the last few nights, and we had a good time for a while. I was seriously insanely hyper from drinking lots of caffeine and meeting Matt Fraction. It was awesome.
Sadly, Sami, Kevin and Katie all had to leave that night. I was very sad, but we all hung out and talked for a while and had good times. Somehow Sami got into my head. I started talking like her. It was pretty freaky.
Sunday was pretty lazy. We got up early and packed our things and checked them in the lobby and checked out. Our first stop was the Hasbro booth, since we all wanted the SuperHero Squad Rescue action figure. Why does the first figurine of her have to be a derpy orange one?
But alas, they weren’t selling it. I still have yet to find mine, but Tally was able to snag one on Ebay. So we just went around, had some lunch, checked out the different booths. Liz and I broke off after a while and tried to find Fraction again. I somehow got it into my head the night before that I should tell him about that dream I had a while back, where I saw an Iron Man 3 poster of Iron Man and Rescue hugging, hoping he would love it and try to get a variant cover out of it. A girl can dream, right? Alas, we had no such luck, but did get to catch the tail end of his panel, which was full of the usual Fraction Awesomeness and fun.
Liz spent the day going between Mary Jane and Hellcat.
She was lucky enough to meet the husband and wife writers who wrote the mini that introduced her to Hellcat, one of her favorites. They signed the back of her costume.
The day was winding down, so we said goodbye to Adam and a few other friends, and headed back to find Tally. She only just remembered that she wanted to buy her pass for next year. Liz did too (I already had mine) so we all went back and waited in the line together. We got there just before they cut it off at 5:00. Turns out it was a good thing we got there when we did, because the four-day passes with preview night were ALREADY SOLD OUT!
Once we all had our tickets, we got our luggage, said goodbye and all went our separate ways. I went home and promptly passed out.
Overall it was an awesome con! I can’t wait until next year!