SDCC 2018: Derek’s Long-Winded SDCC Recap – Pre Convention And Preview Night
…And we’re back.
How has it been a year already since SDCC 2017? It’s absolutely flown by – and speaking of flying, I’m currently sitting at gate E90 at the Vancouver International Airport awaiting my slightly delayed 6AM flight to Los Angeles.
I’m super excited.
Last year I had only been at my current vocation for half a year or so, and as such I hadn’t actually earned enough vacation time to take as long a trip to California as I typically do. If you read last year’s recaps (check them out here if you haven’t and if you want to read a lot of words) you may remember that I arrived at the San Diego airport just before midnight on the Tuesday night, and had to leave the convention on the Sunday morning, long before it was over. Everything happened at what felt like the speed of light, and before I knew it I was taking a Lyft back to the airport.
I had a great time last year, but I’m super happy to be getting a couple of convention-less days with some of my Geekscape family this time around.
Last year I wrote a lot. Before finally turning in each night I published a huge recap of everything that I did, saw, ate, drank, thought, and avoided every day of my visit. I wasn’t sure if I’d do something similar this year, as those pieces were a lot of work, and I didn’t know how interesting they actually were.
In retrospect, I think that people were actually into them. I received a bunch of feedback from friends, family, and people I didn’t know telling me just how much they enjoyed reading each piece, and the interesting perspective that the journals gave to a non-attendee (or even the different perspective that they gave to a standard attendee). I’ve actually had more people come up and talk to me about these pieces than any interview, video, or review that I’ve posted over my near seven years with Geekscape.
A few days ago, in preparation for this trip and to help to try to figure out just what the hell I wanted to put together this year, I read through all of last year’s journals. I really enjoyed reading back on last year’s experiences (and imagine I will be especially grateful that I wrote them when I try to look back even a few years from now), and reading back on the convention made me realize a few important things:
A). Grammar disappears and writing becomes nonsensical when you’re trying to finish a piece at 1AM.
B). Even just a year later, an event like SDCC is such a sensory overload that you pretty much forget everything. I’m super happy that I wrote out my experience – in reading back I had more than a few “oh, right” moments that made me smile and reminisce. I appreciated seeing everything put together in a sort of timeline, rather than just a mass jumble of photos.
C). Remembering the way that I felt last year, I feel like I’m mentally in a better place today than I was then. That’s not to say that I’m in a great (or even good) place today, but I feel at least slightly better than I did then. Phew.
D). I am stagnant. I mean, I was stagnant this time last year, but at this point if I were water, I think I’d be water that has been standing so long that it basically kills you if you go near it. Last year, I wrote of goals and ways that I thought I could better myself, or things that I’d wanted to try based on my experience in San Diego, and… I’ve done none of it. I didn’t start meditating, I didn’t lose weight, I didn’t get a cool new job. Nothing. Reading back made me feel full of shit and, and it really opened my eyes (they really should have been open already) – I need to stop talking about being better, and simply start being better.
In saying that, I want to set a public goal (making it public will make it happen, that’s how this works, right?). I’m going to lose 70 pounds by next SDCC.
But first I’m going to land in California, eat In N’ Out, Panda Express, alternate varieties of Doritos Locos Tacos (we only have the standard in Canada), and simply burn the candle at both ends for ten days or so (a candle burned at both ends burns twice as bright, right?).
So, here we go again. Based on feedback, reflection, and… a lack of creativity (?), just like last year I’ll be posting a daily recap/journal of my experience at San Diego Comic-Con. The piece you’re reading now will be a recap of my time in California before heading to San Diego, but after this you can expect a daily write up full of convention goodness. I’m hoping to keep the pieces a little shorter and a lot more concise than they were last year, but based on the current word count of this very first recap, I’m not promising anything.
I really don’t get the hot towel benefit that first class gets on flights. It’s not even 7AM and it’s like 25 degrees (Celcius) outside. It’s warm in this cabin, so please put a hot towel on my face that’ll definitely help. I have no idea why this happens. But then again I’ve never been a first-class citizen, so maybe I just don’t have the brain capacity to understand.
Continuing the trend (second year in a row now) of heading down to California with some sort of ailment, I was an absolute idiot and didn’t apply an appropriate amount of sunscreen (or remember to re-apply it) when two days ago I spent several hours in the sun watching the Vans Park Series (skateboarding competition) preliminaries at Hastings Skatepark in Vancouver (man, do I want to start skating again each time I see events like this). My forehead is red (and hurts), my knees hurt (and hurt really badly when I towelled them off this morning), and my arms are pretty red as well. That said, I would take this any day (or every day) over last year’s infected tooth debacle. I’m getting chills just thinking about that one. I even felt a tiny bit of pain in my mouth as I woke up this morning, which reminds me that I’m due for another cleaning and checkup when I get back to Vancouver.
Flight wise, I lucked out (aside from that slight delay) and had nobody beside me on my YVR to LAX journey. Security was painless to get through (you pretty much just tell the TSA agent that you’re going to a comic book convention, they look at you in disgust (fuckin’ nerd), and let you through without another question. Instead of napping, I used my time in the air to start writing this recap, read a few comics (x, x, and x) , watched a little Netflix (x), and before I knew it the plane was landing. After stuffing my carry-on to the verge of explosion last year (even after leaving a few unneeded items with others in San Diego), I decided it best to check a larger bag this year, so I waited around for that before reuniting with Jonathan.
What was the first thing we did? Chiller Club reunion, obviously.
Following Chiller Club, we dropped our things off at Jonathan’s, caught up a bit, and drove to a nearby AC-equipped bougie as shit Starbucks to drink more coffee and get a little bit of work done.
Then it was ‘wrasslin time. WWE’s Extreme Rules PPV started at 4PM, so Matt Kelly found his way back to Jonathan’s place and we sat in the heat for hours to watch the whole thing. Old friend Zack Haddad joined, and aside from a few shitty, why-did-this-happen matches, and the whole thing not being that extreme aside from its title, the PPV overall was an enjoyable one (also I hope Kevin Owens is okay). Also, I think that time moves more slowly in heat like this as, while it wasn’t that long, Extreme Rules felt like it took absolutely forever.
Before turning in for the night, it was time for some food. At this point in my journey, I hadn’t had any In-N-Out yet, so we drove to a nearby location and quickly realized that it just wasn’t going to happen. The drive-thru line was nearly a block long, and the small parking lot was completely full.
Instead, we ended up at some “world famous” place that I’d never heard of until this trip: Tommy’s World Famous Hamburgers. It was a burger place (naturally) that has a love for chilli, which it puts on almost everything, I had a burger with chilli on it (for the first time ever) and some chilli cheese fries (also for the first time ever), and it was fucking delicious. Why have I never thought to put chilli on shit before? Seriously.
That was it for the night! We turned in pretty quickly so we could get an early start on Monday morning.
Monday
I don’t know if its the sunburn or what, but while the temperature in Los Angeles right now is similar to that of Vancouver, it feels fucking hot, and as such the cold shower that I had this morning felt like it might just be the best part of this entire trip (not really).
Matt and I went for breakfast at Cafe 101, which is apparently super famous and has been in a ton of movies. The locale definitely looked familiar, but I couldn’t figure out just where I’d seen it before. The conversation was good, the bacon was super tasty, and the coffee woke me the hell up. Thank goodness.
A ton of exclusives news has been dropping this morning. I always get really excited for what Mondo has to show off at their booth because each and every piece that they do is incredibly beautiful, and being able to pick pieces up at the convention saves me a ton of money on shipping and duty. Prior to my flight to Los Angeles, the only revealed piece that I was really hankering for was the Daniel Danger piece for The Shape Of Water. I loved the film, and have the convention exclusive Daniel Danger Crimson Peak piece from a couple of years back, and I think they would look gorgeous beside each other.
Today, the company revealed some incredible art for Drive, Jurassic Park, and Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom. I’m going to lose any self control I thought that I had…
Yep. I’m screwed.
After breakfast we went back to Jon’s for a bit before Matt took off to meet up with some old friends. I had some emails to respond to, and Jon was still working on the Geekscape / Dweeb Darlings press release to announce our upcoming SDCC ConQuest Scavenger hunt. We did some running around (I even met a new canine friend at Lodger) before finally sending out the release (after learning that our standard Geekscape email accounts could not be used to send mass emails, of course).
Things were pretty relaxed here for the rest of the day. We went to a giant theatre to see the BIGGEST BLOCKBUSTER OF THE SUMMER, Dwayne Johnson’s Skyscraper. The first thing that I noticed is that the actual auditorium for this screening was tiny compared to what I’m used to in Vancouver – maybe 60 or so seats. Also, Movie Pass is fucking insane, and people who complain about it are just freaking wrong. Give me that shit at whatever price you want and I will pay it happily.
The movie itself was fucking awesome. It was dumb as hell, with some fantastic action, some terrible villains, tons of quotable one-liners, and an amputee The Rock who is somehow still more bad-ass than anyone with all of their limbs. It was a fabulous time, and I’m super glad that we’d decided to see something like that instead of something more serious. It was really a perfect way to kick-off what’s about to be an insane and exhausting week.
Following the movie, we walked over to a nearby In-N-Out burger so that I could finally fill myself with that sweet, fattening, never-frozen never-microwaved burger goodness. Before we ordered, Matt said “Ah man, you better go first. I don’t know what I want,” and I replied by noting “What the hell are you talking about, they have like three options!?” Matt went first, and it wasn’t that hard.
We returned to Jonathan’s, and spent the rest of the night recording a pre-SDCC episode of Geekscape that largely turned into a roast of Matt Kelly and a chat about just how awesome Skyscraper was. You can listen to the episode below, but be warned that there are some spoilers on the ROCK-solid plot of the film.
Following the recording, we crashed hard and turned in just before midnight…
Tuesday
Matt and I left Jon’s apartment at 8am as Matt had to return his rental car before we hopped on an AMTRAK to San Diego. The drop-off was right at the station, which was nice (although it ended up being confusing as hell and we had to drive around the station several times before we found an employee that could actually give us directions to a completely un-signed area underground where the car could actually be returned), and Matt handed his keys to some dude without a uniform who just said “Yo you can give those keys to me.” I was pretty sure that this guy just stole the car, but Matt received a “Thank you for returning your rental” email a half-hour or so later.
We grabbed a quick Starbucks coffee and breakfast sandwich (thank Xenu for cheap food) before jumping on the train. Matt immediately started talking up everyone around us, and I was again envious of his crazy ability to find common ground with everyone. Within three minutes of sitting down he was telling people about the SDCC booth, the Geekscape Podcast Network, and had a business card from some local stand up comedian.
The ride itself was pretty chill and was my first time on a several-hour train ride that wasn’t bursting-at-the-seams crowded (which was just taking me to work, as well). It featured seats, wifi (which actually works pretty well, unlike the wifi on BC Ferries), air conditioning, and a table that I could put my iPad on so I could keep working. 10/10 would train again.
From the San Diego station, we walked over to our hotel at the Hilton Bayfront (right beside the convention centre, aw yiss), checked in (where Matt Kelly got some weird story from a girl named Kelli that used to be Kelly), turned the air conditioning to the lowest that it could possibly go to, and then went to meet Jonathan and Heidi at ROCKIN’ FUCKING BAHA.
I had mango salsa, it was phenomenal. I also ordered a beer and didn’t realize that it would be massive (25oz), and instead of eating the tacos that I normally get a spent like $4 more and had a weird bucket that included lobster, steak, shrimp, chicken, and corn on the cob. Fucking delicious.
I can’t wait for more mango salsa.
We all made our way back to the hotel, and Jonathan quickly passed out for a super loud nap. By this time, Courtney had arrived at the airport, dropped her stuff off at her home for the week, and was waiting in the lobby of the Hilton Bayfront. I went down to the lobby instead of subjecting her to Jonathan’s snoring, and we caught up for a bit before deciding to grab a drink.
Courtney had a Maple Old Fashioned, and I grabbed some sort of Amber Ale that I can’t remember the name of (the waitress even upgraded me to a larger size for free because she couldn’t remember what I ordered). Of course, the very second that Courtney’s tiny drink and my Dwayne-Johnson-in-SKYSCRAPER sized beer arrived, Jonathan texted me to let me know that it was time to set up the booth.
We went into the Convention Centre (it’s pretty freaking cool getting early access to the show floor in order to see everything being built) and put the booth together before shooting a small El Chucho short to kick off the Seed and Spark Crowdfunding Campaign for the Stalking LeVar short film that is about to launch.
Following the booth build, we took things pretty easy for the rest of the night. Jonathan, Heidi, Courtney, Gui, Matt, and I went to Lolita’s Mexican Restaurant near PetCo Park for some food (I was still pretty full, so I just had a couple of small Taquitos and a bunch of water), and following that Matt, Courtney and I decided to go to a grocery store to grab some hotel room supplies before turning in for the night. I grabbed a case of 24 bottles of water (for like $2, instead of the $3.50 the hotel wanted for a single one), some coconut water for when I wake up each morning (to keep me hydrated, obviously), and a few granola bars to throw in my bag so that I eat those instead of spending like $40US on a pretzel.
The day felt so relaxed. The Gaslamp district was empty, we didn’t have to wait for what felt like hours to get food, and nearly all of the incredible-looking offsite events were still being built. Wednesday brings preview night, and press previews for a bunch of events that I’m beyond excited for (like LAIKA Live, which remains one of my most anticipated events of the entire week).
Wednesday
After fighting to fall asleep for what felt like hours (until I finally hopped out of bed to grab some earplugs), I eventually passed out and slept in until about 8am. When I woke up everyone else had already left the room aside from Matt, who had already showered and was watching this week’s RAW beside me.
I showered, had a quick chat with Mikaela, and Matt and I made our way to breakfast. We both had some eggs, bacon, and pancakes before walking over to the FYE Pop-Up at the Horton Plaza (look for photos from the shop right here). I found a rad GLOW shirt that I had every intention of buying, but there was only an L (which was too short) and an XXL (which was far too wide). I asked an employee if they had more in the back, and the guy said that everything they had was on the shelf. I said “So it’s only Wednesday and you have like four Glow shirts left?” and the guy kind of just shrugged and walked away. This was definitely a little disappointing, but the place was filled with cool stuff, and was packed with people to the point where it was hard to take photos of some of the offerings.
Side note – sorry about the IMGUR banners from here on out. Geekscape is having major issues uploading images at this time.
Before heading back to the hotel, we decided to walk a few more blocks to the Castle Rock installation that was still being set up at the Children’s Museum park. The area was pretty fenced off and was still mostly being built, but what we saw at this point was freaking awesome – they build a fucking house first of all, there was a car in the fountain, a creepy figure (Georgie?) and a memorial to Georgie (that was too fenced off to get a good photo of at this point). Amazing. We also saw a Stranger Things train station, but we couldn’t get too close at this point as a local news station had taken over the area.
Somehow I convinced Matt to get on one of these rental motorized scooters that are everywhere in San Diego at this point. I don’t think that these existed at last year’s convention, but it was pretty hard to walk 30 feet without seeing one. We used Lime, and it was so convenient and inexpensive. The scooters are $1 to unlock, and then $.15 per minute after that. You push off to start, and then the handlebars show have a ‘Go’ and ‘Stop’ switch to accelerate or brake. The scooters travel way faster than I expected them to, and they were a fun and fast way to get back to our hotel. I even managed a selfie while riding, and I don’t think I’ve ever seen Matt look so excited in my life.
After arriving back at the hotel, I wrote up my FYE piece before meeting up with Courtney. We chatted for awhile before heading back to the convention centre to pick up my badge (which took a total of like four seconds somehow), and then decided that it was time for lunch at… Rockin’ Baha of course! At this point, I wondered just how many times we would hit up the same restaurant before the week was over.
Next up was the first official event of the week, FutureTechLive! This event is open through Sunday, and is located on the second floor of the Omni Hotel. Here, there were a bunch of VR experiences to try, a neat Overwatch photo op (I definitely lost my balance on this one, as the platform we stood on spun around) that netted you an exclusive Overwatch pin once you completed it, and some Bitcoin and other coin vendors. We played a game called Star Wars Jedi Challenge which was a stand-alone headset, lightsaber, and tracking ball thing, where you fight different Star Wars villains with your lightsaber. It was kind of fun, but felt pretty janky, and the field of view on the headset (which was powered by your phone) was quite poor – you would turn your head naturally in order to see where Darth Maul (or whatever villain you were fighting) was, and all of a sudden everything would go blank. It’s also $200 which feels like a lot for what it is. It felt a little bit like Wii launch title Red Steel, but that game is like ten years old and the Wii did way more for your money. We also played a pretty cool four-player cooperative title that was demonstrating a technology called HoloGate. The game we played was a simple first-person shooter that has the four players shooting easy drones and robots, followed by some larger robots and dragons and stuff. The round lasted about five minutes, and while it was simple I probably had a smile on my face the whole time. The setup was pretty neat, and it was really cool having a system to hold the VR wiring (and to keep it safe) while you moved around in the virtual space. We checked out a couple of other things before it was time for me to head to the Hilton Gaslamp for a preview of the DC Universe offsite event.
There is a lot of incredible stuff at San Diego Comic-Con. The offsite events get more and more elaborate every year, and up to today the coolest activation ever remained the Godzilla Encounter from 2013 (read my coverage of that event right here). It’s freaking Preview Night 2018, and tonight I attended not one, but two events that may have surpassed it.
The first was the aforementioned DC Universe offsite. It’s here to represent the aptly titled DC Universe app and subscription service, which should launch in beta in the next few weeks, and in full this Fall. The service is kind of like Marvel’s long running Marvel Unlimited service for digital comics, except that DC Universe includes not only comics, but DC films, television series, animated features, and even some original content like the upcoming live-action Titans series (the costumes from which were on display at the exhibit) and way way more. DC Legend Jim Lee said that the event itself was meant to act as a sort of physical representation of the DC Universe app, and the location was filled with concept art, real props from the Batman movies (like a giant rubber duck, Mr. Freeze’ freeze ray, and the freakin Batmissile), stations where you could try the app out, food, and way more. Inside the building you could find things like “Harley Quinn’s Chaos Room”, in which you suited up in protective gear, donned a baseball bat, and smashed things for 45 seconds, and there was even a small Swamp Thing activation in which an actor took you through the “swamp” while things jumped out at you. You’ll tap into each experience using an RFID bracelet, and a link will be texted to you so you can see photos, videos, and more of you in each piece of the experience. Pretty cool, and pretty seamless.
The DC Universe offsite is open through Sunday, and is an amazing time. You can look for my full write-up on the event on the site sometime tomorrow, but for now you’ll have to settle for just a few photos that are posted above.
The last stop of the evening was an invitational preview to the LAIKA Live offsite that I first wrote about a few days ago. This event was literally heaven. Life-sized versions of Coraline, the Other Mother, Kubo, Sparky, and Norman wandered around the event taking photos with patrons as they chatted and consumed the wonderful food and drink provided. The food really amazed the hell out of me, as it was all themed after different LAIKA properties, and the cupcakes were even decorated with artwork of the distinct hair of numerous LAIKA characters. This, by the way, was only the entrance of the experience. Once inside, you could stare in absolute amazement at actual sets from Coraline and The Boxtrolls, sit in a life-sized version of the Other Mother’s living room, chat with actual LAIKA animators (where I learned that the now rarely used art of stop motion is still evolving, and in the upcoming LAIKA feature Missing Link, they’ve actually added the ability for the puppets to breathe. The whole thing sounds incredible.
Teri Hatcher, the Other Mother herself even showed up in order to help kick off the event and to help celebrate Coraline‘s tenth anniversary. She even saw a little girl out on the street selling giant suckers for a charity called Child Hunger Sucks, brought the girl inside, and let her tell everyone about what the organization does. Pretty freaking amazing. LAIKA Live is in the old Dick’s Last Resort locale, and is also open through Sunday at 6PM. The offsite even has a ton of amazing merchandise for sale (I need more money), and will even have the store open separately so that you don’t have to wait in line for hours and hours if you just want to buy things. That said, LAIKA Live is worth waiting hours and hours for.
Just like with DC Universe, you can look for more from LAIKA Live right here on Geekscape tomorrow!
Now, however, it’s midnight and I need to crash! Tomorrow kicks off with the Mattel / WWE Panel to mark the first full day of SDCC 2018!
Thanks for reading!
