The Haul: Day 1
I arrived in San Diego with Stephen Wednesday night after a smooth train ride from Irvine to San Diego. After checking in at the Manchester Grand Hyatt (great hotel), we headed over to Preview Night. Professional registration lines were nonexistant, so we got into the hall easily. We headed over to Lou and Mickey's for the first of many excellent dinners before hitting the exhibit hall.
Let the buying begin!
I started out by tracking down the UnklBrand booth. They didn't have any SDCC exclusives this year, but they were rolling out a new toy, the JunPo. I picked up the green/gray one as well as a cherry red SUG (not repeating my mistake of not purchasing the gunmetal/orange one last year). The creator/artist was extremely nice and signed them both, and hooked me up with some prints and stickers. They had a bunch of original art that I somehow managed to restrain myself from purchasing.
After that, we skipped over to the Penny Arcade booth, where Gabe was busy sketching a creature of unmentionable anatomy. We convinced Gabe and Tycho to sign our new PA beach posters, and Gabe hooked me up with a sketch of a sweet "metrosexual" night elf.
Remembering the crazy mob around the Flight booth the past two cons, I headed over to the Flight area (hard to find for some reason, every year). There weren't as many Flight creators in appearance this year, so I just picked up a Daisy Kutter trade (already have the single issues), and Kazu was nice enough to do a little Daisy sketch for me (so cute).
Wandering around the rest of the preview night floor, it was pretty busy, but so much better than the rest of the weekend would turn out to be. By chance, I passed by a booth with a t-shirt that featured a certain hyperkinetic bunny thingy, and saw a Sam and Max sketchbook called The Age of S&M. The guy gamely sitting behind the table turned out to be the Steve Purcell himself (extremely nice guy!) who asked my permission to draw in my copy of the book. I said yes (duh!) and was rewarded with an energetic drawing of Max.
Feeling quite satisfied with myself, we headed back to the hotel to prepare for the first day's competition in the morning.