Another year, another whirlwind week that is San Diego Comic-Con. I’m still reeling from it all.
The past few years have been pretty rough for the convention, and I feel like this was the first time in years that I’ve seen Comic-Con return to its chaotic and glorious form. Oddly enough, even the frustration involved with striking out on an exclusive lottery or signing up just seconds too late for a buzzy activation felt like a breath of fresh air. The excitement and fervor was back, and the renewed interest was palpable. Let’s move on to the recap!
The critters
This year I dropped 12 critters, plus 3 guest critters by Gina! Ten of my critters were found with successful check-ins, and 2 of Gina’s were found and checked in. I’ll always hope for a 100% response rate, but that’s the risk I take whenever I leave these little buddies behind. I’m even more invested in making sure Gina’s critters get a check-in, because she puts a lot of detail into her work and sends them to me all the way from Scotland each year! Gina’s Soldier Boy, the 1-up mushroom, and Gudetama still don’t have check-ins, if you or someone you know has them let me know! It’s never too late for a check-in, we just want to know that they’ve got happy new homes!
Otherwise THANK YOU to everyone who found a critter and gave them new happy homes! New homes this year stretched from California (mostly in San Diego!) to Missouri, and I’ve even got two coming back to Texas!
The Convention Floor
I spend less and less time on the convention floor each year, but it’s still interesting to see how it’s changed over time. I’m always going to pine for the days when the booths themselves had experiences and fun giveaways, but one thing I was happy to see was that Artists’ Alley was absolutely PACKED this year. It’s always great seeing the artists and small vendors get more love! The floor got too busy for me some days, but it’s always cool to see it year after year. Oh, and still no carpet. It was a meme last year, but seriously, BRING BACK THE DAMN CARPET.
Panels
Panels are back, babyyy!! After last year’s strikes, star-studded panels are back in business, and by association, the crazy lines were back too. I didn’t bother with the ultra-popular lineups, but I was able to go to the What We Do in the Shadows panel (where Kayvan Novak hilariously did the entire panel in character as Nandor), and the Bold Voice of Contemporary Horror panel, which always gives me a great introduction to the next twisted horror movie I should be checking out!
What We Do in the Shadows
Kayvan Novak didn’t answer ANY questions because he was too busy being Nandor and we ate it up as an audience. It was even funnier seeing the rest of the panelists lose their shit, we were basically all watching a “this fucking guy” moment in real-time every time the moderator switched over to Kayvan. Creepy Nadja doll also made an appearance!
The Bold Voice of Contemporary Horror
The Bold Voice of Contemporary Horror panel was a needle-in-the-haystack find from my husband two years ago, so we had to do it again! Ironically I’m a wuss when it comes to horror movies, but I’ve been LOVING the new generation of horror with the likes of movies like Midsommar, Bodies Bodies Bodies, and Talk to Me. David Dastmalchian was one of the panelists, and he’s every bit as endearingly neurotic as I pictured him to be. We also got a creepy surprise appearance to announce that In a Violent Nature will be getting a sequel! I haven’t seen the first one, so I guess I’ve got some horror movie homework to do. Don’t sleep on the smaller panels, they’re so much more interactive and you’ll still get some fun surprises!
The Offsite Activations
Offsite activations were back with more flair this year too, with lots of great activities to choose from. Hulu’s Animayhem activation and the Paramount Lodge were popular ones again this year, while the Shaun of the Dead 20th anniversary takeover as the Winchester Pub was a bit of a letdown. Adult Swim’s activations are always a standout to me, with fun activities, good line management, GREAT swag, and the best staff all around.
The Borderlands Moxxi’s Bar experience was pretty cool too, where you got a free cocktail and an immersive post-apocalyptic club setting. No real swag to speak of, but for a painless wait it was a good time! I wanted to highlight Moxxi’s Bar because I feel like it could be the direction activations will be going in in the future. Nothing will ever live up to the days of the full world-building of the Blade Runner and Westworld activations, but I’ve been reading that fully immersive activations at that level have become prohibitively expensive to build and run. Moxxi’s Bar used projection mapping over an existing bar to create the environment instead of building a whole set from scratch, so I’m hoping this will be a better way to create these experiences. Times have been tough, but hopefully we can slowly bring the level of production quality back up in other ways.
The Swag
This year was easily one of the best hauls that I’ve had in a while. I’m not saying Comic-Con should be about the free stuff, but it IS a big part of the experience. I was so happy to see that this year we were getting more than just stickers and posters! Everything in the photo below was just the free stuff alone, lots of really good substantial swag this year!
The only letdown? NO WEIRD SWAG FROM CONAIR. Conair wasn’t around this year to give out completely bizarre irrelevant swag. I was genuinely looking forward to tracking down whatever random stuff I could get from Conair to continue the “find the weirdest Conair freebie” tradition, guess I’ll have to stick with my nose hair trimmer and fabric shaver for now!
The People
The best part. Yes, we can make that “iT wAs the fRienDs wE maDe aLonG tHe wAy” joke all we want, but as I continue to go to Comic-Con year after year, the focus truly becomes more about the people. I got to meet several other amazing people who have also been generously dropping their work around Comic-Con for people to find, and kind followers who just wanted to say hello! Some gave me gifts, and it’s been such an overwhelming and heartwarming experience to meet everyone. I’ve historically kept to myself offline for privacy reasons, but opening up a bit more to meeting people in person was such a joy this year. Thank you to everyone who was so incredibly kind and warm to me, and thank you to everyone who’s followed along with me on my SDCC adventures year after year! I wouldn’t be where I am today with my goofy little hobby without all of you.
I’ll be the first to admit that I hadn’t been as excited about Comic-Con as usual over the last few years. Part of it was due to the circumstances of the pandemic, but it was mostly due to the overall slowdown in pop culture content. When there isn’t anything to be excited about, the entire mood of Comic-Con shifts accordingly. The convention felt like it’d been dwindling, but this was the first time in years that I felt like Comic-Con was finally back to being the crazy maelstrom of geekiness that we all know it to be. People were excited again, and it was contagious. If 2018-2023 were the slower years of Comic-Con, 2024 is the year things came roaring back. That’s another round of San Diego Comic-Con in the books for me, can’t wait to see what 2025 will bring!
