Saturday (July 26): 

7:46-9:00am – So, on Thursday, I was in the exhibit hall and noticed people carrying posters, there are some free ones that get passed out daily. When I saw the posters themselves, I did a double-take and freaked out! It was the 20th Anniversary poster for LucasFilm Animation which was given out earlier this year at Star Wars Celebration. The moment I saw it months ago, I knew if have to probably find it on eBay or something. So when I saw that poster, I rushed around to ask where people got it. It was of course at the Star Wars booth which is not been to yet. Once I got there, I learned that it was given out in the mornings and afternoon. At that time on Thursday it was around 4pm. So, on Friday, I went there at 2 something pm and they had already been given out. I couldn’t rely on the afternoon drop, so on Saturday, I waited in line to get into exhibit hall as early as I could to get one in the morning since that was the only exact time I knew they’d be given out. 

9:13am – at Star Wars booth, got the poster. 

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9:18am-2:10pm – Was in the exhibit hall.

I went to the Marvel booth for a photo with the Fantastic Four’s robot, H.E.R.B.I.E. and Marvel Unlimited exclusives, including a H.E.R.B.I.E. pin, an FF button and a Peach Momoko variant cover. 

Then, I got in line to meet the comic book artist Bilquis Evely at her booth! I got her to sign both the trade paperback and the hardback of Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow. I’d had Tom King sign them last year at Baltimore Comic Con, so it’s nice to have both the writer and the artist having signed them. I had meant to congratulate her on her Eisner that she won during the night before, but I totally forgot, so I’ll have to do that if I ever meet her again. 

I said hi to David Nakayama again with his FF shirt on. I always like stopping by artists who I’ve interacted with a lot online and end up meeting. Especially when they remember me and we chat and catch up. 

I visited with Hilly Hindi of Hillywood creation. I met her and her sister Hannah in 2022 also at SDCC. Once I showed her the photo from 2022 and my IG, she recognized me and was very happy to meet again. She does love Hillywood fans. We chatted a bit and I had to tell her that I wouldn’t be able to attend the panel because it was at the same time as another panel I always go to. She was like oh no! Haha. But it was such a lovely conversation. I’ll certainly try to meet her (and Hannah) whenever they attend SDCC. And one day I’ll get to the panel!! And this year there were huge reveals at the panel! Gahh! But yeah, I got a signed print and a photo. I also was wearing their most recent Hillywood shirt based on their upcoming parody. 

You know what? Pizza pretzels are very good. That was my lunch, haha. 

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2:10-4:00pm – This line was a lot. It’s of course not the longest SDCC line I’ve ever been in of course, but I think it was the longest line this year for me. I was in line for the ATLA merch panel. And it was this long because of the possibility of the MTG promo card. 

4:30-5:15pm – The Merch Nation: Avatar toys, games, action figures panel. The panel itself was nice. Most of the items were things that were on sale at the convention itself. But some were actual reveals. The best part of the panel was once they revealed that there would be giveaways via a trivia contest. Once the line was formed and the contest began, the entertainment also began! It was multiple choice shown on the screen and the prizes included a couple of all the products revealed during the panel and also the MTG promo card all signed by Mike and Bryan (the two creators of ATLA and LOK). All the men who rushed up to win the card FAILED SO HARD. They clearly barely knew about the show because even with the possibly answers on the screen in front of them, they still got the answers wrong. There were even times when three people picked each of the three wrong answers! Everyone else in the audience was reacting like crazy because we were like omg how could you get this wrong??? They were all really easy questions too. Of course the deserving actual ATLA fans won the prizes and the people who just wanted the cards were publicly humiliated by their own greed. That did make up for the fact that we all didn’t get the promo cards. We did all get a post card that was being given away elsewhere at the convention though.  

– I didn’t take many photos because a lot of what was shown was stuff I’d already seen on the exhibit floor.

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Before I left for the day I stopped by Artist alley again, my first stop was the famous artist Humberto Ramos’s booth. I bought some signed back-issues and talked to him about how much I enjoy his art, especially his work on Champions and Strange Acedemy. He said he loved Champions and was very appreciative of my kind words. Then I stopped by David Nakayama’s booth and chatted with him again about what I’d been doing during the day. 

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7:15-9:00pm – Finally, how I always end my Saturday night at SDCC, the Kevin Smith panel started. Usually it follows the Marvel Studios panel, but since there wasn’t a lot going on in Hall H that I wanted to see, I basically just walked into Hall H for this panel. As always, I laughed and laughed for two hours. I love ending my night with Kevin Smith’s panel. He always talks a lot and is such a great storyteller. Sometimes he repeats stories, but even then, his delivery is so good that it doesn’t matter.  Afterwards, I headed back to the hotel. 

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– Purchases of the day!

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Sunday (July 27):

Now, there was a big panel in Hall H on Sunday, but I just didn’t want to deal with all the hassle. That panel included George Lucas making his first SDCC appearance ever. So I just stuck to the one panel I had that day. 

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7:48am – get in line for Amphibia.

10:35-11:30 – The panel that day for me was the Amphibia panel with Matt Braly (the show’s creator). It was a wonderful look-back at the show and an intriguing look forward to the upcoming comic miniseries. It was nice to have this panel because as Matt said, when the final season of the show aired it was the pandemic, so there was no SDCC, and thus, no Amphibia panel. He said he really would have liked that to have happened. He and the other panelists (who were storyboard artists from the show) talked about the show’s art book and Marcy’s journal that were both made in collaboration with TokyoPop. I had actually forgotten that he was creating a comic set after the events of the show. So it was great to hear news about it. We got to see some promo art and then some unfinished pages from the first issue, the last page of which had us all tearing up from the emotions it brought down on us. I really enjoyed this panel. On the way out I saw podcast host Hector Narvarro sitting in the front row, he was there because his girlfriend is an anime voice actor and she was one of the panelists on the next one. We fist-bumped quickly. I had seen him back at SDCC 2019, also very briefly. 

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Right after that I met the voice actor Zeno Robinson!! I told him how much I enjoyed his role as Hunter on The Owl House and his other roles. I told him that he’s the second Owl House actor I’ve met, last April I met Mela Lee (Kikimora) at AwesomeCon. And I mentioned what I got to see at the Amphibia panel and he was excited about that. 

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Next, I was in the exhibit hall for a while. I stopped by to chat with David Nakayama again. Later, I went to the artist Kehusak’s booth. I’ve met the artist a number of times at AwesomeCon and past SDCC’s. We chatted for a while on how the convention has been and stuff. 

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Last year I saw Ryan Meinerding’s booth on Sunday but he was gone already. He’s the Head of Visual Development for Marvel Studios!! You’ll have seen his concept designs all over the place over the past 19 years. I told him I love his designs, that I have all the art books and his comic variants, and thanked him for his hard work over the 19 years. I took a photo with him. And then I left and came back to buy a print and get my marvel poster signed since I was like oh, I should definitely have him sign it! 

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As I walked over to somewhere else, I said a quick hi to Timothy Zahn (creator of Grand Admiral Thrawn and Star Wars novel author). I told him I’d met him at a couple different conventions. I also stopped by David Mack’s booth for a moment and told him I’d see him again at AwesomeCon or next year’s SDCC.

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On my way out, I said goodbye to David Nakayama, he was happy to have chatted with me again and we said we’d see each other at next year’s SDCC. 

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The final SDCC thing I did was go to the Doctor Who pop-up at The Harbor Club. UNIT’s Black Archive. It had a bunch of props and prop replicas from Doctor Who. It hd two parts, a photo-op out front in front of the current TARDIS console and a room that had all the props and stuff. It was made to look like the Black Archive from the show. There was also a nighttime version of the pop-up where it seeming like an escape room or something where you find clues and such but I couldn’t go to that. I will make a separate post about this and another Doctor Who-related thing I did on Monday. 

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Posters I got from the Black Archive:

I head back to the hotel after that. And that’s that! 

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Like other years, I really enjoyed being at San Diego Comic Con. I love the grandness of it all and how the city embraces it like with decorating building with ads and stuff. It’s just an amazing experience. Till next year! 

(I did visit the Comic Con Museum on Monday July 28th, so I’m going to make a post about that too, though that will mainly be many photos.)