San Diego Comic Con 2026 (July 22-26) – Post 1

SDCC 2026 is past me! It was as fun a trip as ever! I met new people, people I’d met before, bought some cool things, and walked and stood around A LOT. Perhaps too much on some days. Here’s the trip!:

–

Tuesday (July 21st):

Left for the airport at 5:56am. The moment I stepped out of the car I realized the most aggravating thing. I’d forgotten my SDCC badge at home!! The one thing that was necessary to enter the convention. So we decided to have it overnighted via UPS. When I got to my gate, I FaceTimed with my parents so they could find the badge. I took off from Dulles at 8:33am. And landed in San Diego at 10:09am and was in my room by 12:20. I waited while they found a room for me. As usual, it was nice to have time to relax and prepare before the convention started. Though I also wanted to type up some comic related things that I hadn’t been able to finish before I left. Then I caught up on social media and took a shower. I got dinner at the hotel which was nice, but I may have ordered too much! But I did get an enjoyable drink that I continued ordering almost every night. And since I was on the west coast, I didn’t have to wait till 3am to watch the new episode of X-Men 97 S2! I slept around 1am. I also bought a few sandwiches that I’d be using for breakfast on the convention days when I knew I wouldn’t have time to get breakfast.

–

Wednesday (July 22nd):

I had breakfast at the hotel which was nice since it was a buffet-style. And my badge arrived at 10am, which was a big relief. Then I typed up my comic book store sub list that I update every Saturday since I knew that doing that on the 25th would be too complicated to do. That took around 3 hours. I then caught up on socials because I had to remember to account for the time change and watch things before they expired. After that, I spent 3 hours looking at SDCC 2026 screenshots I’ve been taking for months, to see which exclusives I wanted, and where I’d be going on each day. i had planned to do that over the weekend before I left, but that didn’t work out. I managed to type out all the days expect not much of Sunday’s schedule. There didn’t seem to be any panels that I wanted to go to, so I just assumed I’d be buying things that I missed buying on Thursday. Dinner was at 8 and slept around 12:30am.

–

Thursday (July 23rd):

I woke up at 5:30 and walked over to leave on the 7am shuttle. I got there at 7:30 and walked in to get my lanyard and merch bag that we get a new version of every year. And of course this year I didn’t have my usual lanyard with me since I forgot my badge, so it was nice to attach the badge and not have to worry about it.

–

Since I didn’t have an early morning panel. I just went to the exhibit hall line for an hour. Then for the next 9 hours (9:17am-6:20pm) I was running around from booth to booth trying to get as many exclusives that I could from my list before they sold out and also so I wouldn’t have to worry about getting them on Sunday.

–

9:20-9:39am – I went to Stuart NG Books booth to meet Stanley “Artgerm” Lau. He’s one of my top comic book cover artists. I told him how much of a fan I am of his art. That his were the first variants that convinced me to start getting variant covers. His Supergirl variant from Supergirl 12 (2017). He thanked me and was very appreciative. I got two prints from him.

–

I then stopped by a booth that I found last year in order to get a plastic sleeve for the two artgerm prints that I got.

–

9:59-10:05am – next was going to the Nickelodeon booth for the BossLogic ATLA print. It looks pretty great. I love his art.

–

10:34-11:00am – The next booth I attempted to get stuff from was Hasbro. And unfortunately, I watched the main item that I wanted get sold out before I could get it. So, I only got a MTG Secret Lair set.

–

11:25-11:35pm – After that, I met Marc Guggenheim (CW Arrowverse director and writer, also comic writer) I told him that I appreciated all his work in the Arrowverse and his comics work. I bought a signed production script of the Arrow pilot. I showed him some tweets and other posts that he’d interacted with me online recently and he recognized them and was happy to meet me. We chatted about physical media and all that’s going on there and I talked about living in DC. Then I mentioned a kickstarter that I supported 3 years ago, the Unofficial Legends book that someone from production of that show has been making. It took a while for me to find the page since it’d been 3 years since the project was funded. Once he recognized it, he said that he’d recently written the forward for the book.

–

11:45-11:56 – As I was on the way to another booth, I saw that the legendary Paul Dini was here again this year. Last year I’d wanted to meet him but couldn’t get to it. He’s one of the co-creators of the Batman: The Animated Series from the 90’s. He and Bruce Timm crafted the old DC animated universe and it was just such a joy to meet him. I got a couple prints signed and a photo with him. As he signed them, I mentioned how wonderful his work has been and talked about how I got to see and hear Kevin Conroy sign something for me on a livestream before he passed. I also mentioned meeting Will Freidle a few times at conventions. He was really nice.

–

12:00-12:08pm – As I was walking I saw a familiar booth. I saw that Steven E. Gordon was here again. I mentioned meeting him last year. He’s the lead character designer for the X-Men Evolution animated series that aired after the original X-Men animated series ended. This time, I got a flip book of a scene from the show and a painted illustration of Rogue. That was pricey indeed.

–

12:20-12:22pm – as I passed his table, I said a very quick hi to Jeph Loeb, I mentioned meeting him a couple times. He was very kind as usual. I had meant to go back and chat with him, but I forgot.

–

12:30-12:38pm – I then headed over to the talented Andy Park’s booth. He WAS one of the lead character concept designers for Marvel Studios since 2011 ish and the Visual Development Supervisor since 2017 before Disney fired hundreds of visuals artists a few months ago. I thanked him for all his hard work over the years and booed Disney for firing him. He was very appreciative of that. It was a nice chat and his family was there helping him out. I got a Kitty Pryde drawing for a podcast host friend who I was going to meet up with at some point. And I got a print of one of the scenes from Wolverine and Deadpool where we see a brown suit Logan about to fight Hulk who’s reflected in his claws. Also, (he mentioned this online beforehand too) he directed fans toward the Marvel booth where they literally are using his Avengers Doomsday art in a logo.

–

1:02-1:27pm – Every year I see the wonderful David Nakayama. He’s an amazing comic cover artist, I have so many covers by him. This time I got his two Witchblade variants, a Spider-Man key ring and I got some comics, that I brought with me, signed, as well as the new ones that I bought. We just chatted about random stuff on and off for a bit.

–

1:30-1:53pm – I had noticed this artist while walking around this area. He had worked on MTG art, so I thought about stopped by. His name is John Stanko (MTG artist) I flipped through the binder of his cards and saw a card that I recognized. I got an Artist proof of the card Sedge Scorpion! As he drew (another scorpion) proof on the back of the card, we c hatted about Wizards inability to make a MTG movie or animated show and the logistics and such. He mad e a lot of good points. And I got a photo with him.

–

1:55-2:12pm – After circling this booth for a while, the artist finally arrived and his line was short enough that I could get in. I met Gabriel Picolo again! He’s a wonderful artist who has such a playful art style. He mainly does DC graphic novels set in his own DC universe. He does the covers and the interiors. I reminded him that I had met him back during his Raven book tour in 2019. I thanked him for his work and said that I love his art. I got a print of Raven. He recognized my IG account and was very excited to meet me again. He praised my positive comments online on his work and such. We talked about hoping that he gets to do animation one day.

–

2:18-2:23pm – Then since he was free, I very quickly got a photo with Artgerm since I’d forgotten to earlier in the day.

–

2:24-2:41pm – I walked to Marvel and Star Wars booths since I’d not been to them yet. I took a bunch of photos of the displays and enjoyed seeing concept art and costumes for both. I also was told by a woman working at the Marvel booth that the line was very short for the Marvel Unlimited exclusives. So I got the ones that I wanted.

–

2:43-2:55pm – Another artist whose booth I frequent every year (even at other conventions) is Kehasuk. He’s such a fantastic artist with such a fantastic styles I got some of his new pins from his MP3 set. He also said that on Sunday, when I came back to get one of his gold prints, that he’ll mail it to me.

–

3:00-3:02pm – Since I passed the Random House booth, I got a copy of the new Star Wars novel: Star Wars: Legacy which came with an exclusive convention dustcover! I already preordered the book but it’s nice that I can have one with this cover instead of having to swap the covers repeatedly.

–

3:05-3:55 – One problem with conventions is that there is never any good places to sit and charge a device or just to sit down. Everywhere is a safety hazard, there are designated areas but they are very far away from where the exhibit hall is, and so it just not efficient to go all the way to those areas when you’re trying to keep on your schedule. So, I found a place to sit and I ate ice cream. I also charged my phone. The ice cream that I got was one that I first got last year, Superman ice cream! It’s vanilla (dyed yellow), blue raspberry and Raspberry. And again, it’s SO good!

–

4:00pm-4:06pm – There are a few different ways to get exclusives at SDCC. One way is to sign up for the Exclusives lottery and hope that you get access to the booth that has the items that you want. This year, I wasn’t lucky with that and I got none. Another way is just showing up at the booth and getting the item (if it’s still available). Another way is preordering them and having them shipped to you. And yet another way is preordering the items and getting them at the convention. The toy brand of Tamashi Nations did the latter again this year. Once my chosen time arrived, I just walked over, showed them my ID and got my items.

–

4:09-4:35pm – Just before leaving for the day, I met-up with a couple friends. First, I hung out with Bella. As always, I’m happy that we still connect so many years after college. We walked and chatted for a bit.

–

4:36-6:00pm – Next, I met-up again with Christian Bladt (a podcaster who I’ve followed for years after he took over a podcast that I’ve watched for over a dozen years. We met in the room that he was heading for which was hosting Rob Liefeld’s live podcast, Robservations. Basically he just talks about stuff, comic stuff or life stuff or whatever. He is the creator of Deadpool and Cable among other comic book characters.