Friday (July 24th):

This year’s Friday was back to normal since all the studios were back. 

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5:30am – Woke up.

6:55am – Walked down to shuttle

7:01am – left for convention center on shuttle.

7:29am – arrived 

7:31-7:49am – walked

7:49-9:33am – waited in line for Lucasfilm publishing panel. 

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10:00-11:07am – Lucasfilm Publishing panel included the panelists: Ahmed Best, Kristin Baver, Michael Siglain, Anthony Breznican, Ashley Poston, and Kiersten White. They chatted about current and upcoming books and comics. They talked about the Mandalorian and Grogu art book. Also talked about the High Republic (survivors of the stormwall)’s collected editions and the new Pathfinders comic. There is more to come from the High Republic. They mentioned the Fall of Kylo Ren comic miniseries that starts in a month or so. We got to see a first look at in-world history book: Star Pilots: A History of Space Combat. We learned about the first book in the SW50 line: Star Wars: A Celebration by Pablo Hidalgo with Anthony Breznican and more. It looks at the whole 50 years throughout multimedia. Then they talked about Vader by Anthony Breznican with Hayden Christensen. It’s about everyone who has contributed to Vader’s story over the past 50 years across all media. There are more genre stories to come. They will focus on genres over focusing on Star Wars. They should be interesting reads. Eyes like Stars (romance) is the first (pitched as Star Tours: the romance). It’s set right before The Force Awakens. Another is Hiding from the Dark (horror for kids in SW). Next year, Twin Crossroads by Beth Revis is coming to us. It’s about Luke and Leia learning more about their parents, and is set while Leia was Jedi-training with him. It’s also right after Princess and the Scoundrel. We will learn where Leia got her Kyber crystal for her saber from. Ahmed Best talked about his Jar Jar comic written with Marc Guggenheim. He said that he grew up reading marvel comics and working on this was a dream come true. In October he’ll be working on Star Wars Reads. He talked about having dinner with James Earl Jones where they bonded over being recognized for one single role by the public. 

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10:58-12:00pm – I attempted to go to the Marvel Legends panel but the line for the room that it was in is so packed that the panel started and ended while I was in line. But I also left early because I had to book-it to a different building for another panel before booking it back to the same area afterwards. 

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12:00-12:20pm – Surprisingly, it only took 20 minutes to get to the Indigo Ballroom at the Hilton for MAWS panel.

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12:08pm- On the way there extremely quickly saw another host of the podcast that Christian hosts, Katie Hampton. We said the quickest of hi’s and I headed off. 

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12:20-12:45pm – By the time I got to the Indigo Ballroom there were one and a hal panels before the one I wanted to watch. So I watched them too. The first one was for season 2 of the Adult Swim cartoon, Common Side Effects. It was a fun and weird show. 

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1:00-1:45pm – Next was I think the a debit of a new Adult Swim cartoon that’s spinning out of Rick & Morty. President Curtis. This was the premiere panel. The pilot I guess had been released online already, so they showed up ep 6. Then the actual panel was Dam Harmon and the cast of the show. It’s a great cast! Season 2 was confirmed. 

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2:00-2:46pm – The panel I awaited was the My Adventures with Superman S3 panel. But first, they showed us tomorrow (Saturday)’s episode. I was hoping for that since I knew that I wouldn’t have any time to watch it till Sunday. After the episode was the panel of course. The cast all talked about the season and the future. I had been hoping for something more about the spin-off, but nope. But it was a great panel. 

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2:47-3:09pm – Then I walked back to convention center and got into the line for the ATLA publishing panel. 

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3:09-4:00pm – Since I got there early, the previous panel was ending. No Capes Required: Women Powering Pop Culture panel. Janet Hsieh (Fun Taiwan), AJ Mendez (WWE pro wrestler), Anjali Bhimani (Ms. Marvel), Carolina Ravassa(Overwatch), Helen Shang (The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power), and Silenn Thomas (CEO, Frank Miller Ink) were the panelists. It was a good panel. They talked about their experiences as women in their jobs and how it’s been positive and negative. For this panel, we got a little merch ticket that I would later have to bring to the Manchester Grand Hyatt for a poster. That will be a whole thing when you get to reading that. 

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4:15-5:15pm – Next was of course the ATLA Publishing panel (Fire, Earth, Water, Air: Continuing the Avatar Legacy). They talked about various publishing projects, current and new. Most of them I knew about already from last year, or from promotions on social media. But it was still a good panel to sit in, plus the poster! I hope that we get so much more from the comics and novels. 

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5:16-5:57pm – After that, it was finally time to walk to, and wait in, the Ballroom 20 line. 

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5:58-7:00pm – Since I was there earlier, I caught the middle of the God of War Laufey: Forging God of War’s next Heroes. Panel. The hosts were Ariel Lawrence (game director, God of War Laufey) and Cory Barlog (head of creative, Santa Monica Studio) lead a conversation with the cast including Deborah Ann Woll (Laufey), Christopher Judge (Kratos), Jack Quaid(Phranque), and Perlina Lau (Rue). They talked about the game and their experiences recording for it and interacting with each other. It was a fun panel. Though, right when I got there, it seems like I missed the little promo item that they gave out in a dice bag or something. The person I was sat next to tried to get on for me but it didn’t work out. It was such a lovely gesture. 

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7:00-8:45pm – So. I’ve collected the omnibuses of the ATLA comics since 2018. I’d still not read them yet. But I felt that I had to before seeing this movie (whether I got into the screening or I just watched it on my computer). So, before I left for San Diego, I found time and binge-read through all the ATLA omnibuses!!! I still have to read the Korra ones, but I can wait to do that till maybe next month or September, just before the new show comes out. But this night was to see the glory of Avatar Aang: The Last Airbender. The cast and Mike and Brian came out quickly to introduce the movie and show their appreciation for the fans. It was such a great movie! And by the visuals alone, it still deserves a world-wide theatrical run. Hopefully, Paramount can make the right choice. They tend to care more about the streaming service than the actually projects being made. But yeah, it was such an amazing experience seeing the movie with over 4000 fans of the show reacting and screaming and laughing and everything to the movie. The highlight of the trip I think.

• 8:46-8:58pm – walk to shuttle 
• 8:58pm-9:05pm – Wait for shuttle
• 9:20pm – Arrive at hotel.
• 9:50-10:24pm – dinner

• 10:42-11:25pm – shower
• 12:00am – sleep

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Saturday (July 25): 

So. On Friday morning while I was on shuttle, I noticed that on some social media posts, people were saying that the line for Saturday wristbands was already extremely long. Because of that, I decided not to attempt the wristband line on Friday afternoon/night, plus that I wouldn’t have been able to get in line till 5pm. On a normal year, that would have been fine. But not this year. Since I didn’t have a wristband, I had to wake up at 3am, a lovely two hours sleep to set me up for the day. 

• 3:00am – Wake
• 4:24-4:50am – wait for uber to con.
• 4:55-5:25am – got on and travelled on shuttle instead.
• 5:26-5:46am – walk to line. 
• 5:46am-7:10pm – waited in line to get into Hall H with non-wristband people.

• 10:50am – non-wristband line started to move!
• 11:13am – Got under the tents! 
• 7:03pm – Hall H let out and all everyone came out with the Doom masks and cloaks. I also saw Coy Jandreau and his wife quickly as they left Hall H. 

• 7:10pm – got into Hall H. 
• 7:15-8:45pm – Kevin Smith panel. Always a joy of all time. 

• 8:48-8:57pm – walked to shuttle stop
• 9:08-9:29pm – catch shuttle to hotel. 
• 9:35-10:40pm- ate dinner, 
• 10:50-12:20pm – shower
• 1:00am – Sleep

So, basically, they under-anticipated the Marvel hype. Also, last year there were no studios at SDCC and this year they returned. Also, it’s an Avengers movie year. All those things and probably more led to what happened. Normally, people leave Hall H as panels end and that clears space for them to let in the people in line. That didn’t really happen. The hall was filled up once at 11:13 and then less than 50 people left between then and the Marvel Studios panel. So the rest of us were in line for the whole day. When the non-wristband people got under the white tents, it normally would have taken maybe an hour or two for us to get into Hall H. Even though that was frustrating to experience, the day ending as usual, with Kevin Smith’s panel was as funny and enjoyable as ever. It certainly helped my mood. But my feet/legs weren’t happy with all that standing and sitting. More on that later.