Sunday (July 26th):

I woke at 6 to catch the 7am shuttle because I had to get there to hopefully get the last exclusives that I’d missed on Thursday. 

As soon as I got into the exhibit hall at 9:10, I went to the Mondo booth to get an art print. Almost everything was sold out. I was a bit confused. Then I was like okay, I guess I can get into the Hasbro line now and not have to worry about the long line. Almost everything sold out there too. On the way to the next booth I met a Lego influencer who I follow briefly, he was in a rush, but recognized my name and was nice. At the next booth the item I wanted was also sold out (but when I got back to DC I realized that I already had that exclusive, it was a repeat one). 

Next I went to a booth with a few artists there that I have comic cover by. I initially thought that the exclusive KyuYong Eom cover that I wanted was sold out, but it wasn’t, so I got it! There was an artist that I wanted to meet, but she was on the phone and it didn’t seem like she’d be done  any time soon. But it was cool to just see Natalie Sanders. 

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Next was a model kit for a character from Marvel Rivals. I haven’t played the game, but this version of the character was orange, which is my favorite color, and it looked good, so I got it. 

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For the next 2 hours, I hung around Kehasuk’s booth. Kris and I chatted when he didn’t have a customer, I bought the gold print to be mailed to my house, and I also gave people information on prices for his booth since I’d been there long enough to memorize them, haha. Plus it was nice to help him out a bit so he didn’t have to keep explaining the prices and deals. (I’ll add photos of the print here after it arrives)

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At this point I’d decided to leave soon. So, I headed towards David Nakayama’s booth since I always end there. But on the way, I saw a sign that caught my eye. 

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The sign that I noticed said that this artist worked on the upcoming Avatar series Seven Havens. And I was like hmm, I think I’d like something from a character designer on the show. Sara Kipin is her name and she had a Pavi print. (She is the next Avatar). As the purchase was happening, we chatted about the show and her experience on it (she’s been working on it for 3 years and she’s almost done so she was both excited about the show coming out soon and sad to be almost done with it). We also talked about the original show, the drama with the Aang movie release, and our frustration with the live action series. It was a lovely conversation! 

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Then I got to Nakayama’s booth and hung out there for 30 something minutes. I told him of my harrowing Saturday and we chatted about stuff between him signing covers and eating his lunch. It’s always nice to chat with him to end my Sunday at SDCC. I left earlier than normal just because I still had to pick up my poster from the Hyatt and I could feel that my feet were going to give up on me sooner than later. But first, ice cream! 

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Now, the actual walk to the Hyatt was 20 minutes, but in the heat, with my feet feeling like they did, it felt like it took an hour to get there. I got there and the people giving out the posters applauded every person who arrived to get a poster. That was nice lol. But it was even more nice that there was cold water in the next hallway. I waited for a few mins yes to rest my feet. Then I started the walk back to the shuttle area. That took 29 minutes, but again. It felt like an hour. At this point I really was feeling my feet were just done. 

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It was nice to finally get to the shuttle and back to the hotel. With that, SDCC was over! I had wanted to go to one of the experiences outside the convention center, but I just didn’t have the energy and my feet were killing me. So-much-so that my right ankle was a little bit swollen. I showered, had dinner and just relaxed till sleep. 

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Monday (July 27):

I basically did nothing other than packed, watched videos and recovered from my ankle swelling. Since I basically hadn’t eaten lunch for all these days, I orders some! It was National chicken tender day apparently, hence the choice. Also. Ube pie is so good!

And I also ordered dinner from a couple places too. Ube cheesecake is also so good.

Tuesday (July 28):

I had breakfast at the buffet again and then checked out and left for the airport.

I was a little stressed over my luggage situation since I always have an extra bag. But it all went well thankfully. It was a good flight home, I basically started typing all this up for the whole 4+ hour flight (other than when I was drifting off to sleep for some reason lol). And I just finished typing this version out on Wednesday at 1:15pm. 

Being at San Diego Comic Con is always an adventure. Whether things go badly or well, I love being there with all these people who enjoy some and all of these franchises that I love. It’s such a unique experience. I’m already excited for next year! Haha. Though, now I have to figure out where to stay in LA next April since I’ll be there for Star Wars Celebration! Anyone in LA close enough to the LA convention center? XD 

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. 

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!:

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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. 

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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.

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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. 

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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. 

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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.

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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. 

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

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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. 

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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. 

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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. 

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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. 

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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.  

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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. 

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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. 

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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. 

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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. 

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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.

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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.  

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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. 

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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. 

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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! 

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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. 

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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. 

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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. 

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6:02-6:50pm – From walking to the shuttle to traveling back to the hotel. 

7:07-8:31pm – socials

8:45pm-9:00pm – Picked up dinner downstairs with another Cucumber Gimlit, the aforementioned drink that I had so many of. Ate food and then showered. 

1:45am – Sleep