It was finally here. The whole reason we came to the US in the first place. Comic Con, aka nerd heaven. After meeting up with some other awesome Australian friends, we road tripped it down from LA to San Diego (or a whale’s vagina – I needed to get that over and done with quickly :p). The road trip was fun in itself and for quite a lot of it we were accompanied by an Apache helicopter which was a little daunting as well.

Once we arrived we checked into our very swanky hotel, looked out the window to a view of the the convention centre. Yup, we were walking distance. The money was totally worth it.

Now I didn’t take as many photos as I thought I would. It was just too overwhelming! There were around 200,000 people concentrated in one area of San Diego for 4 days. It was nuts! George and I had decided way earlier that we were not going to be bothered lining up for panels in Hall H as we didn’t want to squander our experience in the world’s longest line ride. I’m glad we didn’t either because the line for the Saturday panels (so your big DC, Marvel, Star Wars news etc) started from THURSDAY! Yup people camped in line for days.

Just walking in on that first day, lining up with everyone else to get onto the main floor was just awesome. There were so many amazing cosplays around that it made me quite disappointed that I didn’t get to finish mine. One day I will, and I will get more into cosplay…but that is another story! So as we shuffled in like sheep and had our first glimpse through the doors, both of our minds were blown. The sheer amount of people, all the things, the sounds the craziness, I could not have imagined anything like it. So we just kinda wandered and took everything in.

The whole 4 days were jam packed with looking around the floor, picking up some exclusive things, checking out all the artists work in artist alley, talking with the writers and illustrators of comics, it was just awesome. There were some amazing set ups in the exhibition hall by DC, Marvel and Star Wars that every time you wandered through you would find something else to be amazed at.

The best thing about it all though was how generally awesome and friendly everyone was. There really were no jerks that we came across and people just seemed to care about each other. It was amazing to be apart of.

So lets get to some photos:

The obligatory going down those escalators for the first time looking through the rings of the convention centre shot.

One of our favourite cosplays. I mean look, it is Whorediot! George actually said “Hey look it’s Whorediot” when we saw them out of the exhibition floor and she laughed.

Our other favourite cosplay. We both love the Mass Effect franchise (we were disappointed there was not more about Andromeda here but eh). Everything was made by the dude in the Legion cosplay. He even had rigged up a screen at the front which made it look like there was a hole where he had been shot so you could see straight through. It was genius. I am sad I didn’t take more pics of the cosplays but they are all over the internet anyway. So I just wanted to mention our favourites.

Stuff happened around the Con as well. This was a street walk/hype thing for the next Sharknado movie. It was pretty funny to see.

Sigh. This is as close as I was able to get to Conan O’Brien (you can see him through the hand rail). My only sadness about the whole trip was that I didn’t get to see a taping of his show. Especially the Comic Con ones. Can’t have it all I guess :p

Our amazing friends also surprised us with tickets to see the outdoor Pokemon symphony which was just awesome. We had a front row table and were waited on. That’s how we roll. Anyway, the nostalgia was so great as they played through a selection of the music from all the games. I had such fun!

They also surprised us with tickets to Hop Con which is a side thing run by Will Wheaton (Whill Wheaton) where we got to chill out and try some tasty and occasionally strange beers. We also met Aisha Tyler (voice of Lana on Archer) who was so super sweet and spoke to everyone equally whilst pulling beers.

I have to say though, one of my highlights was on the Sunday afternoon, when George and I realised that the creators of Ben 10 and Big Hero 6 had a stall. We found out that the lead illustrator was around for signings, so we lined up as George is a massive fan. We then found out that the person in front of us was the last in line, so George was all sad. Eventually he let me work my magic and the lead illustrator came back at 4pm (1hr before all of Comic Con closed) to sign something for George. Little to our knowledge, he actually drew a Ben 10 live in front of us and quite happily answered any questions I had as George was too starstruck to ask. Needless to say, that picture that was drawn especially for George was probably one of the highlights of his whole trip and it was awesome to talk to someone who has done so much in the industry.

So in summary, I loved Comic Con. Would I go back? Not for a while, but it was on my bucket list and it was so much fun. Can I go to Australian cons after? Not for a while. They are just not the same in scale. Do I really want to cosplay now? Absolutely and it has really made we want to get my creative side back on. One day I will finish that Malon costume…one day.

Sadly, this is the end of our American adventure blogs, but stay tuned because from tomorrow onward I will be starting a daily blog with my musings. You will either love it or hate it. I don’t really care either way :p