Hey Rob, I’m going to turn our twitter conversation into a comic with you in it. Is that cool? It is? Thanks! You’re such a good and loyal friend.
Special thanks to @Chriurgic, @SvenTSexgore and @PatrickAT who tweeted the punchline at me at almost the exact same moment.
COMMENTERS: When/where have you gone that you were the most cut off from the news and happenings of the rest of the world? Did you feel left out when you got back?
Comments (19)
Here are some sketches from San Diego Comic-Con. Enjoy them IF YOU DARE. I’ve barely begun to recover from last week, despite my tight regimen of sleeping 2 or 3 days for every day I’m awake and eating nothing but coffee and artificial sweetener.
Please visit my store and my sharksplode and purchase things. It would put a smile on the hole where my face used to be (I left so much in San Diego).
Also check out this story I posted on my Tumblr about a really touching moment I witnessed at SDCC this year.
Comments (10)
Ceri · 99 weeks ago
I always love your post-Con Fancy Sketches posts, and this contains some of the most awesomest yet!
Tony · 99 weeks ago
I think I could forgive Moffat for most* of Series 6 and 7 if he would work “The Sharknado has the Phonebox” into the 50th Anniversary Special…*The episodes written by Neil Gaiman need no forgiving. Same with “Cold War” and all the time Jenny, Vastra, and/or Strax were on screen, and there’s probably a few others that weren’t overly painful, but they’re not coming to me right now. And then, of course, there’s things that even a Sharknado can’t forgive, like poorly compositing JLC screaming “Doctor!” into a bunch of clips from the old show, or pretending that a Weeping Angel Statue of Liberty makes any sense… or trying to cram that whole River Song mythos into like 2 exposition-heavy messes of episodes.
lou · 99 weeks ago
I still don’t get how that whole “Statue-of-Liberty-is-really-an-Angel” thing was supposed to work. Did they steal the real statue and replace it with ne of their own?
Kayley · 98 weeks ago
whereas I just kept wondering how it was supposed to move considering how many tourists would be looking at the statue at any given moment!The Mad Fetter needs to be revisted into its own shirt.I read an interview where Moffatt said something like, “It’s a TV show,” to explain that particular plot device.Was Willis at least wearing pants during your Skypes? 😀Everyone that’s seen the Sharknado/Who mash up (or as I call it, SharknadWHO) has loved it. Thanks again, Joel.Cory · 98 weeks ago
Am I the first to point out the last panel should read as: “He asked David Willis and me to ‘draw what you see when you two are Skyping.'”?
I have yet to emerge from my Post-SDCC Recuperation Pod, so please enjoy this guest comic by my wonderful friend Lar. I ran into Lar in the airport on the way back to Dallas (after sharing a booth with him for 5 days), and he literally tossed this off on my Surface Pro in about 20 minutes. The man is an art machine. He’s like a guy that was going to be rude to a gypsy, but instead he helped her carry her grocery bags to her car and she cursed him with unfathomable talent.
Lar makes more professional grade art in his spare time than most artists do in their entire miserable lives (artists are known for having miserable lives. This is a science fact). On a whim me made me a con badge featuring my travel tormenters, the #BLOODWOLVES, which borrowed art from his last #BLOODWOLVES guest comic (under which you can read a post that explains what #BLOODWOLVES are all about). The badge seems to have acted as a talisman against the curses of the #BLOODWOLVES since I had almost no travel travesties going to or from SDCC this year. It also seems to have deflected their wrath to my friends since both Lar and David missed (or nearly missed) their flights. They are probably just chasing David because he is covered in my scent.
Please be sure to check out Lar’s Tumblr, his comic, his other comic, his print shop and his t-shirt store.
UPDATE 7/23/13: Also check out this story I posted on my Tumblr about a really touching moment I witnessed at SDCC this year.
Comments (5)
Have faith in humanity, Joel… http://media.boingboing.net/wp-content/uploads/20……So this isn’t what you look like on the last day of ComicCon after the mysterious zombification wandering? 😀
Katlamos · 99 weeks ago
Just read that tumblr post. Nope, those aren’t tears. It’s just very dusty in here.
By the time you see this comic, the conclusion to my five part series of SDCC predictions, the con will technically be over. I will likely be more cognizant and in good health than my illustrated adventures would suggest, but only just barely. I had a revelation about San Diego Comic-Con this year. In the years, months and weeks leading up to the show I posted some rather negative thoughts about the SDCC exhibitor experience. It’s too big, too poorly organized, too expensive, too not focused on comics… etc, etc. These things are all still true, but most of them are true (in some way) of most North American conventions. I finally realized that there are two contributing factors that make SDCC seem like such a monster by comparison. They are A) The 2 extra days and B) the 100,000 extra people.
Let me explain. Regarding A), most comic conventions are 3 days long, Friday through Sunday. Anime conventions are usually 4 days, but you can easily skip the first day as most anime kids are in school on Thursday. You can also skip the next day as well as the two following days, because most anime conventions are macabre pits of despair and torment. San Diego, on the other hand, is 5 days. 5 ACTUAL days. The show starts properly on Wednesday and there are 10’s of thousands of people there on Wednesday ready to go go go! That means you really need to be there on Tuesday to set up, if not first thing Wednesday morning. Even then, you still might be flying in on Tuesday and either way you’ve committed almost a solid week to this show. This is all compounded by the fact that due to its size and scope, one day at SDCC feels like 4 at any other show. By the time you crawl out of the airplane and back into your own bed, you’ve lost the mental, and emotional equivalent of at least a year. When you break it down, no 1 day of SDCC is that draining or even unpleasant at all. It’s the week that you lose that makes it feel that way.
Concerning B), there is no other comic type convention in the world where 100,000+ people attend the show (ie are walking around on the show floor), and an ADDITIONAL 100,000ish people are just IN SAN DIEGO for some reason. I mean people that don’t have show floor badges, but are still in town for parties, panels, offsite events and shmoozing. This means any time you try to pop outside for a quick lunch, you are immediately sucked up in a veritable sharknado of human beings. A humnado, if you will. The noise and congestion and chaos created by all of these additional bodies makes the streets outside of the convention extremely unwelcoming and tumultuous, especially if you aren’t a huge fan of crowds.
Add to both of these factors that the hotel lottery for SDCC is a fucking nightmare, and the airlines jack up their prices for all San Diego flights for that week and you’ve got a really fantastic, amazing, extremely special event that ends up feeling like a life-sucking, anarchistic struggle for survival. It really isn’t that, though. It’s the former. It’s quite the spectacle and something of a Mecca for geeks, nerds, fans and fun-havers. I’m going to strive to remind myself how lucky I am to get to do things like San Diego Comic-Con for MY ACTUAL JOB, and complain less about the minor inconveniences. I’m also going to stop suggesting people, fans and exhibitors alike, stay away from the show at all cost. It’s a worthy pilgrimage. Even if you only make it once, you should probably make it.
My friend Lar said (repeating something he’d heard during the con), “SDCC is like mowing your front lawn. If you enjoy it, you’re weird, but if you don’t do it for awhile people start to worry about you.” That’s incredibly right, but I am going to try and be more like the weird guy that enjoys it, instead of the guy I am now who probably wishes he could ignore it and make it go away. That said, please don’t hold me to any of this come late June next year.
When this week is over, would anyone be interested in a poster/print of all 5 days on one page?
COMMENTERS: What event/time of year do you both love and dread?
Comments (27)
Oh! Here first am I. So I’ll do my tumblr comment againe:eeeeeeeeeeeeeeEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE <HORK>
That is what it seems like to me.
Also I seem to have puked in the comment system as a matter of solidarity. My left arm is encased in some sort of well-articulated chromed and hot-glued foam-board which is very clever in terms of technique but is not actually a costume, as I have not left the house for four days.Am I robot?
There is beer.
There is a certain group of family members that I tend to dread seeing around holidays. It may not be the same thing as an event you were asking about of course, but my cousins literally have an Uncle Stepdad. So…that.Uh, dude, Comiket started cracking 500k in the middle Oughts. Admittedly, Comiket is pretty stripped-down and could arguably be better-described as a truly enormous artist’s alley rather than a traditional convention, but still – 560,000 bodies, all passing through one, admittedly enormous, convention center. And they do it twice a year.SDCC is probably the event that mostly closely corresponds to Comiket, but we’re still talking about something five times the size of SDCC.
Pretty sure I mentioned North American cons as the focus of my essay.
bowtiesarecool · 99 weeks ago
I can’t imagine a worse place to be for an non-Japanese speaker…
Lily · 98 weeks ago
Not to mention all that stuff he specifically mentioned about the EXTRA PEOPLE IN TOWN FOR TANGENTIALLY-RELATED CRAP, which Comike (and Japan Expo) don’t do.Well so far ComicCon IS the time of year I love/dread, because I’m never able to go, so all I get are awesome pictures and stories and a deeply seated longing to subject my own self to such abuses of excess.And people wonder why I love going to Dragon*Con. Not nearly as crowded and just as much fun! If not more!Love and dread? October through Christmas, because Halloween and pies at Thanksgiving and, hey, Christmas, but mall parking lots become stress-inducing nightmare zombie mobs, yet my wife insists on bringing me for my uncanny ability to get the closest parking space to the door.Oh, and “nacho cheese remnants and hot dog water” almost made me lose my breakfast.
I’ve never been to any con, much less Comic-Con, but I’m not sure I could handle the stress of such large crowds. Hell, waiting in the lunch line back in high school annoyed me, so I can’t imagine waiting in lines for any of the panels. But I do enjoy much of the nerdy news that comes from SDCC, and the cosplay pics all the geeky sites feature. That said, if I were to ever attend a con, it would probably be a smaller one, so it would be easier to navigate and I’d be better able to meet the people I’m interested in meeting – i.e. the artists of all the various types of comics I read! Is there a con that Joel, Ryan North, Zach Weiner, and Jeph Jacques all go to? That’s the con I’d want to visit.
Dave · 99 weeks ago
Thanks Joel, It’s nice to get a fresh take on the whole thing. I’ve always thought that people that truly truly hated the SDCC experience have a bit of an obligation to the hundreds of folks on the waiting list to maybe step aside and let someone else have their shot. I mean Matt Inman of the Oatmeal can raise nearly a million dollars for a Tesla museum but he has to beg (so far unsuccessfully) to share space at the con. It’s nuts. So thanks!For the rest of you folks, here are some tips from an old SDCC vet.
1. Don’t stay in a downtown hotel. Those are for people who are determined to get into Hall H. Those people are crazy. The hotels know this. They know that if you’re willing to get up at 3 AM to get in line you’re willing to pay insane hotel fees to do so. That said, as Joel found out, San Diego doesn’t really have a taxi service you can rely on. Stay at a hotel that has access to the Trolley. There are a few in Mission valley but my favorite is the Double Tree as it is literally on top of a trolley station. Note that this will probably cost you Hall H. The trolley starts running at about 5 am, which means it’ll get you to the Con at 5:30. That’s right on the edge of being able to get into Hall H first thing.
2. Your other option is to rent a car but for the love of god don’t park downtown. You’ll never get in/out during the Con. Park at Qualcomm Stadium (which is free) and take the trolley in. If you must drive downtown don’t park right on top of the convention center, buy parking in the Horton Plaza lot off of 1st street. You’ll have easy in and out access at the expense of walking about 4 or 5 extra blocks (it’s a sacrifice after a day on your feet at the con but you won’t sit in traffic for an hour)
3. Don’t try to eat right near the Con. As Joel said the crowds are insane. Downtown SD is a traditional city grid with numbered streets going north and south and lettered streets going east / west…. with a few named east/west streets in between. The con is centered on 5th street.
Don’t walk down 5th street.
When you leave the con head on over to 4th or 6th. They’ll be busy but you’ll be shocked at how much lighter they are. 3rd and 7th are dead. Flat out dead. You’ve still got to cross the street with the crazy mob and protesters and such, but once you get past that it isn’t that hard to escape the crowd. Lots of restaurants on 3rd or north of Market with no waiting even during prime-time. Hell, there are some places that on normal San Diego weekends are absolutely packed and yet, during the con, are empty because they aren’t close enough to the center and all the locals have been driven off by the geekswarm.
best of luck folks!
There’s also a Ralph’s supermarket up the street. You’d never expect to find one there, but it has an underground parking garage, so people can go there. And it has a deli counter. Back when I lived in the area, that deli counter fed me at least twice a day during con.Now if only Seattle had a worthwhile public transit system so I could make it to ECCC (parking in Seattle’s worse than parking in Diego, believe it or not).
leeapeea · 99 weeks ago
I live in New England, so I LOVE LOVE LOVE September. It’s perfect weather for almost all outdoorsy things (except ice hockey – not far enough north for that to start in September). But I run transportation for the largest school district north of Boston and my department is… me. So I rarely see outside my office in September anymore, except when I walk to Planned Parenthood and donate whatever money I have and beg them to put birth control in the city water.It was great to meet you on, I think?, day 3? By the time con security was waking me from my slumber on the concrete outside Hall H on Sunday I had lost most sense of when things had happened. I only knew it was Sunday because I had drilled into my head for a year that I would be on under those tents Sunday for my SuperWho morning.By the time I was at my hotel sunday night I had lost all ability to recall thoughts regarding names, times, places, my own name, my family, where I actually live and how I was getting back there. My body was attempting to shut itself down after 5 days of soft pretzels, coffee, cookies and red meat. (Though “meat” is a generous word.) Despite my hotel being in fucking Mordor, they did have a great breakfast so there was a bit of nutrition happening. And the shuttle service from Mordor was wonderful. Frodo should’ve been so lucky.
But, despite all of these things, I’m already blocking off the dates for next year. I can’t stay away. Exhaustion, euphoria and realizing your mere feets away from the beards of The Vikings is better than any drug.
SEE YOU NEXT YEAR! (Threat? Warning? Excitement? All of these things?)
Kiltman · 99 weeks ago
#ECCC Is Now A Love/Hate thing For Me…It Started Out As A “Hey Maybe I Could Drive A Couple CelebS I Wanted To Meet, And They Will Give Me Free Stuff.. And Then Morphed Into Managing Alll The Ground Transports For What Has Become A (Pretty Damn Big Ass) Convention. Soo.. I Enjoy It…But Now With 50X More Stress.(Jennie Breeden, Norm Reedus, Jonathan Frakes, And Wil Wheaton, In Case You Were Wondering…) #Bonusround, Rolled A 2Fer1 & Met Our Joel Watson At The Same Time..#Priceless
Man, I’ve done my share of overstimulating travel and the thing that saves my brain is some time before and after to acclimate. Leaving Burning and spending two days in a resort pool saves my brain every year.As a suggestion, why not fly in to Los Angeles the weekend before SDCC and relax a bit before you go head to head with KHAAAAAN. Stay with friends, relax, swim in a pool, enjoy the Stone Beer Garden, maybe even go to Disneyland if that’s your thing (though it’s not terribly relaxing).
Drive down with your friends on Tuesday afternoon- set up your booth and merch and steady yourself for the NERD ULTRA MARATHON. I recommend flasks.
Once the con is over, pack up your stuff on Monday, head back to Los Angeles, take a Silkwood shower to get the Con Crud off and Decompress. Give the PTSDCCSD abate before you get on a plane and take a leisurely flight back on Wednesday, schedule permitting.
Bracketing your con experience with small group, low key social interaction with people you like might help to wash the OVERWHELM out of your psyche.
kerys · 99 weeks ago
My fiance is second in command of a small multi-genre con (think a mini D*C w/~2-3000). I keep trying to convince him that he wants to take off from his day job 1-2 days before & after the con, he keeps saying it’s a great idea then not doing it. One day I will convince him!The only problem with this plan is that it keeps me away from my family for even longer.
Tom327Cat · 99 weeks ago
I like mowing my lawn and considering what people think of as normal, weird is a preferential state. Also, to be seen by so many? That might be too exhausting.
Chaucer59 · 99 weeks ago
LOVE/HATE – Thanksgiving. I’m the family chef. We always have more people than space, and I can never recruit enough help. It’s exhausting, but I’m good and getting better every year. Still, something about starting meal preps two days in advance and getting up at 6 a.m. on a holiday morning just so the bird will be out and cooling by two p.m. really sucks.
Candace · 99 weeks ago
I hear you on the Thanksgiving thing. I love all the Thanksgiving food, but it’s a lot of work, and a big calorie hit right before another big calorie hit (Christmas.)Candace · 99 weeks ago
Christmas. I love Christmas, and Christmas music (all kinds of Christmas music, from the sincere to the satirical), but it always seems like so much work for something that should be enjoyable, and I often seem to get sick around that time of year, so I frequently have to do all this Christmas prep while ill.That being said, it’s gotten easier since we convinced the family to just do gifts for the kids, and make charitable donations in honor of the adults. I love wrapping gifts and cooking, but not while ill!
I used to go to SDCC as a guest of a pro, but that was like a decade ago – I can only imagine what it’s like now, and I’m only going back once I develop the ability to teleport*. No waiting for panels! And con security can take a flying leap trying to do anything about someone who can teleport, right? And being able to teleport anywhere I want for sleep and/or food – no problems with personal maintenance!*Think the original Tomorrow People – yay low-budget ’70s UK SF!
While I’m at SDCC, I’m posting predictions as to the toll that SDCC (the con, the parties, the lack of sleep) will have on my physical and mental well being. Outlook = Probably found in a ditch.
Where am I? Only the wind knows. Also I bet gender-bent Jon Snow, despite knowing nothing Jon Snow, knows. She was around the booth a bunch earlier and seemed to have a cache of Dragon Glass under her pelt cape. As everyone who’s studied cartoonist lore knows, Dragon Glass is one of the only things that can kill us, along with bullets packed with soil/rocks from the town of our birth and entitled reader comments.
Truth be told, I am having an amazing SDCC experience. I’m spending time with some of my very favorite human beings and I’ll definitely be coming away with a few new favorites to add to the list.
When this week is over, would anyone be interested in a poster/print of all 5 days on one page?
Coming to SDCC? Come see me at the Blind Ferret Booth (#1231) in the Webcomics area. I will have books and shirts, sketches, Lil’ Wil plushies and ??????THE MYSTERY BOX??????!!!! Speaking of books, if you buy HijiNKS ENSUE Vol’s 1 or 2 you’ll get a free mini print featuring my Sharknado sequel posters! More info HERE.
Comments (28)
WongBal · 100 weeks ago
Glad you’re having a good time, Joel! Will we get more of your kickass photo comics once you get home?
Dan · 100 weeks ago
Dear gods but I want Sadburry Eggs to be a real thing…They extremely are a real thing. I invented them in Seattle last year and there is video evidence.An image of all five days on one page would be cool. So would a picture of the 10th Doctor riding a T. rex, fighting Skeletor in a Sailor Moon outfit. Just sayin’…I read this in Hunter S Thompson’s voice from Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. Laughed my balls off.lou · 100 weeks ago
Every time I read something by Hunter S. Thompson, I hear it in the voice of General Hunter Gathers from the Venture Brothers.I’m confused … which one of them is wearing the Sailor Moon costume?
Caitlin · 100 weeks ago
I think Skeletor, but I prefer the visual of the t-rex wearing it.Trevor · 99 weeks ago
Is it wrong that I now WANT to see the 10th Doctor riding a T-Rex? That sounds awesome!lou · 99 weeks ago
Joel, we can’t find you. Come in, Joel. Joel? Joel! JOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOEEEEEEEEEEEEEELLLLLL!!!->Continue or Exit
MrPlow99 · 99 weeks ago
Anyone else love the fact that the Sunday comic hasn’t been posted yet? It’s seems perfect for the character arc.
Rich Hendricks · 99 weeks ago
I shall demand a picture of a T-Rex riding The Doctor for my next signed copy. 🙂
Roborat · 99 weeks ago
Okay, for the next year, everybody ask him for this picture.
Dave · 99 weeks ago
…and Joel was never heard from again.lou · 99 weeks ago
Wow, he’s really sticking to it; he didn’t post a Day 5 strip yet!Should we expect a “man found wandering the streets of San Diego under the influence of some mysterious substance”?__More importantly, should we start a collection to help with your bail money or do you already have that budgetted into your con budget? 😀Dave · 99 weeks ago
This is pretty fitting. Seems every time I came by at the Con he wasn’t there. Oh well. I bought a print from his daughter (no new books) anyway… but you missed out on your Starbucks Joel!You bought that print one morning when I wasn’t able to get a cab to take me to the show. I was staying 20ish miles away and no cab companies would actually send anyone to pick me. This happened more than once that week.Dave · 99 weeks ago
I came by another time when you were at lunch too. No worries though, I’m not complaining. Dude’s gotta eat, and lord knows that’s tough to do at the Con. I’ve shaken your hand before. I go to the con to support the artists. I don’t HAVE to see you to do that and even buying from someone else at the booth still feels more personal than the online store.
deadrobot · 98 weeks ago
@kellyskritters · 98 weeks ago
autojim· 98 weeks ago
DuckAmuck · 98 weeks ago
Sure they do a recap when they’re back, but….
bix · 98 weeks ago
1 reply · active 96 weeks ago
emperorbailey· 96 weeks ago
gabepuratekuta· 98 weeks ago
@CalliopesMuse · 98 weeks ago
Liam · 98 weeks ago
@dreadthar · 98 weeks ago
Candace · 98 weeks ago
jiynx · 98 weeks ago
try being crew on a ballistic missile submarine. you think a week without internet is time-shock when you reconnect? try 3-5 months without even any news headlines…
Bill Murphy · 98 weeks ago
1 reply · active 98 weeks ago
sam · 98 weeks ago
sam · 98 weeks ago
As an adult, yeah, I’ve been isolated a few times… When Tiff and I moved from Ft Lauderdale to Virginia, our car broke down in the small town of St Augustine, FL. We only had local news on the TV in the hotel and it took a few days to get the car fixed. It actually turned out to be pretty cool though. St Augustine is a bit of a tourist town and we did some sight-seeing, ate at a cool restaurant across the street and managed to take in a play down the block, which is something we’ve never managed to do at other times.
furrbear· 98 weeks ago
lou · 98 weeks ago
Debs · 97 weeks ago
A bunch of counselors were sitting at the ice cream shop in town pondering the Bobbitt situation when one of the boys said, “That must have been a sharp knife.” I thought to myself it must have been to finish the task before he woke up, but another counselor asked for clarification. The first responded by saying, “To cut through the bone and everything.”
Now this led to a great argument about how there was not a bone in the penis, but the ounselor (who was majoring in biology at UC Davis) remained unconvinced and won the debate when he said, “Dude, why do you think they call it a boner.” We could not argue with his logic any longer and left it alone. My only hope is he did not become a teacher or a doctor.
Now whenever I am engaged in an argument with an idiot, I think of that day and manage to walk away with a smile.
1 reply · active 97 weeks ago
Kryss · 97 weeks ago
Sheesh…