2008 SDCC San Diego Comic Con Review
My family needed a full day to recover from 4 straight days of the San Diego Comic Con. It was a good trip despite my work needing me to do some shet even though I was on vacation. Anyway, the con was pretty good. I felt the lines were longer, more unorganized, and moved a lot slower than last year though.
The good news is I got most of the exclusives that I wanted to get and then some. This includes the G.I.Joe Cobra Commanders, the Lightning Storm McQueen, and the Lego Indiana Jones exclusive (only 500 made). We also brought home the Batman exclusive from Hot Wheels, the He-Man “King Greyskull” from Mattel (both the normal and bronze color variant), Lobo (also from Mattel) and a gripload of free swag.
My family was so exhaused after Saturday that we decided to skip the con on Sunday and head home. As soon as we got home we unloaded all our loot and organized them. Going through all the stuff you got from the con is one of my favorite things. The con had less swag this year but some of the stuff they gave away was much better than years past. This year Mattel was giving away inflatable He-man swords, Disney gave away Tinkerbell Fairy wings which my daughters got a kick out of, Hasbro gave out Stormtrooper masks and Lego had this cool scavenger type of game where you had to go find 3 pieces of a lego “Joker” from the Lego, DC, and WB booths. At each booth you had to try a demo of the upcoming Batman Lego Video Game. Once you have all the pieces you turn them in and you get a Lego Batman, the completed Joker, and a collector box.
The lines to buy the exclusives were incredibly long. The Hasbro line was probably the worst. It was about a 2-3 hour wait. For those that complain about paying 2 to 3 times the retail price of an exclusive on ebay let me tell you this… YOU ARE GETTING AN ABSOLUTE BARGAIN! If you wanted to pay retail, be my guest to take a day off from work, buy convention tickets, wait 1-2 hours before the convention opens. Once it opens run to the booth where you want to buy, and then wait in another line for 3 hours to purchase. That was our experience on preview night.
For me, going to the con isn’t just about getting all the convention exclusives. I also enjoy seeing all the new and upcoming things in the toy industry. I’ll write more about that later. What I also love doing at the con is checking out all the people in various costumes. Some of the famous people I saw at the con this year was Hayden Panettieri (from one of my favorite shows, Heroes) and Neil Patrick Harris who was promoting the latest Harold and Kumar movie. I also got an autograph from Natalie Morales from that new TV show The Middleman. I took a bunch of pictures this year and I hope to share them here on the site in future posts.
My family and I have been going to the con every year for the past several years now. This year we significantly reduced our expenses. Thanks to my buddy Jay who let us camp in his vacant studio condo we saved a ton on hotel costs. We also packed our own sandwiches for lunch at the con. Not only are the food lines long but the prices are ridiculous. I’m talking airport restaurant ridiculous like. This year I was also pretty choosy about the items we bought at the Con. My wife and I are getting pretty good and knowing what will sell and what will sit on our storage shelves for a very long time.
Anyway, I’ll have more on the con in future posts. I’m exhausted and I gotta finish listing stuff on ebay and amazon.