Comic Con San Diego

[Reverend Strone]

Woot! Jumping on a plane to San Diego in just a few hours. Hopefully it's as much fun this year as past shows have been. Catch you all again with stories and hopefully some swag my friends and fellow kiwi collectors in a couple of weeks.

[MattG]

Nice one dude; hope you have a blast!

[Anaria]

Woo! Have a great time, look forward to hearing about it

[thehiflyer]

Awesome dude!

Have a great con!

[Bazzack]

Awesome Rev! You lucky son of a gun

[fredstar]

God Speed

[mdb]

Woo! have fun Please also stalk the SWTOR stand so I can have all the jealous feelings

[Reverend Strone]

So, got back from the States yesterday. What a rush SDCC was! I'm still reeling. I was working the Weta booth and between three days of set up, five days of show and a night of pack-down it was utterly exhausting,.. but fun. The Hobbit stuff we were debuting was really well received so that was great.

But, being tied to our booth meant I didn't get to see much of anything else. I only made it to one panel - the Hasbro SW one, which was really interesting with its new Droid Factory reveals. I got to ask a question and chat briefly with the brand team leaders. I asked if the appearance of TC-70 and R8-B7 in the BAD line next year signaled a desire to go deeper into the vast Clone Wars secondary character cache for realistic figures. The answer was a resounding yes, and that they saw the long term potential for us to get more of those collector focuses CW characters in the realistic line than in the CW line. That said, the CW line would get a fresh shot in the arm in 2013 despite being largely neglected this year.

Hasbro refreshed their cabinets after the presentation. The new ewoks look awesome. I'll be picking up all of them. 8 new ewoks coming this year - woot! I'm not sure I will be buying many figures in the main lines early next year. The figures look great but moist lie outside of my collection focus, though I will be buying and trading for droid parts. The new BAD figures are right up my alley.

Speaking of which, I took possession of my 13 Disney BAD figures and had all kinds of fun swapping parts around and making cool new droids in my hotel room. I'll post pics soon. They're really cool and colourful. I can't wait for the second wave to hit in August, with all the cool new R8, R9 and R6 domes. Hasbro confirmed they may at some point use these newly tooled domes in their own line, but there are no plans right now.

Bumped into Ashley Eckstein and was very impressed she even remembered my name and my daughters from meeting her in 2011. She had some very cool new stuff this year at the HerUniverse, though sadly not in my girls' sizes - hopefully next year.

I never made it as far as the Sideshow booth, or any of the other licensees I am afraid, but Gentle Giant were our booth neighbours so I peeked at their cool offerings and was impressed by many of them. The new comic-style Dewback is pretty awesome, and the Spider-Maul is crazy cool - so huge and dynamic. I was very tempted by the classic old school Sy Snootles mini bust and Droopy McCool. I am a sucker for those awesome Jabba's Palace aliens. Wald was surprisingly appealing as well, and it's great to finally see Jar Jar as a mini bust.

Quite unexpectedly I came across a full size Jabba on a miniature truck-sized sail barge out on the street one day on my way to get some lunch. I'll post pics at some stage when I get around to it. It's amazing what you find just around the town. SDCC is truly all encompassing when it comes to town.

I spent some time visiting friends at the Lucasfilm booth, where the live snake pit made a big impression. They recreated the well of souls from Raiders with almost 50 live snakes, mostly Corn and Rat Snakes. Having never seen a snake up close, this was a thrill for me and by mid morning each day they were all warmed up and lively, slithering around their enclosure. I discovered that I love snakes! I made friends with the wrangler and she kindly invited me to have a close encounter after the show closed on the last day, which I took her up on and got to cuddle a beautiful orange Corn Snake for a couple of minutes. He was beautiful!

Caught up with Lucasfilm's Mary Franklin and Pablo Hidalgo, both old friends from when I used to do licensed artwork for LFL, and scored a Ralph McQuarrie t-shirt from the great guys at the ILM booth. Yippee!

I tried to get into the Clone Wars panel but the line was way too long and I missed the entire presentation. Fortunately, Dave Filoni stopped by the Weta booth and said hi, even bringing gifts in the form of Season 3 DVD sets for a handful of us hard core CW fans among the Weta crew. I had given Dave a sketch last year as a thank you for the time he gave me when I was lucky enough to visit their studios in 2010, and he surprised me with a gift in kind this year - something he needn't have done but which I am so thrilled with - a Dave Filoni original painting! I'm still buzzing. It will be framed and go up in my new collection room, being built as I type.

So, it was an amazing con and I feel very touched to have been able to rub shoulders with some really cool folks. I can't wait to get back again in 2013.

And on the way home I spotted a Snaggletooth 3-pack at a Target store in Livermore and bought him, so that was cool. Nothing like finding and buying new figures in a real store!

[MattG]

Dude; what a great sounding trip! Lots of really cool Star Wars targets, by the sound of things, but nice to hear that your primary goal - the Weta booth and The Hobbit product debuts - went well.

Eagerly awaiting your photos

[Tarragon]

Sounds like it was a full on trip Dan

One day, I'll make the trek to SDCC