SDCC 2019 Wrap Up – Louie M’s Adventures

Greetings CHU!  Our Superbowl took place last weekend in San Diego with every major comic publisher under one roof plus movie and TV studios, here is one person’s ground view of the event.  I know you all heard the Phase 4 news and probably gobbled up all those keys by now! Check out some of my “not Hall H” experiences…

Exhibit Hall Parkour

We got kicked off preview night by swinging from the rafters to Skybound. Being a huge fan of Skybound I normally visit, but in the past I leisurely stroll by when I have time, no rush.  I knew this year was different with signed/graded copies of 192 up for grabs and a SDCC variant of 193. It was no joke, the line wrapped around their massive booth within minutes and had several people walk up to me asking if I was getting everything (in hopes I wasn’t and they could push the max limit by having me buy it for them).  After Skybound, I went around the back to pick up the Spawn #299 (limited to 500! What were they thinking?!?!) but the day’s allotment was sold out. Haven’t seen this much heat at the Skybound/Image booth before. TWD 192 and Spawn 299 were gone by Thursday morning and TWD 193 by Friday, these were definitely the hot comics to have along with the variants at the Marvel booth.

Even IDW had some sellouts and big crowds.  The Canto SDCC variant was also gone by Thursday.  Perhaps people were hanging around in hopes they would reverse position and start selling that TMNT #95 everyone is after!  George Takei visited IDW to sign his graphic novel “They Called Us Enemy”.

Toy exclusives is where the real mania takes place.  I heard Mattel is struggling but you would not know it by their lines.  Their booth line was regularly capped, and sellouts were common. The toys themselves might get a wider release, but they usually do incredible jumbo packaging that’s exclusive to SDCC.  My big splurge was this Silver Age Batman set, it’s massive. Their Macho Man figure was the hottest item, daily allotment disappeared early, many people were excited about this. Of course, Funko and Hasbro are just as insane, the booths are all difficult to get into and if you do, that doesn’t mean the item you want hasn’t already sold out.  Honestly, I would rather pay the markup on some of these than waste the precious time in line.

There was one character that was popular across the board, the Sith Trooper from The Rise of Skywalker.  It was one of the most popular Hasbro, Lego, and Funko items. A new Star Wars character, the last Star Wars sequel for awhile, plus general Star Wars fandom made for the perfect storm.  Anything with Sith Trooper on it did very well at the show.

Warner combined their booth with the DC Booth this year with merch, signings, panels, and a short experience to promote the new Harley Quinn show coming to the DC streaming service.

The experience included a short hallway with Arkham prison doors that introduced you to the various characters.  I did not know the show was going to be so R-rated and in the meta style reminiscent of Deadpool. DC showed a short promo video with Harley cracking jokes about how dark and grim DC films are and proclaiming that everyone on her show will have fun or she is going to “bash their f*cking heads in!”

Always happy to visit my favorite comics outlaws at the Coffin Comics booth, their exclusives were flying off the table.  Didn’t I just write about them? What could be new? A lot as Brian Pulido and his crew are always innovating. There is a new Lady Death Kickstarter in August and Coffin is brewing their biggest launch party ever.  Then a new Hellwitch Kickstarter in October with an exclusive Lucio Parillo cover. Brian mentioned he is working on some new future formats for delivering horror content, perhaps an anthology of sorts. He didn’t get into much detail, but I know Brian is a fan of old school Eerie and Creepy magazines like I am.  Watch Coffin closely over the next 6 months to see what they do next!

Another shout out to Stranger Comics, they really have an awesome team. Busier than ever, I definitely saw regular crowding at their booth. I’m sure the HBO deal is having an affect and I would love to know how many new readers they picked up at the show.  I will say it again – get onboard with Stranger Comics and pick up their books whenever you can! Not only is it great content for those that like LOTR or GOT, PLUS when people are talking about the latest HBO Asunda show at work, you can stroke your hipster beard and tell them you read the books before it was popular!

Commission Goodness

I love walking away with original artwork.  This year I scored 3 pieces:

Carla Wyzgala is one of my faves, her watercolors are to die for.  She did this incredible Cassie Hack for me that blew my mind. This is why I love getting commissions, it always comes out BETTER than what I could have imagined. Her Skull Masquerade line is wildly popular, I could decorate a whole wall with these!

Every year I look to discover a new artist to follow, this year’s best was OTU (Own the Universe).  Kelsey did this gorgeous Harley for me. I recommend following her, I have a feeling I will be picking up some of her variant covers at future SDCCs.

I came to ask Jim Balent for a Batman sketch, but I saw this creature he did on one of his covers and asked for that instead.  My last minute change paid off in a big way! I love this piece so much being a monster fan. He is seriously the nicest guy, definitely visit his booth if he comes to a con near you.

Outside Comic Con Adventures  

You can spend all 4 days visiting the con outside the con. I once again didn’t win any Conan lotteries, nor did I have much time to wait in the lines for the popular offsites, I would need a clone to accomplish that much.  But I did get to attend some fun events..

I had another opportunity to attend Funko Fundays.  This is Funko’s fan event and no other company does a show of this quality and spectacle for their biggest fans.  It’s like being on another planet. Tiki was the theme and the entire show was based on a hunt for a golden Freddy POP (Funko’s mascot).  The crowd could win prizes through various challenges and there was plenty of entertainment and performers. Craziest part of the night was a surprise appearance by Mark Hamill, I have never seen him this close!  The crowd went absolutely bonkers, and he was really entertaining. Funko created a very limited edition of gold Luke Skywalker POPs and gave them away to a few lucky audience members. It doesn’t matter how tired I am, Fundays energy isn’t like anything else.

I love concerts, love trying new things, and I’m up for anything strange, so I couldn’t turn down free tickets to see Poppy’s SDCC event.  I was not super familiar with her music, after some research on You Tube, I could best describe it as a cross between pop and Nu Metal. Seriously. I wasn’t sure what to expect, but turned out to be really fun.  It was at an open air concert venue in the Gaslamp, and Poppy herself was signing copies of her new graphic novel, Genesis One, and looked like fans were having a great time meeting her.  She came onstage with a full band, each member looking like The Crow. She won me over in a big way after a few songs, I enjoyed this event far more than expected.

Aw Jeez!! I was fast enough to score tickets to the…buuurrrrrp…. Rick and Morty event on the convention center….buurrrrrp.. lawn by the marina.  I have become a big fan of the show and I’m very excited for the next season. We were treated to the table reading with the cast for a cold opening that Dan Harmon wrote but was too bizarre to film.  It was pretty crazy even by R&M standards, heavy on drug trips and taboo jokes. They also took scenarios from the fans and did live improv with the characters. The whole cast is so quick witted with the rapid fire jokes.  The best past was Justin Roiland had been drinking before the show and he seems closer to being Rick in-real-life when he’s intoxicated, he slaughtered the crowd like none other, I can’t think of a better celeb to go drinking with!

One of my favorite events was the Skybound Insider’s meet up at Harbor House restaurant near the convention center.  Not only is it nice to get away and sit in a chill restaurant, you get to do it with fellow fans and zombies. It’s a fairly low key event but they do give fans snacks, open bar, swag bag, and raffles.  Sean Kirkham and Brian Huntington from Skybound hosted the event. The went over a few announcements: the upcoming Rick movie will be in theatres and will be created in partnership with Skybound and Universal, not AMC.  The Invincible animated series is humming along, they have seen footage and it’s bloody in the way you would want it to be. Invincible is airing on Amazon as part of their 5 year deal with Skybound. They are also working on a card game for Sideshow’s Court of the Dead.

As with any SDCC or event with 200K people walking around, you will see some general WTF moments occurring:

Whose position do you support?  

I think they are just making up rules now….

And here’s what humidity does to comics! #savethefoil  

What happens when people think an Avenger is about to visit the Marvel booth…

In general it was another fantastic SDCC, one of my best ever despite the feeling of growing over crowding.  I don’t know how the crowd could be worse since it’s been selling out for years, but many other vendors agreed with me, I just don’t have any data to back it up.  Pop culture isn’t going away anytime soon so we just have to adapt to the new normal. Well I haven’t slept in 2 weeks so I am going to try some of that now! Enjoy the rest of summer CHU!