ComicCon Day 2 and 3

Day 2 was relatively uneventful, save for Buca which is always an event. We had 23 people present for the gorging, including two special guests, Vic and Aaron (the voice actors for Edward and Alphonse Elric). Dinner was an absolute riot...Vic and his lady friend/wife (not sure which it is) are freakin hilarious, and Aaron is a trip. He's 13 years old and traveling the country with his mother signing autographs for hundreds of thousands of people...what an experience for someone not yet out of junior high! Very cool kid, though. We talked about all sorts of stuff, from school to religion to family to just hanging out.

Day 3 - Saturday. I have difficulty even beginning to describe the mass of humanity that is Saturday. Last year 85,000+ showed up for that day alone, and this year doesn't seem to be much different. During my lunch hour I went to see what I could see while I tested how long it took to make it from one end of the hall to the opposite corner and back again (round trip took one hour). Along the way I bumped into Stan Lee and his entourage of body guards as he was making his way to the panel he was scheduled for, Jon De Lancy with his grey hair and all signing autographs at the Stargate area, copious amounts of booth babes sporting varying degrees of clothing, people that hadn't showered since they got here Wednesday, and everything in between.

As I was walking around it occurred to me that, while the convention attendees are probably the most ecclectic gathering of minds and bodies imagineable, they can still be grouped/classified. I'll do my best to catch them all here...

Celebrity artists - 'nuff said. Some are only in the autograph area, others are bold enough to walk the floor on their own.

Non-celebrity artists/creators - often times they'll have small booths in either the no-name comic section or the artist alley section hoping that someone will see their work and get signed to be the next big thing...or even anything. They tend to be very excited, or very forlorn looking, depending on their level of hopefullness.

Major producers and their employees/volunteers - These are the Sony's, the WB's, Square-Enix's, Universal Studios, anime licensing companies and their licensees, etc. Very pretty booths in various sizes. Budgets ranging from a few thousand to "Good God, what did you pay to ship that in???" Pretty lights and pretty girls.

Booth babes - The lowest common denominator, and yet most effective eye-catching/advertising technique at the con. Booths with babes get the most attention, period.

Fan girls - OMG, how they annoy me. Pre-teens to as high as early 20's that would fight to the death over who likes so-and-so more and declare that they have the posters, journals, and love letters to prove their affinity for >insert character/celebrity here<. Easily identifiable by their high pitched squeals, costumes, and brightly colored hair. Sound stalkerish? Hmmm...I wonder why...

Lurkers - People (generally men) that hang out at a booth featuring a property/character they are interested in. They don't say anything, but they just sit there staring and looking at the same stuff over and over. The big, strange, silent type. They frighten me some.

General IP/Comic/Movie/TV fans - This is the majority of attendees. Just folk.

Squatters - often times they are the tired, the bewildered, or confused. They had no idea what they were going to when their little nephew said, "Lets go to ComicCon!!!" and didn't bring any food or drink and just paid $30 for the two of them to eat and drink something that really isn't anything, and dammit they just want a place to sit and relax and catch their breath for 5 minutes!

Trekkies/Star Trek lovers - These folks go beyond general fandom and dress as Klingons, Star Fleet officers, storm troopers, bounty hunters, jedi, and other recognizable figures. They join things like as the 501st storm trooper squadron, named Vader's Fist. They change their legal names to Anakin and Padme and name their children Luke and Leai. For real. They go beyond being fans and "live" the fantasy. Typically identified as "nerds."

I think that's a pretty good cross-section. And I'm shoulder-to-shoulder in them. Or was...right now I'm safely tucked away in the tournament hall, thankful not to be out there braving the human storms. *whew!*