I made it to San Diego, through the ComiCon, and back with no problems -- although I may have threatened Joss Whedon's life -- I'm not sure what he thought. For those not in the know, he's the creator and often writer or Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel, and Firefly, not to mention the writer of the Buffy movie, and had a hand in Toy Story and other movies. Anyway, I was walking downstairs in the hotel, going to meet up with some friends, and I looked up to see him walking up the stairs toward me. Immediately upon seeing him I said, rather loudly, "Hey!" He stopped, a bit surprised -- and I can only think that he thought he was going to get the beating of a lifetime -- and then I said, "Thank you. I really enjoy your stuff," and shook his hand. He was very nice and said thank you and we were both off again. I'm bummed I was so shocked, because I could have handed him a card and told him that I was supposed to work on a game featuring his characters. He'd have known my boss, so we're not too far removed.

Aside from him, I also talked briefly with Brian Michael Bendis (the writer on the comics Ultimate Spider-Man, Daredevil, Alias, and Powers), and J. Michael Straczynski when my boss brought him by the booth. He apparently like the game I designed, so that was cool. I saw Kevin Smith (director of Clerks, Mallrats, Chasing Amy, Dogma) and saw Elijah Wood and Billy Boyd as they walked around the convention center.

The convention was enormous and it was packed. The estimate is that there were 80,000 people over the course of the weekend. Lines from hell...all the time. I'm really glad the first time I went was with a company that had a booth, because I was able to skip most of that.

I had a really good time, saw a lot of people I haven't seen in a while, and was able to check out many, many new artists, comics, and creators. I enjoyed seeing the Happy Tree Friends for the first time as well as finding Tom Neely's art. I really think some publisher should snap him up, he does very, very cool stuff. I'm trying to convince the art department to use him for something...I just don't know what. Oh, I found these cool cards from the folks at Monkey Cult Industries. Heh, heh. Fun. Buy some.

Okay, I'm tired and I still have to unpack and maybe do some laundry. I'll update tomorrow if I have time.

Good night.