Wouldn’t give a crippled crab a crutch: Comicon 2005, part 1.

MUSIC: Double Dee & Steinski – Lesson One

I’m back yall, with all things Comicon! And it goes a little somethin like this:
Friday:
8ish am: We(that is my roommate Reid and I) hit the road and made pretty decent time down to San Diego. Only hit traffic leaving LA and arriving in SD. We drove through hella fog at one point, bright white, like driving through a big ole cloud.
11ish: arrive in SD and proceed to go to the wrong hotel. Who’s fault this was(Reid or his dad, who got us the free room), no one is sure, but with redirection from the front desk and an argument with the parking attendant, we found our way to the correct one…which was actually closer to the convention center, so all the better. We check in and promptly leave for the pier. This hotel was on Coronado Island(or as it seemed to me, whitey island), across the bridge from SD. Our hotel had a pier with water taxi service over to the convention center. Posh!
12:30pm: get into the con and get our badges. Eat the first of many overpriced foodstuffs(7 bucks plus for a hotdog and can of soda!) and then make our way upstairs for the Jhonen Vasquez panel. For those of you not in the know(shame on you!), Jhonen is the creator of Invader Zim, Johnny the Homicidal Maniac, and Squee! among others. His panel was really funny but I wish the boy would just get back to comics…I know, I know, he said he’s juggling many projects, but some of us are impatientJ
2:30pm: skip the J. Scott Campbell and Ray Harryhausen panels to go and wander the convention floor. This was to be the least crowded of the 3 days, but at Comicon, that’s still pretty fucking packed.
4pm: went to a panel about J.J. Sedelmaier Productions, the animation company behind the TV Funhouse stuff, the first season of Beavis & Butthead, the first episode of Harvey Birdman, and lots of commercials. Was pretty interesting but a little too much attention was paid to the business-end of his company rather than the creative.
5:30pm: Adult Swim panel! While not as funny as the ’03 group, it was still a fun time. Adult Swim prez Keith Crofford hosted Seth Green and Matt Senreich from Robot Chicken, Tim and Eric(dressed as a blue ship’s captain and a magician) from Tom Goes to The Mayor, and Dave and Matt from Aqua Teen (and formerly of Space Ghost). They showed some clips, the best being from the ATHF movie(“coming this future”), and a shit-ton of new shows, the most interesting of which was the new Boondocks(the comic strip) show, coming in October. Funniest part was when a father said “my 12-year-old got me hooked on your shows”, followed by a “way to parent” from the panel.
7pm: Went to dinner with Reid’s friend Paul and his boyfriend Steve. I forget the name of the restaurant but I got: free beer from some girl working for Budweiser, tortillas with f’ing incredible jalapeno butter, and “the bucket”, which was literally a small metal bucket with chicken, shrimp, lobster tails, and equally incredible carne asada….I figure I’m in SD and I’m hungry, why fuck around, right?
8:30pm: Returned to the con and back to “An Evening with JJ Sedelmaier”…which unfortunately featured a lot of the stories I’d heard earlier, but fortunately many more clips and fun stuff too. The host was more interesting this time around, too.
10pm: While waiting in the same room from the previous panel, I saw a hilarious short film called “A Ninja Pays Half My Rent”, about a ninja roommate. Gotta find this online.
Shortly after, was Jerry Beck’s Worst Cartoons Ever, which was exactly that; a collection of the WORST “animated” shorts ever made. And these were on TV!?! Some of the painful/painfully funny toons included Rocket Robin Hood, Big World of Little Adam, a fucking embarrassing King Kong from Rankin/Bass, and, probably my favorite(and not just because of the title), Johnny Cipher in Dimension Zero.
12am: Returned to the room and crashed out…then woke up 3 hours later with the worst indigestion of my life. Considering that day I’d consumed: 2 small donuts, a hotdog, at least 3 sodas, one beer, the bucket with tortillas, a pretzel, and fucking nachos, I think I got off light.

Come back later for Saturday(and pictures!)…