San Diego Comic-Con 2013 – Day Two

What a Day One yesterday!!!

Now it’s time for Day Two of San Diego Comic-Con baby!

After a slow start due to some technical difficulties getting my pics of the adventure uploaded due to the fact that the Internet here in San Diego seems to be overloaded by the multitudes of people all trying to use it, even Tweeting has been an issue, I finally get on the road back to the convention center.

On my way, I pass by none other than Wolverine! Well, maybe not Hugh Jackman’s Wolverine but this guy is pretty damn close.

And so, I approach the convention center and already it’s a mass of people!

Friday and Saturday are the peak days for San Diego Comic-Con–Saturday being the most full. And I mean full to capacity and beyond!

Inside it is a sea of people!

You can hardly walk as you’re pressed against comic book characters and soldiers from Halo (cosplayers really), etc.

Speaking of cosplay (that’s costume playing), this year it is truly amazing. The level of detail these conventioneers have put into their costumes is astounding. This is no mere hobby for some of these people. This is both a labor of love and maybe even hopes for a career doing this stuff.

Tomorrow night (Saturday) is the famous Comic-Con Masquerade. It’s a costume contest unlike any other where thousands of people get to see the most elaborate sci-fi/fantasy/anime/gaming/etc. costumes ever devised! We’re talking Hollywood movie-level quality costumes. And just like America’s Got Talent, these cosplayers also put on quite a show. It’s not just a pageant but an entertainment spectacle that people talk about for years to come!

Whole careers have been launched for winners of this amazing event!

So I’m planning on camping out for a bit on Saturday to get into The Masquerade!

After walking around the gargantuan exhibit hall, I meet up with my buddy Joel and we head over to the outside Ender’s Game exhibit. It’s a collection of actual sets, props, and costumes from the upcoming movie. It’s an awesome pavilion that looks and feels like you’re actually walking through the story of the movie. What a great compliment to the Ender’s Game panel yesterday that featured Harrison Ford.

Then I went off on my own to a do a meet the author event. Part of the reason for my going to Comic-Con is also to promote my epic sci-fi eBook series of which I’m the author titled NLV (a.k.a. New Las Vegas). Today would be a great NLV day as I will get to in a moment.

After the meet the author I found myself wandering down 4th Ave in the Gaslamp District. There seems to be a plethora of zombie infestations happening this year at San Diego Comic-Con!

Zombies are everywhere!!!

And so I got besieged by a zombie horde as I walked by the Machinima special event (free drinks, food, etc.). As I walked into the space-age discotheque-like bar, one of the women at a makeup table asked me if I’d like to become a zombie.

So I said, “Hell yes, my publisher would love that!”

After about a half hour of makeup work, I was a zombie!

So, I proceeded to stagger back to the convention center–hahahha!

Anyway, people were actually complimenting me on my makeup. I looked great! In an undead sort of way.

Comic-Con is the only place where you can look like a zombie and people love it!

So, after bit trying to get into a few panels that weren’t happening due to the mass amount of people (I totally missed out on the Marvel: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. panel that I really wanted to get into), I took another stroll through the exhibit hall.

Time just seemed to pass like crazy in there. Got some good pics of cosplay attendees, and some footage of how endless the throngs of people are.

Meantime, my other buddy Pete was working The Walking Dead Run For Your Life experience. He had volunteered to work this amazing event for the latter part of the day. What is it? Well, the entire Petco Park (where the San Diego Padres play), is converted into a zombie run where guests get caught by a zombie horde and run for their lives through the stadium. It’s crazy, scary, and challenging! There’s obstacle courses and you have to NOT get tagged by a zombie!

Pete was one of the military guys trying to get people to the so-called “safe zone”–of which there was none!

Afterwards, he got to run for his life too!

Anyway, during that time Joel and I met up again and then we met up with another buddy of mine from LA. His name is Daniel Thron, a director/writer whose short zombie-procedural film Spoiler was an official selection of the 2012 San Diego Comic-Con International Film Festival. He was also the winner of the 2012 NY/LA International Film Festival for Best Director and Best Narrative Short with Spoiler.

And then he got his film reviewed on io9.com, the ultimate sci-fi/fantasy/cool science and related stuff website. When that happened, it went viral and he started getting calls from the big agencies and production companies in Hollywood!

That’s how it’s done sometimes.

So, io9.com was running a panel and I asked Dan if he’d introduce me to somebody on it to help me promote NLV. The panel was called Science Fiction That Will Change Your Life. It was an engaging and great discussion from most of the main people at io9.com about life-changing sci-fi books and films.

After the panel, Dan and I went up to the panelists. He spoke with Lauren Davis (one of the io9.com editors who wrote about Dan’s other notable work, a spec pitch trailer of Philip K Dick’s A Scanner Darkly), introduced himself (who she was delighted to meet in-person), and then introduced me and my book to her. She seemed genuinely happy to meet me. And then I gave her my 10-second pitch about NLV and my card, which she very nicely accepted. And I was psyched!

Sometimes that’s all you can do but it could be just enough to get the ball rolling and make a breakthrough in one’s career—we’ll see!

Anyway, after that it was now mid-evening time and we were all exhausted. So finally it was dinner, some drinks, and then time to crash.

All to do it again on Day Three the Saturday–the biggest day of them all!