setting up at SDCC 2014 - does anyone need me to bring SW 501st AND Rebel Legion extras - anyone??? anyone???

Would luv to do some trades with you.

Have a couple dozen 501st, reb legion, & misc garrison spare cards to swap.

Have a list to send you... just LMK

cost a ton to get there - so trading is not in my vocabulary just was getting heads up on anyone wanting me to bring the SW cards - you are welcome to check and see if there are any cards u need

do u want to send me list and I can check if I have any of your needs???

Yes, and my email address is in my profile.

Send me an email & I'll reply with my list ok?

going to bring a lot of older HTF inkworks, Ritt promos cheap - looking to lighten the load - anyone with needs email so I can bring if I have it or them

What is your booth number?

For those of you into sketches go to booth #1930, the Cartoon Art Museum of San Francisco. As a fundraiser every year they have three professional artists sketching whatever you want in one hour shifts for a small $10 donation. Go to www.cartoonart.org for a schedule of the artists and their drawing times. Last year I got sketches from Bill Morrison and John Bogdanove among others.

Hope everyone going to Comic-Con has a great time! Be sure to post reports for those of us not going. Let us know what we're missing and please post if there are any cards that unexpectedly turn up at random places.

Have fun!

I was feeling kind of homeless for a while, being bumped twice out of oversold hotels. Plus 10 hours in the Atlanta airport Thursday, where people started getting annoyed at me saying "Is this Hall H?" I haven't gotten very far around the Exhibit Hall yet, not yet getting "serious," but I managed to reach Breygent for the 5 main 3-card exclusive sets, chatting up Gary Kezele and Tim Shay who are in attendance drawing and signing. Picked up an Adventure Time hobby box from Triangle and a couple of packs-plus-free-sketch specials from UD, including hobby packs from GOTG even though the hobby release won't be for a while.

Upper Deck has wonderful customer care at their booth - but would love to hear about anyone's experience at Topps in attempting to get more than 2 of the GPK and Mars Attacks promo cards - my experience - RUDE RUDE RUDE and totally not interested in promoting their product or in making the customer feel important - I certainly can and will spend my $$$ elsewhere - nuff said

I like toi avoid obsessinhg over the "scavenger hunt" quests through 9 or so booths to get a full set, because sometimes boothkeepers expect a significant sale, others are clueless, and others run outor the attendant doesn't know where the supplies are hidden. It ends up easier filling the gaps through auctions or trades.

Wow, not even a page worth of posts from Comic Con. I guess that says a lot about the state of this hobby in general.

quote:

Originally posted by sherlock2:
Upper Deck has wonderful customer care at their booth - but would love to hear about anyone's experience at Topps in attempting to get more than 2 of the GPK and Mars Attacks promo cards - my experience - RUDE RUDE RUDE and totally not interested in promoting their product or in making the customer feel important - I certainly can and will spend my $$$ elsewhere - nuff said

Upper Deck has incredible customer service. I was only able to attend on Thursday and Sunday. I saw the oversized Marvel Masterpieces cards that Joe Jusko was scheduled to sign on Firday and Saturday in the display case. I asked if I might be able to get a set of them unsigned, since I couldn't attend either of those days, but they said they had only a limited amount for the signing. I then asked if perhaps any were left over on Sunday (my next day back), could I perhaps get the pair then, and they said sure, although we both agreed it would be likely none would be left over.

Cut to Sunday and my return, upon which I was very nicely told at the Upper Deck booth that not only had they run out of them, but that they didn't even make it completely through the signing on Saturday (and I suppose people were able to get other items signed). Anyway, I thanked them for considering me, and was walking away when one of the workers stopped me and gave me the set from the display case.

A most unexpected surprise to be sure, and one that I was very grateful for. I thanked him profusely and had intended to give Upper Deck a shout-out anyway, so I'm glad for this chance. Not only has Upper Deck helped to keep non-sports hobby going through some tough times, but in my personal interactions with their workers for over 20 years, I have never found them be less than courteous, and they are often downright friendly.

As for Topps, they seemed nice enough. You did have to ask for the promos (Mars and GPK), but I usually wouldn't ask for more than one at a time anyway, so I didn't get to see how they might have reacted had I asked for extras. It was a far cry from back when they had a counter and just laid the promos out for anyone passing by, the amount you took governed only by your own conscience.

One of the times I got back there on Sunday, I did see one of their workers handing out the GPK Comic Conner promo card to everyone standing in a line for the booth next to theirs whose line had snaked in front of them. Pretty cool, but I would imagine some of those went into back pockets, or worse, the trash, as those people getting them very likely weren't card collectors.

I missed out on the oversized GPK cards completely on Thursday, and was told they were portioning them out day by day so to come back. I tried again by going to Topps early Sunday and missed the last set by about 2 minutes as the fellow in front of me was getting it. Those sold out and the Comic-Conner shirts were almost completely gone on Sunday, so I think Topps did well, sales-wise.

I will say that I saw 3 or 4 workers in total there and they were always smiling. I told them it was good to have them back.

quote:

Originally posted by Arvin Sloane:
Wow, not even a page worth of posts from Comic Con. I guess that says a lot about the state of this hobby in general.

Well, when non-sport card manufacturers Upper Deck, Rittenhouse, Topps, Cryptozoic, and Press Pass between them have a total of THREE promo cards (Rittenhouse Under the Dome P4 and Topps Comic-Conner and one Mars Attacks card, at their booth), it's hard to have a lot of card news. Panini had five different Dragonball Z promo cards, but those are for a CCG. They had some non-sport sample cards out, but they were just normal base cards. Upper Deck was mostly pushing their Hello Kitty Collectibles (most of which sold out, including some mini-figurines which did come with a set of proper sized cards), and they had those nifty card packs/sketch card grab bags which included even Guardians of the Galaxy cards, but those were listed on a little sign on the counter and were sold out well before the show ended.

Breygent, bless them, are the one real card manufacturer representing our hobby at Comic-Con, and they did it with style and class, as usual. (Upper Deck did have Joe Jusko signing oversized Masterpieces cards on two different days promoting the upcoming set, not too shabby).

I only got by Breygent on Thursday, since I was mostly in lines all day Sunday, but no less than two master illustrators (Tim Shay and Gary Kezele) were sitting there front and center painting the kinds of cards that end up in Breygent packs, to great credit all around.

Beyond that, people got home pretty late last night, or even just today and are still pretty tired, especially us card collectors who are getting a little long in the tooth, haha. We just don't recover as fast as we used to, especially those who attended all four days. I expect some more reports shortly, and I have some more to say on the subject.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: chesspieceface,

Thanks a lot for the reports so far chesspieceface and Jeff. I appreciate reading what happened this year.

Here's a basic overview of what Comic-Con is now, on the main floor anyway:

20% studios pushing movies and TV shows
20% comic books
15% larger toy manufacturers
10% designer toy manufacturers (Funko is king)
10% video game manufacturers
5% book publishing companies
5% role-playing games
5% anime and manga related
5% small press comics
4.9% independent artists and illustrators
0.1% trading cards (but I am rounding up here)

I'm a Simpsons fan from way back, so it was nice upon entering San Diego to see as the first thing while approaching the convention one of the bigger skyscrapers all decked out with a Simpsons mashup illustration and the hashtag #everysimpsonsever

This was just the beginning of what turned out to be a HUGE promotional push for the new "Simpsons World APP", part of which will be a 12 day marathon of every Simpsons episode airing in order (including the movie) non-stop on FXX startng August 21st.

Outside the convention center in the open area across from Hall H (in front of the Hilton Hotel), there was the "Homer Dome", a totally free exhibit set up like carnival with games (prizes were giant shopping bags and inflatable donuts), Marge's blue cotton candy booth, and the main attraction, the Homer Dome, a giant Homer head which fans could go into for a special video presentation (and some most welcome shade and air conditioning!).

After standing in lengthy line, you got to go inside with a group of about 30 people at a time for the presentation about the Simpsons World APP which was shown on the inside of the dome like at a planetarium. It was about 8 minutes long (mostly existing animation, but with at least some new material created for it) and very cool.

We were given a survival pack on the way in (a metallic weather blanket, an empty collapsible reusable water bottle, regular bottled water, granola bar, mini-flashlight), all Simpsons branded items ostensibly intended for watching the marathon on TV later this August, but really I think it was to mitigate the effects of the sun people had to stand in for a couple of hours at a time to get into the dome. I know I downed about 4 waters as soon as I got towards the front of the line where they were distributing them. They also had sunscreen stations that dispensed actual sun-block, a very good idea.

Anyway, it was pretty neat, the heat notwithstanding, and for me as a pin collector, the best part was a large "I Survived the Homer Dome" pin we were handed on the way out. I don't think you actually had to have a Comic-Con badge to have done the Homer Dome or any of the games/activities. The Convention center is pretty much on the beach, so I think some people just walking by noted the hubbub, and joined it. I'm sure Fox didn't mind. They were just promoting the APP (which is what the FXX marathon of all the episodes is doing), so I don't really think they cared exactly who they were promoting it to. They spent a LOT of money to promote this, that's for sure.

Here are a couple of images of the promo items (taken from Ebay auctions, absolutely not my own).



They gave away plenty of Slim Jim snack treats along with these, but those didn't make it into either auction lot. I saw a lot of people eating them. The cotton candy was Marge-hair blue and was being spun right then, so it was as fresh as could be.

Cotton Candy, anyone? It's blue like Marge's hair!


Water Pistols ready! Inflatable Donuts as prizes


The rest area with the same mash-up graphics that decorated the side of a skyscraper downtown


There were several of these "modern art" style displays throughout the park


And another of them:


This is a giant paint-by-numbers intended to set a World Record in the Guinness Book for most painters on a single such painting. Everyone got to paint three squares. Participants were given instructions on how to get their official world record certificate.



And a detail of the same, showing the squares we painted. Ours are the ones painted perfectly inside the lines, well sure...



Inside the dome, the lower wall, decorated with large size paintings of Simpsons characters. The one picture we got before they said, "Hey, no pictures in here!" It was great. I wish I could've got them all. They probably wouldn't have minded people photographing the painting on the walls so much, they just didn't want people recording the video content above.



And the outside of the dome, with some idiot standing in front of it:

This message has been edited. Last edited by: chesspieceface,

For promotional purposes, there are usually a few "photo opportunities" for Con goers to be inserted into a scene inspired by the show being promoted. Here's the one for "BATES MOTEL", the popular TV series spin-off of the classic film "Psycho". The series is set to return for a 3rd season in 2015 on the A&E Network (see, these promotional things do work!)

Here, chesspieceface himself (or possibly one of his agents, one can never be sure) lets his inner Norman Bates run free. Watch the birdie!



How's his toupee look?