Comic-Con: Day Zero
Mr. Bibbiani and I arrived to our lovely seaside resort(slash) hotel in the early afternoon after rocking out to the rhythms of such classic artists as N’Sync and The Backstreet Boys on our trip down the 5. Ex-Geekscapist Mr. Seibold met us at the hotel, briefcase containing unmarked $10s and $20s and one CD (a single of Beyonce’s All the Single Ladies) in hand.
After a jaunt to a nearby oyster bar (oysters devoured = 0), we attempted to board one of the many shuttles to the convention center—unsuccessfully. Faces pressed against the darkened windows licked their panes in a flip-book style series of tauntings as the bus sped into the distance. I sat and moped on the curb as The Bibbs attempted to calm The Sieb’s sobbing fit as the bus driver’s rejection of his plaintive cries apparently brought forth some unaddressed childhood trauma.
20 minutes later, a shuttle with at least 50% less nerds rolled to a stop, causing what I assumed was a homeless man in a purple Magic: the Gathering shirt who had, thus far, been laughing loudly at some unseen stimulation, to hasten to his feet and lunge towards the promise of air conditioning and the impending gratification of an oversized tarpaulin bag with The Vampire Diaries’s Nina Dobrev’s pouty face staring blankly into the distance.
As we chugged along to the convention center, I passed the time by pointing out various attendees and their physical similarities to ancillary Super Mario Bros. villains, while Mr. Bibbiani found himself awkwardly accosted by a bucktoothed screenwriter who felt the need to bond with a new-found nerd friend on his way to the Gaslamp.
Many drawn-out pauses later, we escaped the metal torture device and headed into Line Central: Land of the Bottlenecks. Unable to find a Comic-Con employee with the knowledge we needed, The Seibs—always up on the latest technology—used his GPS to locate the Press and Industry line, and thus we shuffled along in what I’m sure will be one of many lines this weekend, being elbowed, bagged, and thudded by various nerdlings as they wandered to their next destination.
Once we had been regurgitated into the main lobby by Comic-Con registration staff (adamantly refusing aforementioned tarpaulin bags), we found that we were still hours off of anything of interest occurring. Deciding to make our own entertainment, we strolled into the Gaslamp, immediately fixating on a restaurant that had been converted into The SyFy Lounge: Home to the World’s Most Expensive Tuna Salad.
Very impressed (and rather horrified) by the thought that anyone would pay $17 for a tuna salad, your destitute author, Mr. Bibbs, and Mr. Seibs shared a $7 basket of chips and salsa, with Mr. Seibs splurging on a $8 rootbeer float. (“A bargain at one-quarter the price,” comments Mr. Seibs.)
At 6PM, we found ourselves in yet another cloud of people—90% saturation making rain increasingly likely—hovering outside one of the entry doors as Comic-Con staff herded us in a sudden (and unwanted) right turn up a set of escalators. As your author found herself transported in the way Mufasa was transported by wildebeests, she cried out for The Bibbs but was swept up the escalator minutes before rescue could ever hope to arrive.
Once the musical number involving the warthog and meerkat was complete, the Exhibition Hall swung its tiny glass doors open wide, ready for violation in the worst possible way. Into this brutal scene the trio went, miners’ helmets and pick axes ready to stave off the sturdiest foes.
Between visiting Sideshow to plead for their daily gift card (Darth Maul for Wednesday—Thursday is a mystery, but your author hopes for Purple Tentacle but, of course, she just hopes for tentacles in general) and starring glassy-eyed at the limited Comic-Con 2012 Derpy pony figure, your author found herself in one of the worst situations known on this earth: a four electric wheelchair bind.
More rare than “Makin’ Bacon” in Pigs in a Blanket, the four electric wheelchair bind is an impossible foe to defeat, as the four-wheeled terrors gravitate towards each other in such a violent and magnetic way that it has been known to provoke seizures in small children and the elderly. While nearby responsible parties deal wrench open tiny jaws to prevent tongue dislocation, the surrounding viewers come to a grinding, throbbing halt of awe.
Your author was trapped and, as the hours passed, she realized that there would be no surviving Comic-Con 2012.