down the rabbit hole

I Left Most of My Wallet in San Diego part two part two.

It's probably impossible to explain the sheer joy I encountered when entering the San Diego Comic-Con for the first time. As soon as I crossed the threshold and entered the floor, I saw a dude dressed up as a giant robot gorilla and I immediately doubled over and started laughing.

I've been to plenty of comic book conventions before, but they were mostly held in church basements, and while there were some notable geek heroes strewn about doing signings--like Lou Ferrigno from the Hulk TV show or the guy who played Enos in Dukes of Hazzard, who was super cool by the way--but mostly, the floor was dominated by long boxes and vendors plying graded comic books in mylar sleeves and pimple-faced middle-aged dudes screaming things like "how can you say this is near mint when there's a quarter centimeter wrinkle in the top left corner?!"

There are vendors in San Diego, and no shortage of pimple-faced middle-aged dudes, but there are also lights, sounds and people dressed up in all sorts of costumes. There's also a lot of shmoozing, and that's primarily what I was there to do. I shook hands, introduced myself, handed out cards and copies of my magazine. I met people I've worked with for years for the first time who I have only corresponded with via e-mail.

But the floor was huge, and the stimuli was overwhelming. Though I was there primarily for work, I was able to do plenty of geeking and gawking. I had a side mission to search for pieces of Zatanna memorabilia. Zatanna's first appearance--Hawkman #4--is the only Silver Age comic I own. There's clearly nothing to dislike about Zatanna. She's a strapping, tall brunette who wears a top hat, fishnettes and a tuxedo thing and she casts spells by saying stuff backwards. Clearly, though, such a janky character is not a staple in the DC Comics universe. She's usually relegated to guest appearances, one-shots and mini-series. Still, I think because she represents super heroes the way they really are--goofy and gaudy and ridiculous--she's become one of my favorite comic book super heroes, next to Shade the Changing Man. Also, her jankiness means that finding Zatanna-related items is relatively easy and inexpensive, because there's just not that much, and they're not in high demand. I purchased a cute color drawing of her with two other characters from an artist called Jeffrey Moy and another from artist Dan Brereton, and I was very pleased with both. Plus, they both cost me just 15 bucks combined. If anyone wants to buy me the perfect Christmas gift, Zatanna stuff is a sure-fire winner. No pressure.

I was also kinda taken back by the presence of females at this event. However, on further inspection, I realized that most of them were paid to be there. Though there were plenty of young girls dressed up as anime characters or someone from any one of the Final Fantasy games--and one woman looking rather good as the provacative Princess Leia in slave garb--most of the female contingent were either just devastatingly fine show models or women who were selling pictures of themselves naked.

But really, what better way to sell stuff to sweaty fanboys than slapping them upside the sexually frustrated head with gorgeous women. As if Toxic Avenger wasn't enough, Troma also armed their booth with this friendly, tattooed cutie.

My perverse favorites, though, were the two sleek and statuesque models posing for pictures with trembling, sweaty fleshed convention dwellers over at a booth for the new Incredible Hulk video game. They were attracting quite a crowd, and I wasn't immune to their super powers, which were derived from their skimpy and tattered purple skirts, skimpy and tattered cut-off shirts and toned and sculpted rockin' bodies. One of my favorite sights of my two days (next year I'd love to go for the whole thing) was the Hulk girls managing to keep their brilliant smiles while posing with an understandbly stoked, yet rather bulbous, young man shrouded in his Obi-Wan Kenobi costume. You really can't get much better than that.

Well, except for this: