Every year San Diego is descended upon by throngs of nerds, geeks, artists, pretty girls paid to dress up in costumes and regular folks dressed up in costumes. This of course is Comic-Con International, better known as San Diego Comic-Con or, more simply, Comic-Con.
By now I’m sure most people have the gist of what Comic-Con is all about. Costumes, comic books, video games, movies and tons of people crowding the streets. It would be too easy to rehash all of this, so I’ll digress.
This year was my fifth year attending the convention and the fourth for Ice Cream Man. After going relatively big last year, having the truck parked out on busy Fifth Street, we decided to do things a lot more low key this year. I drove Bessie down on a surprisingly cool and grey Thursday morning and tried my best to get settled in. That night was the Wil Wheaton hosted geekfest W00tstock. I had only a few hours between lunch and the start of the show, so I felt it wouldn’t be worth trying to make my way to the actual convention and spent the time getting prepared.
On the way to 4th & B, I ran into a couple of the folks from Thinkgeek. We had been talking about getting together to do something at Comic-Con and decided that W00tstock was the perfect fit. They got in touch with the crew there ahead of time and got people prepared for free ice cream as they waited in line. Unfortunately, the line was a lot shorter than expected when we showed up, so ice cream moved a little slow. The people that were there got special treats, not only free Ben & Jerry’s, but Thinkgeek had some free gift cards to give away as well.
The highlight of the afternoon was geek icon Wheaton coming out to talk with the crowd and grab himself a free ice cream. If there is one section of the public that enjoys free ice cream more than festival goers, it is definitely geeks.
Since the venue didn’t allow people to bring their ice cream inside, I packed up shop when they opened the doors and parted way with Timmy the Thinkgeek monkey and his cohorts. Next stop was The Casbah, who specifically requested we stop by. They had a nerdcore show featuring MC Lars that night, so it seemed an ideal place to go. My friend Dan came by to assist but the night had got a bit chilly by that point and the fans at the show weren’t too interested in ice cream. I had hoped to come back by W00tstock after the show, but as it got late, I grew sleepy and decided it was best to get Bessie parked and down a couple of beers at Live Wire before bed.
Day two I actually got to set foot in the Convention Center. The whole thing is more of a marketing festival than anything else. Tron was going all out again, setting up a Flynn’s Arcade on Sixth Street that could only be attended if you took part in their marketing campaign. Inside the convention, in addition to Tron, there were big pushes for the upcoming Green Hornet movie, the new AMC show Walking Dead, Thor (Odin’s throne was there!) and all the other big nerdy movies coming up. It was all a little too much to take and I had hurt my back, so I got out and prepared for the Tweet House event that night.
We had hoped to hit the Tweet House party in SXSW this year, but as hectic as that place is, it didn’t materialize. I decided to hit up the folks there about doing the Comic-Con party, and with help from our friends at Sweet Treats (who also had a couple decked out Adult Swim ice cream trucks around town) we were able to get a push cart onto the party. I say “on” because it was aboard the USS Midway, an actual aircraft carrier museum floating off the coast. Free ice cream on an aircraft carrier, check. The party was slow starting, but eventually hit its stride. The guest of honor, William Shatner flew in in a helicopter and made a plug for his website, MyOuterSpace.com. Tweet House spared no expense on this party, having KROQ’s Stryker introduce Funeral Party and Heavy Young Heathens on the outside stage and inside after the mingling, DJ Mike Relm got people on the dance floor.
I had to hightail it home to get going camping the next morning, so I didn’t get to hang around for much of Relm or get to see Levar Burton nor many other celebrity guests that were there. Maybe next time.
Many thanks to Tweet House and the USS Midway Museum as well as our friends at Sweet Treats and Thinkgeek for all the help.
glad you rocked it Gooch. I def think the stripped down approach was the way to go