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Fully recovered from Comic-Con and ready to go over what got me psyched.

The definite #1 highlight was the Avatar: The Last Airbender panel and all of the Avatar stuff at Comic-Con. Not only because I love the show so much, but because every part of Nickelodeon’s presence at Comic-Con was so polished. The Avatar promotion, which I’ve already discussed, was absolutely amazing and the Avatar panel followed up on that performance. A lot of the panels from media companies are little more than a trailer and some moderated questions and then Q&A from the floor.

The Avatar panel delivered in full.

We got a ‘behind the scenes’ with the creators of Avatar video, which had some sneak peaks. We got a trailer for the new episodes of Avatar in addition to watching a couple of complete scenes from the same episodes. Then one of the show’s directors took us on a tour of one of the major cities in the Avatar world, showing character designs, architecture, creature designs and more teasers images. Then the head writer got to play with the hardcore fans with some ’shipping’ (speculation on relation’ships’ between characters on the show where their names are combined into one name. For example - a Suki and Sokka ship would be ‘Sukka’) Then we got the Q&A and everyone left the panel with a nice Avatar t-shirt.

Pretty hard to complain about that. Great job Nickelodeon! It’s no surprise the Avatar is the #1 downloaded TV show on iTunes. (yes, non-believers - even more popular than Lost)

The evenings at Comic-con were filled with great animation; the premiere of the new Teen Titans Go! movie, Spike and Mike’s Sick and Twisted and The Animation Show - good times.

Hanging out in the many lines of Comic-Con could have gotten old fast, but each time I stood in line, I made a few new friends. The line-ups also could have been called “The Nintendo DS Lite” show. They were - everywhere in San Diego!

Another great highlight is the new NBC show ‘Heroes’. The trailer and commercials you see on TV don’t do the show justice. It’s a very character driven show, grounded in reality, where people develope extraordinary abilities. Not so much about super heroes, but about how each individual might deal with getting the powers themselves. While it’s probably not the next Lost, it’s definitely going to find an audience. Whether the audience will be big enough for NBC remains to be seen, but the show has what it takes.

The show floor at Comic-Con was insane. This is where most of the record setting crowds went. Saturday is usually the busiest day and 2006 Friday was just as busy as 2005’s Saturday. The 2006 Saturday wasn’t even funny. The started turning people away at registration at noon on Saturday and they shut down online registration. Busy and stinky. I avoided the show floor as much as possible on Saturday.

Walking through the designer toy area at any time was pure insanity. I don’t even want to guess how much money Tokidoki and Kid Robot made over the week, but chances are that they can buy themselves a new Audi with the money they made during Comic-Con. The Tokidoki booth was always completely packed. Lots of neat toys to be seen, but none of the Comic-Con exclusives tickled my fancy - thus, all I came back with was the last Machinen Kreiger Kubrick toy I needed to finish my collection.

Anime/Manga and Manhwa were definitely the hit of the show and were primarily responsible for drastically increasing the female attendance over previous years. Everywhere you looked you’d see tons of girl cosplayers and lots of girls reading manga in the halls. Who would have thought that Sailor Moon being a big kids show 12 years ago would have resulted in the Anime/Manga boom that’s going on now?

Lots of great comics on the floor - to many to list. I feel bad for a lot of the indy guys. They come here for the biggest comic convention in the US and most attendees haven’t read a comic in years. The attendees come out for the video games, TV, toys, books, art, games and free swag - very few even care about comics. Quite sad really.

But with that said, the crop of indy comics gets better every year and the presence of the web comics powerhouses was hard to ignore. Penny-Arcade and the Dumbrella gang were always busy signing and selling.

The Hollywood contingent was out in full force with the Spider-man, Narnia and 300 panels generating the most buzz on the show floor (in addition to Kevin Smith getting stuck in traffic and missing the ‘Kevin Smith Panel’), but everyone was pushing their latest blockbuster and the stars were on parade. Apparently a few celebrities were a bit upset that their weren’t any swag bags at Comic-Con. This isn’t the Oscars people.

Cos-players, trekkers and Star Wars nuts made sure wandering around the convention floor was always entertaining. One guy was walking around with his shirt off - of course he looked a lot like Hugh Jackman, had a burly build and claws coming out of his hands - so nobody was going to argue with his Wolverine costume. I got a kick out of all of the Anime cosplay girls who had pink hair and bright costumes on, but spent all of their time frowning. I know cosplay and goth cultures have a lot in common, but if you are going to dress like an anime character - at least have fun doing it.

Tips for con-goers next year:
1. Bring water and granola bars
2. Shower, Bring Deoderant and try not to stink.
3. Avoid the show floor on Saturday.
4. Buy everything on Wednesday night (preview night) or on Sunday. If it’s going to run out, go Wednesday. By Sunday most people have made their money and are more concerned about lightening the load to go home and will definitely make deals.
5. Check out the panels and workshops - it’s a part of Comic-Con SO MANY miss out on.
6. Leave lots of room in your luggage to bring your stuff home.

Comic-Con 2006 was a blast and now hopefully I can convince the gang to round up a SDCC 2007 crew and we can geek-out en mass.