The Novel Strumpet Recaps San Diego Comic Con 2011! SDCC 2011! With Her Literary Loves Including Patricia Briggs! Sherrilyn Kenyon! George R.R. Martin!
I am so behind in my posting! My sincere apologies! I have my own recap of Comic Con 2011 to finish, I have The Lovely Erica’s to put up, etc… You know… there’s only one Mike The Fanboy to go around! lol… I just heard a chorus of people around the world saying, “Thank God!” Lol…
Anyway, I always find is fascinating, how people can go to the same place at the same time and have totally different experiences! Such is the case with The Novel Strumpet! See as you know, The Novel Strumpet is our literary gal on the scene and she looooooooves her books… So Comic Con is like an oasis for her.
Check out her full recap after the jump and stay tuned for the rest of our Comic Con 2011 coverage!
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Comic Con 2011
Phwew! I’m equal parts “Thank Heavens it’s over” and “Over already?” It was a crazy busy Con and a really exciting one. Lots of authors, lots of books, lots of lines, lots of walking/sitting/standing…all in all a very successful time. I’ll have a lot of book reviewing to do over the next few weeks. Here’s my breakdown:
Wednesday – Preview Night
I rode down with our very own Mike the Fanboy, I wanted to video document the 2.5 hour trip for his fans, but he seemed to think it might bore you guys. I don’t know how 2.5 hours of watching Mike drive could bore you, but I bowed to his wishes. Along the way we got confirmation that it was indeed time for Comic Con since we saw this truck about 60 miles outside of San Diego off the major freeway:
We pulled in around 2pm and after checking into our hotel (and being very thankful we carpooled since we were only allowed one car for hotel parking) we walked over to the convention center to pick up our badges and get ready for Preview night. We grabbed some dinner while waiting for the exhibit hall to open, and I got a pic of the crazy Twitards camping out:
I call them that with love because I’m one too. We went back inside the convention center to wait for the Exhibit Hall to open and this was the line we came back to:
Outside
Inside
Mike FBing about the line
I’ve never seen it this crowded before. Every year gets bigger and bigger. We finally made it downstairs and split up since the things we do at the Con are on completely separate ends. I made it over to the Laurell K. Hamilton booth to buy an Edward T-shirt, Anita Blake Marshall Sweatshirt, and a coffee mug…yes I geeked out, but it’s been a few years since I bought AB gear so I was due. I also think I managed to horrify a few AB fans and booth workers by declaring my absolute hatred of fairies, thus meaning I hate the Merry Gentry series…sorry LKH, but not even you can save them from my wrath. I then hit the publisher booths and snagged some free books (the reason for existence) and mapped out the floor so I could plan my entrance and escapes from the exhibit hall. I also ran into my partner in crime, Kelly (who has her own blog site I review for, mostly erotic romance stuff) and we quickly touched base for the coming days. Once preview night closed Mike and I headed back to the hotel, past the tent cities (who knew), and decided to get some sleep since we’d be getting up early the next day to go buy our passes for next year. This was what I got for the first night….I think it’s a good sign:
Thursday – Day One
Got up at 7am, threw on clothes (took showers the night before), grabbed breakfast; Mike grabbed 1,000 eggs and some biscuits to go, I grabbed a couple mini croissants but NO COFFEE. Danger ahead. We met up with Erica and company to stand in line so we could buy our 2012 passes. Thank heavens they got there at 6:45am, because that was one crazy ass line. I knew they only had it open between 8am and 11am, but I didn’t know they were only selling a certain amount per day. I’m sure the others will rant on this one, so I’m just going to say 7:30am to almost 11am was spent there…blech, and I didn’t get coffee until at least 9am. Bitches are lucky I found some because starting around 9:30am people were panicking about Preview Night selling out. If I’d had to listen to that w/out caffeine in my system…it wouldn’t have been pretty. Finally headed over to the convention center found Kelly waiting in line for a Jim Butcher signing, we agreed to meet at the Patricia Briggs panel. I headed down to the floor to beg Mysterious Galaxies (the local bookstore in San Diego who is always at the convention to sell books) to bring the next Gail Carriger book for me Heartless…they said they’d have it on Friday. While standing at the Random House young readers table I got to see some of my favorite people…TOP MODELS!!!! As in America’s Next Top Model models, guess Tyra Banks is releasing a book called Modelland about models with magic powers – oh geez:
12-1pm was the Patricia Briggs panel. I was amazed that no one asked “The Question” and if you’ve ever sat in a room where people get to ask a panel questions you know what I’m talking about. There was a signing after, but because I was waiting in 2012 preregistration line I missed the ticket drawing, however I overheard someone saying we could check the info booth for extras. They had them, so I got in line to get my book signed 🙂
There was a panel at 3pm Kelly and I want to go to, but couldn’t get in b/c of the freaking Harry Potter fans who are squatting in the room. Seriously, Comic Con needs to come up with a system to allow people to get into panels which take place around really popular ones. I’ve squatted before, but never if it kept people from their panel, but I like to play fair that way. We did make it into the Simon and Schuster panel (their first one)…my advice is if you’re going to give out swag, don’t make it a bunch of prize packs, splitting things up gives more people a chance and might get you more readers. Just my take. It was 8pm by that time and I headed out to meet Mike, who had invited me to attend a Showtime party with him and Erica, some other Fanboy peeps were there as well, and I thought it would be a great opportunity to see them in action. The party was fun, and there were celebrities hanging out, but the really fascinating stuff to me was watching these guys do their “thing”. The constant texting from other informants scattered throughout the hotels, them going in for “the kill” when someone finally left the party, Erica and her sister running across the street to see who was leaving that party (I think they snagged the new Conan the Barbarian)…it was insanity broken up by a lot of standing. These guys either have the patience of saints or are the craziest motherf*ers I’ve ever met. I love crazy! We finally started to head back to the hotel @ 11:30, Erica informed us that the entire Twilight cast was eating at the Hard Rock, but I was too pooped to wait around and let’s face it, that ship has sailed. I’ll still see the movie, but I didn’t even bother trying to get into Hall H for that craziness (and from what I’ve seen on YouTube I’m glad I skipped) and I went to the Summit booth once, they just weren’t doing as much this year as in the past, or I just didn’t care anymore. It’s hard to decide.
Friday – Day Two
It was a whirlwind day of author meets either intentional or accidental. I got there around 8:30 to stand in line to get a ticket for the Sherrilyn Kenyon signing (which they finally let us in to do @ 10am instead of 9am like we were told). In a show of brilliance they just put everyone waiting for ticketed events in the same line. Do I really have to pass two hours with Big Bang Theory people? I’m not even here for TV shows or movies…wtf? But I passed the time chatting to a Steampunk lady who’d been attending CC for 17 years. She had stories to tell. After I got my ticket I hit the Exhibit hall and attacked all the publisher booths and it was just one author after another. While standing at the Del Rey booth I looked over at a guy who was grabbing up a bunch books, it was George R.R. Martin (for you TV fans he’s the guy who wrote the books HBO’s “Game of Thrones” is based on) he’d just decided to randomly sign copies of his books since he was there. I snagged a photo and didn’t need a ticket….bwahahahahahaha…I also purchased one of the books he signed:
Then I randomly ran into Leslie Klinger who has done some amazing annotated books for Sherlock Holmes and Dracula. He’s working on another Holmes book with one of my fave authors Laurie King, and he’s an advisor on the new Guy Ritchie Holmes debacle (I didn’t have the heart to tell him how much I hated the first movie, that wasn’t his fault). I think I might have scared him with my geekness over meeting him. I’ve taken a class at UCLA with him about his Dracula anthology and I know he does one on Holmes so I hope to take that one someday as well.
Kelly and I met up and we met more authors at the publisher booths (snagged 8 authors and their books…it was awesome), but you’ll hear more about those as I review their books. At 2:30 I headed up to stand in line for the Sherrilyn Kenyon signing. I love her books, I’m putting together an overview of her Dark Hunter series for Mike to post, but there are so many more and it was announced during Comic Con that her Dark Hunters will become a TV show, her Chronicles of Nick will be a movie and there may be an animation series based on her Werehunter novels…EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!! Waiting in line for that signing was an experience. I had to listen to some girl do a video blog while waiting in line, at some point she was “There she is….blah, blah, blah” , and then had to politely carry on a conversation with some guy who crawled out of the basement for the con. I’m an evil person, I know. I was actually very polite to him and deserve an award, especially when he tried to get me to explain to him why Buffy people hate Twilight. Being a Twilight and not Buffy (honestly I love the movie, the TV show just wasn’t my thing) fan that was not the easiest thing to do, but I think I managed. If only Sherrilyn Kenyon could understand the lengths I went to for that signature and photo…hahahahaha…no seriously….
Met back up with Kelly and we went to the best restaurant ever, Dick’s Last Resort. If I had been able to work here when I waited tables I think it would have been a much better experience. C’mon, getting paid to insult people? That’s awesome! And the wait staff ain’t half bad either:
Plus if you play along and talk sassy to them they’ll make you a great hat. This was the guy sitting next to us who gave his waitress hell:
Back in the convention center I dragged Kelly over to the Quirk Books booth so I could get a pic with the Pride and Prejudice and Zombies cover:
From 7-9pm there were back to back publisher panels with Penguin/Putnam and Del Rey (Random House) who had Kim Harrison (author of the Hallows series) and Harry Turtledove (awesome alternate historian writer…seriously, what would the world be like if Hitler won?) on the panel….guess who I got a photo with…..
Kim Harrison left early because she hadn’t eaten all day… whatever. Caught the shuttle back to the hotel, Scott had finally joined us, and called it a day.
Saturday – Day Three
Kelly and I met at 9:30am so we could hit the pub booths before the Sherrilyn Kenyon panel at 11:15.
She was funny, and “The Question” reared its ugly head. Are you really going to argue the psychology of a character with the author? Seriously? Really. The most priceless moment was the 13/14 year old boy asking her what her books were about. HAHAHAHAHAHAHA…poor Sherrilyn. How do you explain 30+ books, most of which are labeled paranormal romance to a teenage boy? She did ok, the audience tried to help, I’d just tell him to read Chronicles of Nick, her YA books w/a male protagonist. After that we hit the Exhibit Hall and went to, you guessed it, the publisher booths for more books and author meets. We grabbed Kim Harrison as she was walking around and I finally got a photo with her:
At some point we were standing in line with Sherrilyn Kenyon to meet an author and get a book signed. I love seeing my favorite authors getting geeky over things as well. Patricia Briggs was often in the Penguin booth helping them promote things or handing out swag. Christopher Paolini (author of the Eragon series) was over at the Random House young readers booth hanging out for a while. You don’t get that with movie/TV celebs. That’s why I love books.
Our last panel was for Harpercollins, and it was highly entertaining while they tried to get the new iPad to work for their presentation. An Apple fail, it’s nice to know it’s human cybernetically speaking of course. Kelly and I headed for dinner and then spent some time just walking around the Gaslamp district to observe the craziness. The police were raising money for the local museum, they were arresting people so I got to be a mobsters moll and get a mug shot for indecent exposure…cross two off the bucket list…
Headed back to the hotel around 10pm.
Sunday – Day Four
Not much to report, for some reason by the time I got to the convention center that day I was D-O-N-E. I skipped all my panels, didn’t bother with the publisher booths (I already had close to 30 books, I had to draw a line somewhere right?) so I called my friend who lives in San Diego and went to have lunch with her. Then she and her husband subjected me to an hour of ABBA…the music isn’t bad, but the videos gave me nightmares…I’m serious….finally the Con closed (but not before I’d bought an awesome red leather vest and cool red contacts) and that was it for another year.
Now I have to hole up in a cave so I can find time to read all this stuff…..it’s a hard life I lead ;P
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The Novel Strumpet
Occasional blogger and fangirl. Aspiring to be a functional adult. So far it's not working.
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LOL…just so everyone knows, the first pic of Kim Harrison is supposed to be me and Harry Turtledove…oops 😀