Armageddon, Day 2

Sunday is always much quieter than Saturday, meaning I get to sleep in and not worry about arriving early. I got there at 9:30 and walked straight in. Not sure why I was that early as I didn't really have any plans until an hour later, but it did give me a chance to take some photos.

There was a Warthog from Halo, made by Weta Workshop. I've never played Halo and probably never will, but it was cool enough to warrant a few shots.

This is the room I mentioned previously where Marv Wolfman's panel was held, along with the air con unit that was but a black sheet away*

The anime area that yesterday was a sea of people, was much calmer today. I wound up buying some manga since they were going for $10 each. A good chance to try new stuff cheap, and I appreciated not getting squashed ;)

This was the general layout of the event:
aaaand a little shift to the right...

The media guest area moves every year. This years layout was good in terms of keeping the line of waiting people out of the way, but I must admit I liked the feel of the layout more last year. It was in the middle of the floor and made the guests seem more accessable and part of the event, rather than off to the side (if that makes sense). Just my 2 cents.

I wound up going over budget, so didn't end up paying for any autographs. It's all Nicola Scott's fault. Marv Wolfman and Nicola came in a little earlier than their scheduled 10:30 start. Marv had a bunch of his comic scripts for sale, which is a brilliant idea and more writers should do. If artists can make extra money selling their pages, why not the writers? I got scripts for the first 2 issues of the Raven mini, plus the issues that go with them. $40 in total, and I'm really looking foward to checking them out. Expect a post about this in the future.

As for Nicola Scott, I caved and hit her up for a sketch. I watched her do a cool Deadshot rendition for someone, then asked for a Firestorm pic (who else?). I'd come prepared with reference materal, which she needed. I'm always unsure if I should ask for a character the artist is familiar with or not, but it was worth a shot. It turned out awesome, all being done in grey marker:

I love watching pros draw, totally worth the $50 she was charging. So yeah, with the 2 Birds Of Prey pages I got yesterday, I wound up paying Nicola $250. Ouch, that's a lot when you say it like that, but I got some really really cool art for it. I even managed to have a bit of a conversation with both of them, so yay me ;)

At 11:30 was a 30 minute panel with Christopher Judge (Stargate). He was a lot funnier than I thought he'd be, and I enjoyed it. Earlier in the morning I saw a summary of recent SG1 events in the lead up to the screening of "Ark Of Truth". Let me just say that getting the last couple of seasons on DVD is now top of my list, because damn that looked awesome.

Noon saw a panel with all the animation guests + Marv Wolfman, since we had Hynden Walch there (Starfire from Teen Titans) and the Titans were on the agenda. It was a bit awkward for the first 20 minutes, I guess noone had any questions, but it got better. There were a few too many "oh, do this voice" type requests for my taste. They're not trained monkeys, people. But I guess that goes with the territory. Spike Spencer's really not a fan of Shinji from Evangelion, which I find quite funny ("effeminate whiner"- he's right).

After the panel I went and got an Eva picture signed

Spike added facial hair and glasses. He'd done the same to the poster used as his backdrop, and written "I'm a man, damn it!" on it. More Shinji hating, which is never a bad thing ;)

At 2pm was something we haven't had here before: a panel with every single guest- actors, animation (well, still actors really), wrestling (hey, also actors!), and comics. Some very funny moments, and overall a good idea that hopefully will become a mainstay. Just so long as nutjobs don't insist on interrupting proceedings so they can hug all the guests, like 4 twits did today. Yes I'm a grumpy old man :p

I also got a Hynden Walch autograph:

I called it a day at 3:30. Expenses for the weekend:

Anime- $80
Comics- $140
Manga- $30
Signatures- $20 (for the two cartoon photos, signed for free)
Marv Wolfman & Nicola Scott- $290

Total spent: $560. I blew budget by $60, but my $500 target is only arbitrary anyway and purely to stop me buying everything that looks cool. Looking at that list, I think it would be a good idea if Nicola Scott in particular didn't come back ;)


*It may sound like I'm criticising this, but I'm not really :)