I think I’ve been to Comic-Con three times. It’s always a blast, and exciting and exhausting. I’d never gone alone before, though, so I was a little nervous.
Keith Robinson, showing off all his worldly goods, including Making It books.
First I tried to register as Professional, or Press. Annoyance #1.
“Yeah, really great, YAWN, but give us some proof. Send it to us on a piece of paper. Hardcopy is about our speed. We don’t understand websites or blogs too well…Who are you again?”
The talented Dan Piraro signs Bizarro books. (Dan is a fellow cartoonist with me in Parade, so I have to say something nice about him.)
I thought the hard part was going to be the long drive down there – I’ve never driven that far by myself. But then I tried to get a hotel room… Most hotels there are kind of crappy, but that’s all part of the adventure, and San Diego has a very convenient shuttle that goes from most hotels to the convention center, so you don’t have to deal with parking.
Her bottom cartoon gave Keith an idea. Below.
I called in early June. Turns out if I didn’t call within the first few minutes of the first day reservations opened- in February- you’re screwed. From their “blog“, not updated – or even dated at all! – and as unprofessional as the rest of their operation:
..in the first five seconds, the site had the same number of people requesting a room as there were rooms available.
There are only 9,800 rooms within a 1.5 mile radius of the San Diego Convention Center and Comic-Con is only allocated 6,100 rooms in our block, mainly in this radius.
So you know they didn’t really want you to come, anyway! Let alone professionals or press. And Travel Planners, the company in charge of hotels for this hot mess wanted all kinds of personal info when I asked to be on their waiting list; no thanks, go spam someone else.
I was so bummed. My friend Keith Robinson had a great place to stay, in a beautiful city just outside of San Diego, with friends – as usual- and smugly suggested I should make reservations a YEAR early for 2009! No thanks. I like playing hard to get. Comic-Con, you’ll never know what you missed without me.
Keith did get to go, every. single. damn. day, and sent amusing twitters of some of his adventures. I love how he described the woman in the bottom photo holding her cartoons up to show the cartoonists in the booth:
A talented cartooning student whose name, I’m sorry to say, I don’t remember. Greg Evans (Luann) praised the feet in the drawing. “It’s hard to do feet,” he said. I said, “There are feet in the drawing?”
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