Eternal Warrior at the Previews Booth

If you’ve read my wrap up of Wednesday or Thursday of Comic-Con, you know that I went to this year’s Comic-Con without much of a schedule or an agenda.

This freed up my time to spend with other folks, without feeling like I was missing anything at the convention.

This is really the theme of this year’s San Diego Comic-Con for me, the people I spent time with. In fact, when I look back at this year’s con, what I remember is the time spent with my friends, walking around the con, grabbing lunch or dinner after the con, hanging out after the con, etc.

That is the greatest value of Comic-Con, so many like-minded people go, meet, get together, and have a great time.

When I arrived at the con on Friday, I met an amigo or two, and walked around the con for a bit.

Around noon, we recorded our first episode from the convention, which includes an interview with the very talented Matthew Waite.

If you want to know more about the 8-bit variant covers from Valiant, go listen to this interview now!

Trading Card Sighting

Valiant Trading Card Preview Pack

While recording the episode, we randomly met a new fan of Valiant comics, who happened to be walking by while wearing a Valiant hat. We started talking to him, and he joined us for our round table discussion of the convention in the latter half of Episode 111. We also learned that there were preview packs of the new Valiant Trading Cards around the con, so that was our immediate next step. All of our friends that gathered for our round table discussion headed over to the booth selling the packs, and we went to town, we each bought one.

The packs contain 8 cards from the upcoming trading card set, and a special ninth sketch card, with a hand-drawn sketch by one of Rittenhouse’s artists. There are 500 individually numbered packs of these preview cards, I purchased number 28. The lowest number pack that the dealer had was number two, but he could not be talked out of it, despite how we tried. The sketch card I received in my pack is below.

X-O Manowar Sketch Card

Signings And Sights

James Asmus signing at the CBLDF booth, with the original art to the Q&W variant by Tony Millionaire

I didn’t go to any panels, or specific signings, or any other events that afternoon.

I did manage to make it back to the CBLDF fund booth, where James Asmus was signing copies of the Variant edition of Quantum & Woody. In a nice confluence of events, Tony Millionaire, the cover artist for the CBLDF variant, was signing at the Fantographics booth one aisle over from the CBLDF booth, and I was able to get my copy signed by both James and Tony.

Also, James had the original cover art for the CBLDF variant, which Tony Millionaire had given to him earlier that afternoon.

Check out James with that art in the pic to the right!

It is definitely a unique cover, and shows that Valiant is interested in doing cool stuff, and working with folks that may be outside of the usual mainstream norm of the comics world.

At the park next to the Bayfront Hilton, which is right next to Hall H of the con, there is always some sort of great display. Last year, it was Batmobiles, this year there were some Teen Titans cartoon displays, and this majestic bit of construction, the lego Hobbiton:

Lego Bag End

After Lego Hobbiton, it was back to the convention center.

I walked the convention that afternoon with my girlfriend, who had arrived in town for the evening, and made most of my purchases from the weekend. The best time, after all, to purchase 50 pounds worth of books is right before you leave to walk back to your hotel room. I’ll get into the purchases more when I get to Saturday and my Con wrap up.

Poker/Trivia Night

Last of all, trivia and poker night.

Oh, yes, one of the highlights of the con.

Every year, folks from the ValiantFans.com message board get together for an evening of poker, Valiant trivia, beer, pizza, and whatever other shenanigans we can come up with.

This is always the highlight of the con, and every year it seems there are more and more of us attending, including some of the folks that work at Valiant Entertainment. It is always a fun evening.

If you want to know more about the trivia night though, you’ll have to read about it at the Valiant Fans message board (and you’ll have to be a registered member to see that discussion).

Busy, busy

After Friday, Comic-Con would have felt like an incredibly full, fun experience. There’s still more though! Coming up, Saturday in review.