It's been a few weeks since Comic-Con in San Diego but honestly, the dust is just now kind of settling for me and so I'm finally adding some blog entries about it.
This was not my first outing to a "Con" but it was my first trip to the grand daddy of them all. So one of my first considerations was making sure my geek cred was intact. And that starts with the difficult task of choosing what T-Shirts to pack. I remember Gus Lopez, super collector and creator of The Star Wars Collector's Archive, telling me about going to a general fantasy/scifi Con and debating whether or not to wear a Star Wars shirt. Was that too geeky? Perhaps he shouldn't wear anything sci fi... well, as it turned out, it really didn't matter because, as he put it, at this particular convention "the people dressed as the Borg were about the most normal looking ones there!" (I think there was a huge S&M / LARP contingent at the Con he was talking about, so the costuming was pretty outrageous.
[Like the Snow Crash
]
One consideration for your T-Shirt packing for Comic-Con is to pack light. Even if you're on a tight budget and go with no intention of buying them, you WILL end up finding a shirt or two that you just have to have, or will be on blowout on the last day for half price. So, I only needed to pick a few (especially since I was going to Comic-Con in part to work for The Guild and new I'd be getting a few of the new shirts that were debuting there).
First up, I eliminated a few shirts that I figured would be situationally uncool (that is, they're normally hip shirts but would be common at Comic-Con). So, the following didn't make the cut:
[L to R, Vader and Topiary from Threadless, Retro Star Wars, Firefly Blue Sun]
Next, I picked some shirts I hoped would help distinguish myself. One consideration I had was that on Thursday I'd be running a scavenger hunt for fans of The Guild, so I picked my bright red "Vancouver" shirt from my favorite clothing store, Roots. It worked out well, folks at the booth could point me out when they needed to, though if I do it again I've decided that a bright pink pimp hat might be the better choice. As you can see in photo to the right, it helped me stand out and even Biker Scouts approved. I'm pretty sure I was the only person at Comic-Con with a long-sleeved Roots shirt.
Then I picked two of my favorite shirts that were relatively obscure - in fact, they had nothing to do with comics or scifi or movies. First, my Yellow Man Group shirt, which I have found always gets commented on when I wear it. Because it's bright, bold, and everyone assumes it's a snarky pro-Asian riff on Blue Man Group. So, it is that, but it's also the T-Shirt of the Japanese Improv Troupe. And, I'll fess up on this one - in addition to this being a distinguishing shirt, I knew I might have a chance to meet Maurissa Tancharoen at the Con and I wanted to show her how "down" I was as a fellow yellow. As it happened, when I did actually meet her (photo here) I wasn't wearing this shirt, but the next day at The Guild panel I was seated near her and got a chance to show off the shirt and get a thumbs up from her. She knows that I know Nobody's Asian in the Movies. Awww, yeah!
The last shirt I hand picked for the Con (after tossing in a Serenity "Fruity Oaty Bar" shirt as a backup/travel shirt) was my shirt from Poletna šola slovenskega jezika 2008 (Slovene language summer school 2008). Because, really, what's more geeky than that? Actually, one of the reasons I took this is to show off to Edgar Garcia (webmaster for The Guild), with whom I share a strange fascination with Slovenian supergroup Atomik Harmonik. Though I think I forgot to show off my shirt to Edgar on the day I wore it. But you never know what magic might happen at Comic-Con - I was wearing my Slovenian shirt when Tekzilla co-host Veronica Belmont came by The Guild booth - and who knew? She asked me all about my interest in the former Yugoslav state that is the only country with 'love' in it's name. OK, that part isn't true, but I did sell her a "+5 to Sexterity" shirt (one of the great new Guild shirts available from Jinx):
Here are a few more shirt photos. First, Jeff Lewis (Vork) wearing another new shirt design from The Guild:
Jamie Chambers of Margaret Weis Productions (boothmate of The Guild and a great guy) sports the new Axis of Anarchy shirt (photo by Dani Figueiredo):
[The photo at the very top of the page is of a guy in a Snow Crash shirt. I'd never seen it before and asked if I could take the picture. He complied, and asked me if I knew what it was from - turns out I was the only person who had ever recognized the shirt as being from the book. Snow Crash is a great sci fi novel by Neal Stephenson which envisions, among other things, a virtual reality "metaverse."]
The red shirt worked very well for the Scavenger Hunt. Good choice.
I stopped buying from Roots though when they - "proud Canadian company" stopped having anything made in Canada.
I went through the whole what to wear thing too - glad I had decided to wear the Dr. Horrible shirt even though it too was common as it meant that Jed came over and thanked me for the support, at the Guild party.
Posted by: Lioness | August 21, 2009 at 10:08 AM
Whoah! That's cool that Jed came over and thanked you.
Not so cool about Roots. That's a bummer - it will definitely curtail, if not stop my purchases there.
Posted by: Brian Kameoka | August 21, 2009 at 10:25 AM
Awesome! That's the kind of info that lets us live vicariously through you.
Posted by: Sara | August 21, 2009 at 12:00 PM
Sara - glad you like it! I have some more stories, etc. to post. I know this was the kind of stuff you wanted via Twitter while I was there...
Posted by: Brian Kameoka | August 21, 2009 at 01:12 PM