The fine folks at Funimation were back behind the Marriott again and knocked it out of the park with this year's version of the Dragon Ball World Tour offsite! While not as ornately decorated as last year's offering, they did have WAY more activities this time around and also had a great scavenger hunt game that led to a fair amount of swag being passed out! Definitely love the bag and lanyard I got!
The small grassy yard in front of the Omni Hotel has gotten an awful lot of usage in recent years with some surprisingly fun offsite activations, and 2019 was no exception! The "Chilladelphia" carnival inspired by the DC film, Shazam, had long lines, but they went relatively quick as people played a host carnival games in an effort to win a foam lighting bolt finger. Proud to say my nephew and I BOTH won them!
Anytime an OG like Cookie Monster comes to kick it, you know it's gonna be a good day!
A family of Freddy's made the rounds upstairs at the Convention Center! This was among my favorite cosplays of the Con!
The Petco Park Interactive Zone was back at it again this year and considerably smaller than in years past. Last year, they really blew things up by utilizing the entire lot and keeping it open longer. This year, it not only reverted back to its original form, it was even smaller than in years past! Hopefully next year they can expand once more. Still, the experiences they did offer were worthwhile! Ripley's had a used car lot of wacky, honest-to-God working cars on display. Discovery Channel brought Sharkzilla back to promote Shark Week and destroy some stuff. Pepsi had a giant unicorn pool floaty on display while Carpool Karaoke filmed actual show segments on the spot! Probably the best part of the Interactive Zone though was the Gundam activation! That was one of my favorite animes growing up, and it's a real trip to think the original series is now 40! They had a really cool museum on display featuring toys and artwork and gave away some awesome collectors bags, without question my favorite swag of the entire Con!
The Keanu Brigade was there in full force on the streets of Downtown San Diego!
It was a bit of a walk, but Legion M also put on a great offsite that I scored a TON of swag at! In addition to the swag and a bar (not open though), they also had photo booths, phone charging stations and a handy and helpful cosplay repair station run by Spirit Halloween Retailers! I know it's a bummer that summer's rapidly winding down, but Halloween is ALWAYS something to get excited about! It's like a month-long Comic Con! I can't wait until these shops start popping up at abandoned Blockbusters and Toys 'R' Us stores around San Diego!
Wednesday and Pugsley! There was a LOT of Addams Family cosplay this year, which I'm always in favor of! I loved the original show and the movies were straight brilliant! Note to any cosplayers out there: If anyone wanted to dress up as Debbie or the Grangers, Becky and Gary, that'd be SOOOOO badass!
These Star Fleet officers weren't too happy about a Jedi trying to check out the Picard popup museum!
Now THIS is awesome! Wrestling cosplay is getting more popular at cons and I loved seeing this old school, WWF circa 1996 cosplay, though Mankind didn't start wearing the dress shirt and using Mr. Socko until 1998. Totally dig the Goldust and Marlena cosplay. A Paul Bearer cosplayer was the only thing missing here!
Amazon Prime went above and beyond this year! Their offsite, which took over two weeks to build, was pretty insane, as the pic at the top of the blog no doubt shows! The line to get in was relatively painless. Both days I went, I got in in less than 30 minutes. But the experiences inside were another story! The Expanse activation took over three hours to do and nearly made me miss an autograph signing with Lisa Henson! In all fairness though, that was on a Saturday when more people were able to go, as Amazon's offsite was open to all, badge or not. The Carnival Row activation, however, went a bit more smoothly. Early afternoon on Friday, people were still at work or school, so I got through the line in just over an hour. And it was an interesting one! The theming was amazing and the actors were really into it! And now I can say I've seen a burlesque show starring a satyr and a pixie! Not sure what kind of street cred that gives me, but hey! It's an experience!
Another fun offsite was the Fox Fan Fair! This activation had numerous games to play for prizes and even a Ferris wheel that stayed open later than most of the other activations in Downtown! One of the highlights was watching these two college dudes really going at it on Connect Four. I kid you not when I say these guys spent nearly 45 minutes trying to win!
Well, that's one way to be fairest of them all!
HALT!!! IT'S TURBO TIME!!! Jingle All The Way is actually a halfway decent Christmas flick. The opening's a spot-on parody of Power Rangers!
After years of trying, I FINALLY got into the Adult Swim Carnival! And my patience was rewarded by watching a Meeseeks ride a giant, mechanical hot dog while people watching threw foam hot dogs at him! Why can't EVERY day be like this?!?
There's just something very meta about spotting Rainbow Brite in a frozen yogurt shop! Still, I loves me some 80's cosplay!
It's the Juggernaut! Some insane detail went into this costume. Even the skin looked realistic!
FARTMAN IS HERE!!! Probably should've done a bit of censoring with this photo, but God damn is this hilarious! The F lit up and yes, he had holes cut out in the back! Hell, I'm old enough to remember Howard Stern doing this originally at the 1992 Video Music Awards!
Somewhere, there's Star Wars fan fiction that totally depicts Prince as a Jedi!
We close things out with the totally awesome booth that Netflix had setup for The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance! I built the Fox booth this year which wasn't too far away from Netflix's space. As I saw them putting up the walls then saw them bringing in the Skeksis puppet, I knew that I was gonna be doing this experience. The wait was insanely long, almost three hours, but totally worth it! This show is gonna be amazing! So thrilled that this story's being revisited! The original film would've benefited from an additional hour, so to do this as a series, there's a real chance to do some world-building here!
And that was Comic Con 2019! Well, sort of. There was a LOT going on! Bigger and better always seems to be the case every year, and they certainly delivered the goods this time around. For the first time in a long time, I wasn't playing Uncle Dad this year, so I was largely on my own and I almost got to do everything there! Despite pre-registering, I skipped the Brooklyn 99 offsite as the wait was as long as five hours and that's just plain ridiculous. The Detective Pikachu offsite was another one I would've liked to have walked through, but the lines were just too long. Also wish I could've checked out The Orville popup museum, but alas, time just wasn't gonna allow for it. All in all though, SDCC was a big success for me this year and I certainly hope all who went had as much fun as I did. Between the experiences, the swag, my purchases and meeting new pals while catching up with old ones... I'll be talking about this one for years to come! What does the future hold? Who knows? I recently sent in my paperwork to renew my professional status, so fingers crossed things will continue to work out. Come what may, thanks again to all my wonderful friends for making this year's Comic Con among the best I've ever been too!
And so, that's a wrap on the CRAZY Comic Con Countdown 2019. I hope y'all enjoyed the past two months of looking back on SDCC of years past. It's always a joy to share these pics and hopefully, we'll be back next year too. Next week, things return to normal with the return of the CRAZY art to get August off on the right foot, so be sure to come back and give it a look. Until then, take care and I'll catch y'all later!
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