Welcome to June CRAZIES!!! Summer is here! Barbecues, theme parks, the start of the San Diego County Fair! And, of course... COMIC CON!!! That's right folks! It is that time of year again and the time has come for some reminiscing about the joys of COMIC CONS past! But first, we got a little something else to attend to, another tradition that has been going on for close to a decade now...
For nearly ten years, I have taken part in the Team Cul De Sac Art Auction at HeroesCon in Charlotte, North Carolina. Though I've never had the pleasure to attend in person, I have had the pleasure of donating original art for the auction, and this year is no different! Below are my offerings for 2026:
Melon Crazy: Pen and ink on Bristol Smooth Paper colored with Olo Markers.
Surf The Dragon: Pen and ink on Bristol Vellum Paper colored in PrismaColor Colored Pencils. (This piece in all took FIVE days to finish!)
For those of you heading to HeroesCon next weekend, June 12-14, now is your chance to not only own some original CRAZY art but also send a swift kick to the rear end of Parkinson's Disease once and for all as ALL proceeds go towards research of eradicating this horrible disease. Richard Thompson, the creator of the wonderful and hilarious Cul De Sac comic strip, suffered from it and succumbed to the disease in 2016. Humanity was robbed of not only a phenomenal cartoonist but a wonderful human being as well. The auction itself in on June 12 and is free for convention attendees. For more information, click here for the Team Cul De Sac website.
And now, dear CRAZIES, it is time to proceed with the fun, the laughs, the memories. I can barely contain myself even as I type, so let's just jump right in! The year is 2015, the site is the San Diego Convention Center. Hold on to your Batman Underoos because the CRAZY COMIC CON COUNTDOWN is a go! Enjoy...
A sight rarely seen by most who go to SDCC: A near empty exhibit hall! It's pretty wild to see the place before the booths go in. Oddly enough, the place actually seems smaller when it's empty, despite the vastness of it all. This was likely taken in Hall D looking south as the air wall separating Halls G and H is up in the background of the picture.
Another behind the scenes shot looking east towards the front of Hall D. The pony banner welcomes you to the eventual Hasbro booth, my home away from home for quite a few years. From 2013-2019, I hung all their lights and monitors at both their main booth and their former Toy Shop booth. It wasn't always the easiest booth to do, but the dudes who ran it were really cool and Hasbro always hooked us up with free toys and swag when the show was over.
Anytime is a good time for Dia De Los Muertos!
Will somebody PLEASE get these dudes a shrubbery?!?
The awesome NERD HQ offsite! Lotta controversy surrounding its exit from the SDCC, but then again there's a lotta controversy surrounding the folks who used to run it now too, so I guess it evens out. Regardless, it was a fun experience and a great opportunity for those without badges to have some fun at SDCC.
If McDonalds was honest in their advertising.
A cool activation at the Petco Park Interactive Zone! Can't really make out the logo behind the statue, but it appears to be promoting a video game of some sort.
It's Bill Cipher! I never watched Gravity Falls, but the young folks seemed to like it!
The Nintendo Lounge! It was a great offsite once upon a time.
The legendary Hall H Star Wars panel! After the panel ended, attendees were led to the Pops Site out back for a concert and fireworks show!
The Nintendo booth in Hall A. Mario Maker was kinda the last hurrah for Wii U and led to a funny story involving my buddy Riki, who was absolutely crushing it on these insanely hard levels that a bunch of wise ass kids made. So much so that it made news all the way over at the Convention Center!
The FX Lawn in its second year definitely didn't disappoint!
The Xbox Lounge... We didn't know how good we had it back then!
Lego Conan celebrates the first year of Conan O'Brien doing shows at SDCC! His shows were so much fun. I wish TBS still aired them.
My niece Kristen hanging out with some Comic Con Corgis!
Wonder Woman meets Jedi Wolverine, the latter of which technically could happen in Disney's vast expanded universe!
I don't think that's true, but he hasn't been smiling upon them much lately.
You meet a lot of interesting people on the Trolley ride up to Downtown!
Lastly, we close the book on 2015 with a much younger me with my much younger nephew and niece! They were 12 and 10 then and are now 23 and 21. I can't even believe they're adults now with lives and interests of their own. I don't know why time has to fly by so quick, but I'd love to go back to those simpler days, even if only for a little while.
And that was Comic Con 2015. Definitely one of my best years there in terms of swag and participation! So much great cosplay too! The offsites were slamming and still competently ran and the world was a much kinder and more hopeful place. Kinda bummed I'm running out of pictures from this one. It was a good show!
Well, that's one week down, but fear not, for we got nine more to go as the CRAZY COMIC CON COUNTDOWN gets your summer kicked off right! So be sure to come back and see what we got cooking next! Until then, take care, stay safe and I'll catch y'all later!
