HOTELS
San Diego Comic-Con is not only the largest comics/pop culture con in North America, it’s also one of, if not the biggest, convention period. Because of that, every downtown area hotel sells out, booking early is a necessity.

I’ve stayed in varying distances from the con, from 11 blocks out my first year at the downtown Days Inn, where it’s walkable (but not 2 times a day for five days, especially with gear), but there’s a shuttle you can catch at most any hotel (in this case around the corner at the Radisson or something). However the shuttles fill up, and run on schedules, and get crowded after the show, so they’re doable, but not smooth. Last year my wife was joining me part of the time, so I spent a bit more, and got a much nicer hotel, The Bristol, that was about half the distance as the Days Inn, 6 blocks. This proved to be too far as well. It was not a bad walk, but when you’re in a hurry, hot, or carrying something, it’s too much. This year we ended up at the Gaslamp Hilton, directly across from the con, when a room opened up with the con’s hotel discount (which was lucky, because almost every available room through the convention was booked within like hours this year).

Here’s the view from our hotel room of the convention center:

…and that’s only half of the building!

We traveled by rental car from Anaheim (we added a Disney vacation to the front of our trip), so we had to park a car the first night. If you do stay somewhere with a rental car, make sure and get a hotel with free parking, the Hilton charged a whopping $23 a night (and that’s not counting tips for the valet)!!
The Hilton was a nice, decent hotel, the only real perk they offered was location. No free food or anything.
TIP: we stayed at the Embassy suites in Anaheim, and not only do they offer a full breakfast (not continental, or bake your own waffle iron, but comparable to a cheaper diner), and get this, a manager’s reception every night, where the bar is open, as in totally free, for 2 hours!!! I noticed there’s an Embassy Suites just a few blocks down from the convention center, a little far of a walk, but perhaps offset by free breakfast and drinks if they offer the same perks chain wide…

THE CON
The convention runs Wednesday through Sunday, with Wednesday being “preview night”, when the hall opens for a few hours in the evening. We got into San Diego and our hotel Wednesday afternoon, much later than I’d hoped, so I didn’t make it to the convention hall for check in til after 3pm.

This was the attendee line at 3pm Wednesday, or at least part of it.

Here’s another TIP, even as an exhibitor, the earlier you get to the hall to get your badge and what not, the better. By 3, there were massive lines, and I heard people who had to wait at least a couple hours. Make sure and get everything taken care of ahead of time, you can even register online. I didn’t get that done this year, because I hate, HATE, the California laws where every exhibitor must obtain a temporary sellers permit, they’re a major pain in the ass. So, I had to show them my recently obtained via email at the last minute permit number. This worked out okay, because when I went to the help/info booth to ask which line I needed, the wonderful woman went ahead and got all my paperwork done and printed my badges… I was in with no wait! Luck.

When you exhibit in small press, the best deal in the business, a 6ft table at the largest show in the industry starts at only $200. The Comic-Con organizers are too cool for having a large small press section at such affordable rates, giving starving artists like me a chance to play in the big leagues.
Here’s another TIP, the con offers tables (as opposed to booths or small press, etc) for like $750, and they’re virtually the same as small press, and I’ve never spoken with anyone that enjoys the traffic they get. Stick to small press if you can. For the last few years it’s at the back of the hall, like the tables, and the artist alley, but it’s at the center of the hall as opposed to one of the corners.

So, I set up my table, as you can see here:

PRINTING
TIP - I went ahead and got a giant poster for display (like 4'x 3') from a great outfit called MakeSigns.com. Not only are they super affordable (blow any other price away), but they’re fast (the UPS delivery of said package is whole nother horror story though). Just check out their wide format printing service!!
The poster was very effective, tons of people commented to me or others as they passed by on the characters, the “aging club kid” was the most popular (it seems many people know one or more of those).

This show was the first time I had a complete issue of my book to sell, as I made up advance copies of my first issue. TIP - I used comiXpress, an incredible online, print on demand printer that has now done convention books for four different shows for me this year. They can print anywhere from 1 to however many copies you’d like of a book for the same price, which is perfect for low runs like convention sales! I can’t recommend them highly enough, and their quality is high too. TIP - be sure and allow yourself 6 weeks or more though for turn times with them, they’ve become very popular and are still struggling to get their leadtimes back down to 3-4 weeks.

Here are the books that were sold at the show:

There was also a white virgin sketch cover, that I hand sketched on. I tried those out earlier this year, and they’re quite popular. Another nice feature of print on demand, you can run multiple covers for very little extra cost!

FRIENDS
Since we were on the back wall on one end, a corner spot at one end of the small press area, we only had one neighbor, David Montoya of Yume Comics. David turned out to be a great guy, and his book MOHO is an incredible sci-fi fantasy you should check out, just go HERE!

One of the highlights for me was that my friend, Javier Hernandez, who I met as my neighbor at last year’s con, had a panel for his comic, EL MUERTO, which has been made into an independent film! The panel featured Javier, and some of the actors from the film, including it’s star Wilmer Valderrama, and the world premier of it’s preview trailer! Javier was fortunate to find a great set up with Hollywood in a team of folks who held true to the comic, and respected his input, and the clips showed that. The movie looks like a lot of fun, and I can’t wait to see it. Check out the El Muerto site to lear more about Javier’s awesome comic HERE!

Here’s a pic of Javier at his booth, with some of the cast from the film hanging out:

FOOD
The evenings were filled with finding dinner in town, and hanging out with friends. If you make it to San Diego you must get pizza at Filippi’s Pizza Grotto. They have locations all over town, but the one in Little Italy is closest to the con, but that location gets incredibly busy. Here’s a TIP, if you have a rental car, cruise out to the beach and go to the Pacific Beach location. We walked right in and sat down, as opposed to the hour wait last year in Little Italy.

Another great TIP for food, is the food court at the Horton Plaza mall. It’s only about 3 or four blocks up from the con, and they have a wide selection food at affordable prices, because eating out adds up really fast (not to mention, the downtown Hooters fills up with comic geeks pretty fast too! ;).

So there you go, I gave you tips on where to stay, what to eat, how to exhibit, and you even meet some of my friends. Hope you enjoyed it, and hope there were some helpful tips too!
See you next year!!

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