San Diego Comic-Con, Day 2: In which I imitate King Kong, find Waldo, and am restricted from using the bathroom

Just like the love of Jack Dawson and Rose DeWitt Bukater, the Comic-Con must go on, now apparently stretching into its third week. The Con is in many ways rthe equivalent of a big rolling snowball careening down a hill, or, to use a genre example, George Lazenby skiing down Piz Gloria in On Her Majesty's Secret Service: big, fast, growing in size and momentum the further it goes along, and pursued hotly by Telly Salavas in snow goggles shooting wildly at you as you...hold on a minute, I think my analogy got away from me.

A quick report here today as I'm swiftly turning into a very tired and exhausted little stuffed Con-worker bull: it's the busiest day of the show (so far, but Saturday is yet to come): hordes and hordes of attendees, potential customers for our fine Norton books, only some of them dressed up like Superman, Batman, or a hot dog:



Other, less kosher outfits I saw today included this awesome Heckboy:



Sith Lord Darth Vader, ultra-impressive at nearly seven feet tall, with a seriously dark-side-of-the-force demeanor and an ultra-futuristic codpiece:



This trio of lovely ladies have apparently stepped straight out of Chris Sims's dreams and into the Con (please sing that last line to the tune of the Billy Ocean hit:

Uh oh, Green Arrow is shootin' a look my way. Let's hope that's all he's shootin'!



Plus, enough Green Lanterns to stock all of DC's Crises and have enough left over for a War of the Gods or two! Here's a happy verdant couple:



Hey, I found Waldo!



The Punisher's out lookin' for mob bosses, hit men, and guys who bootleg DVDs and sell them at Comic-Con. Watch out, perps!



But Clonetroopers are always on hand to keep the peace, entertain sick children, and do commendable charity work for the community. Also, to shoot rebel scum.



Grant Morrison's New X-Men were here. Hope you all don't get immediately retconned away, guys!



But by far my favorite costume of today...and probably the whole Con...is a picture I won't be posting online because it's a small kid, but she was wonderful: a small pre-teen girl dressed as Wednesday Addams, with black dress and severe pigtails. When I asked her dad if I could take her photo, he agreed, and instructed his daughter "No smiles, remember, no smiles!" And she went deadpan serious instantly, turning her face into a perfect mirror of the dour Wednesday Addams. Wednesday, I salute you!

There was a lot of cool stuff and people to see today, too. Although the highlight was meeting Miss Jane Wiedlin...say, let's look at that photo again, shall we?



(happy contented sigh)

Right! Where was I? Oh, yes, plenty of fun people to see and meet. Here's two of my personal heroes, MST3K's Bill Corbett and Michael J. Nelson:



And Tom Lennon and Ben Garant from The State hobnob right in front of our booth with tiny, tiny Seth Green:



Our old pal Bob the Dalek walked rolled by to share his own convention jokes, stories, and anecdotes. Oh, yes, and also to exterminate:



i finally caught up with friendly blogger Sleestak, thus united two of the blogosphere's most prestigious non-human bloggers. All we need now is to hook up with Anne Coulter and that's all of us!



Me 'n' Aquaman swapped sea stories and had a lovely tunafish lunch. He sends hellos from below the sea to his number one fan Tegan and wishes her the best of luck on her and Hubby-Eric's impending move! He said if you need any whales to cart things from shore to shore, just give a whistle!



There was a wonderful display of many of teh models from Henry Selick's upcoming stop-motion animation movie of Neil Gaiman's Coraline:



And a miniature model of The Daily Planet for Heroclix gamers. here I am, peering into tiny Perry White's eeny-weeny offioce. Don't call him Mini-Chief!



Then, in homage to King Kong's 70th birthday (being lauded this weekend at the Con), I climbed up the outside of the daily Planet Building and did my best Titano impression. Until Mini-Superman made me get down. Little spoilsport.



I stopped by the Boom! booth to shave hooves with pal Ian Brill and pick up a copy of Boom!'s The Muppet Show preview comic book. With art by one of my favorite, Roger Langridge, this book is gonna be serious fun!



Don't think that Comic-Con is all fun and games and Wookiees, though: there are a couple frustrations in such a big show. Here's Mattel's ultra-restrictive rules that you must follow in order to buy their toys. No thanks, guys, I'll just go to Toys 'R' Us. their toys may not be exclusive but I don't have to provide fingerprints hoofprints and my social security number to buy them!:



And what's this? No non-humans allowed in the convention center bathrooms? But I really haveta pee! Geez, Sleestak and I are totally gonna start a protest.



So, that's the end of this column. I gotta go. No, really...I gotta go.

(See you tomorrow for more fun at the Con!)