Ashley & the Adventures at Comic-Con (Part Last)

And we have finally come to the end. This gets to be a hodgepodge of crap about Comic-con thrown together, so advanced apologies for the length!

[adult swim] ice cream truck! You can see Dave of ATHF in the window.

Seth Green signed the van! And did some fun drawings.

Dana of ATHF asking my brother what ice cream he wants.
And yeeep, that's my big bro.

Prooobably one of the best things about this entire event was: FREE ICE CREAM! And not shitty stuff, free Ben & Jerry's!  [adult swim] partnered with a dessert truck from SD and they drove all around San Diego to hand out free ice cream. They'd tweet their location for the next few hours and you had to find them.  A lot of the time they'd have [adult swim] personalities handing them out, like Seth Green or Dana&Dave from Aqua Teen Hunger Force (who can kind of be glimpsed in one of the pictures).

Gotta love San Diego's commitment to the Con: they put up the Trolley signs in Klingon!

You also see weird things like this driving around SD.  And no worries, kids, that's a cutout.

But weird is also good, because these costumes are awesomeeee.  The Ambiguously Gay Duo was my favourite of the entire four days.

The biggest push this year was definitely the movie Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World. In addition to this massive sign on the Hilton hotel, there were panels and signings and secret screenings and a free garlic bread truck (that will make sense if you've seen a specific trailor or when you see the movie) and an entire three-day event called The Scott Pilgrim Experience where one could go in, screen print t-shirts, get flipbooks made, experience a whole slew of Scott Pilgrim-related things.  I unfortunately never made it in, but I heard it was pretty cool. The entire cast of the show (minus Chris Evans) was there for the duration of the Con, and they plus the Scott Pilgrim creator (Bryan Lee O'Malley) and the director (Edgar Wright) would often be seen around and be signing everywhere.

Scott Pilgrim swag. I was technically only supposed to get one pin,
but uh...I may have taken an entire bag.  Which was roughly 15 pins.  Oops?

The third day of the Con, I didn't have a pass to get in--but I'd heard about the last of the secret screenings for Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World going on downtown and set out with my friend to hunt it down and gain entrance.  They'd had two secret screenings the days before (one of which I tried valiantly to get into but did not find the special entrance pin in time) and I had heard such good things about the movie I knew I had to go.

Thanks to Twitter, Sarah for giving me details since she'd gone to both screenings the days before, and my friend Kathy for being patient with me, I was able to secure a wristband to gain entrance to the screening.  It was relatively unnecessary to wait in line around 3:45pm when the movie was at 6:30 since the theatre had 1300 seats, but we decided not to chance it and, thus, had some pretty sweet seats.  Edgar Wright knows how to do it, because everyone got free soda and free popcorn upon entrance.  Free movie, free drink, free popcorn, secret screening...life can't get much sweeter than that!

I'll type up a full review of the movie later in the week, but I thought it was fucking phenomenal.  There's pretty much something for everyone. Granted, I did see it in the Comic-con setting and state-of-mind, but I am definitely seeing it the day it comes out.  Before the movie started, they brought out the main cast: Michael Cera (Scott Pilgrim), Mary Elizabeth Winstead (Ramona Flowers), Kieran Culkin (Wallace Wells, Scott's roommate--and the best in the movie, in my opinion), Anna Kendrick (Scott's sister), Ellen Wong (Knives Chau, Scott's ex-girlfriend) and all the actors who play the 7 Evil Exes (minus Chris Evans, since he'd been away filming Captain America).  At the end of the movie, they all came out again, and Edgar Wright ends up saying there are a few more surprises ready to come out: out pops Chris Evans, who had flown in ASAP from his shoot, another actor from the movie who I'm not going to say, and then BILL HADER AHHHHH!  I love Bill Hader, and it's safe to say I had a minor freakout when he runs out, complete with jumping up and down and perhaps the shaking of poor Kathy standing next to me.  I get that some people don't find it awesome when actors come out since, yes, they are regular people--but I'm not one of those people, and this made me excited.

Some of the celebrities I walked by or saw on the third day of The Con. Kiiinda weird.

After we got out of the screening, we started walking around downtown trying to see what kind of trouble we could get ourselves into. I passed both Jerry O'Connell and Scott Adsit (Pete from 30 Rock) on the street.  Then somehow we stumbled upon the red carpet arrivals to the SyFy/Entertainment Weekly hosted after-party, which we were right at the gates for.  It's kind of odd to see all these celebrities right in front of you; I mean, Ron Perlman (Hellboy and Sons of Anarchy) is WAY shorter than you would think.  Paul Wesley (Vampire Diaries) is much thinner than he appears. Ian Somerhalder is WAY hotter than on TV (which means something, because I think he is smokin' on screen). Felicia Day is seriously adorable. It's just fascinating how Larger Than Life people sometimes really...aren't.

Sons of Anarchy panel. Sorry for the weird angle, the screen was almost on top of us.

It's Always Sunny cast! Dennis, Charlie and Dee
(Glenn Howerton, Charlie Day, Kaitlin Olsen)

More Sunny cast! Waitress, Frank, Mac
(Mary Elizabeth Ellis Day, Danny DeVito, Rob McElhenney)

The last day of Comic-con was the most stressful because of all the families and children running around (Sundays are always kid's days).  Plus, since it's the last day, everyone is so frantic to see and buy.  Everything is so...tense. But I still had a good time--ESPECIALLY because I got into the It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia panel!  I fucking love It's Always Sunny.  I was increeeedibly jealous because the day before my brother and his friends ran into the Sunny cast at their hotel!  Pictures and talking ensued! If I hadn't been waiting for the movie, I'd have been there with them...but oh well, the panel was good for me. They're some funny people, man.  It was preceded by the Sons of Anarchy panel, which is a show I do not watch, but it was fun to watch Katey Sagal and constantly refer to her as Mrs. Bundy.  We also spent a good amount of time debating if the guy second from the left was indeed the hottie with the footballers body in Green Street Hooligans (in case you're wondering, it is. It's Charlie Hunnam).

So that was basically the 4-day extravaganza. All these posts are disconnected and rambling and chaotic--which is actually a pretty decent metaphor for The Con itself. I get that I'm a bit of a celebrity stalker and I'm one of the downfalls to what Comic-con originally stood for; but it's enjoyable and fun and fast-paced and I really love it. And maybe I'm not there for the Magic the Gathering tournament or to find the original first issue of Superman or what have you, but I respect those that are and try my best not to disturb them. I like that there are all different types of people and interests gathered.

I leave you with three of my favourite things from The Con: The free Big Bang Theory bag, Toy Story Lego displays and the Peanuts booth!