San Diego Comic Con Recap!

7/16/2015 01:00:00 PM Lexie Dunne 0 Comments

As some of you know, I went to Comic Con last weekend. I'm sure the random tweets and pictures spamming all of my social media streams didn't give it away or anything. But the long and short of it is that for many years I've dreamed of going to Comic Con and this year that dream came true thanks to the awesome publicity team at Harper Voyager Impulse. They wrangled me onto a panel and several days later, I'm still reeling. You'll see what I mean.

I didn't do all four days. Instead, I flew into LAX on Thursday morning (only person on the bus what what!) and spent some time with my dad's family, who all live north of LA. It was great getting to see my cousins, uncles, aunts, and grandmother, even if it was only for a day. The best part?

I GOT MASHED POTATOES!

Of course, a few hours later, very little of that mattered. My uncle and I left Simi Valley at 3:15 in the morning to make it down in time for an author breakfast that my publisher was putting on, where I made sure to load up for the crazy day ahead. When people tell you to make plans and expect them not to go through, BELIEVE them, trust me. I planned to see so many things and ended up scratching them off my list. What I did see:

My friend Beth Cato was on a great panel and I sat in the back row and learned a lot about writing romance novels. I realized I had a surprising connection to one of the books talked about halfway through the panel, so that was neat.

The Falling Skies panel. That cast is totally a bunch of charmers. Also, I like Doug Jones's face.

The 100 panel. Tiny bit of a letdown after the well-trained media personalities and camaraderie of the previous panel, but overall it was a great time. Ricky Whittle is 100000% hotter in real life and when a girl broke down in tears at the microphone, he practically jumped the table to race out and give her a hug. Got to meet a couple of fandom friends at that panel, too, so YES. Hi, Frissy and Evil Frissy.

Assassin's Creed: Syndicate panel. I kind of want to play this game.

ORPHAN BLACK, AKA THE ONLY PANEL I WANTED TO SEE. It did not disappoint. Jordan Gavaris getting comically distracted by a service dog in the room was the greatest because I would have exactly the same reaction. And with Retta as their moderator, it was akin to simply sitting in her Twitter living room as she asks the cast the questions we all want to. Apparently Alison puts tiny green money sign sequins in the money she uses to pay off the mob.

On Saturday, I had my signing, which was an experience. Every other signing I've done has been with other panelists, most of whom were a great deal more famous than me. At NYCC, it was just an education of watching Brandon Sanderson interact with fans. This signing, however, people were there for Nick Cole's Mad Max-type book, or they were there to snag a free download of Superheroes Anonymous. We completely ran out within 20 minutes and I must have talked to 50 people. I got really good at spelling my own name wrong!

After that, I kept the day light and instead hung out with some friends and finally got to see the famous Nerd HQ. That place means a lot to me; it was started by Zachary Levi, who played Chuck Bartowski, and that show is really where I got my start. I met so many friends through that, like my buddies Michael, Maximus, Niall, Ayefah, Karen, Lindsay, Frissy, Cat, Grace, Carille, Kris, Nick, so on and so forth.

After getting a good sunburn going and spending time with my amazing friends (and meeting a tall lanky dude dressed a Chuck that my friend would later dance with that night), I headed down the harbor to Anthony's Fish Grotto to meet my cousins from the area for a wonderful dinner, where it was great to catch up. Stories of being vomited on by my favorite cousin were indeed exchanged. I had scallops...and french fries. I'm not allowed to eat at fancy places ever again.

Also, a pirate drove by.

And finally, the big day arrived. On Sunday, I was on a panel called No Cape Required: Modern Day Superheroes with Robert Venditti (Green Lantern), James Dashner (The Maze Runner), Pierce Brown (Red Rising), Noelle Stevenson (Nimona), and Marie Lu (The Young Elites). Basically: a bunch of gigantically popular authors with established fanbases, and I'm wondering if I wandered into the wrong room. We had a great discussion that derailed constantly to the evils of traffic, and the signing afterward went on for the full hour before everybody made it through the line.

They say Sunday is the throwaway day, but I don't think that's true anymore. The exhibit hall floor remained crazy until the very end, though I did manage to get a little shopping in. I bought the Harley Quinn and Hawkgirl pin up glasses to add to my collection, and I had a blast walking around with my friends. After a great dinner out with the women I was staying with, I was ready to head back up the road to LAX and home, though.

But first...