Hey, so. ComicCon. Long story short: It was fucking incredible.

I'm making a semi-con report since I'll be lucky enough to get you guys to read THIS much as is.

After getting in to San Diego the previous day, my group, which consisted of Mike, Zach, Tom and our first-ever meeting with the fabled Tara Billinger, checked into DoubleTree and we checked out Preview Night of the con. Admitedly I didn't spend too much time with my travelling partners at the time of the con itself, as I quickly made my way over to the Behemoth/Newgrounds booth beneath row 5000, which was incredibly conveniant by the way. After getting to meet most of everyone, I hung with Kira Buckland, Ross O'Donovan & Hans Van Harken that night. We headed to their hotel with a group of others for some Smashin' and good times were had, and even CZ joined in on the fun!

We had a good number of fans come to say hey over at the booth, which was an awesome lead up to the absolutely outstanding party we had on Friday night. I gotta fuckin' hand it to Tom Fulp and the fine people at Behemoth (who brought you Alien Homonid and now Castle Crashers) for setting this thing up. I got to mingle with many, many fine folks I hadn't fully interacted with, including Krinkels, Ryan Miller & Jenna Smith, the Super Flash Bros. and tons more. This party just really made me proud to be part of a community like Newgrounds, with so many creative people in one place...and I can say that I'm in that pool of talent. Screw the naysayers of the animation world that scrutinize this site, I love it, and I love everyone that's in it.

There were some speedbumps for me here and there. I had some MAJOR issues with my debt card thanks to the hotel having some screw-ups...and then after the fact we almost got kicked outta the hotel one night, but thankfully avoided that. I missed the Avatar panel on the Friday, but went to the party for its entirety instead of the last two hours, which was a much better idea in the long run. Cycon, his brother Jared and girlfriend Elise, Channel Cat and Kira were all nice enough to set me up with a cab to get back home that night as well. You guys are the bomb...s.

Con-related stuff directly, let's see...met Jhonen Vasquez and got to speak with him for a bit, where I got some helpful advice from a fellow animator. I met Bryan Lee O'Malley the creator of Scott Pilgrim & the Avatar creators later on, both for a total of 30 seconds each sadly, but pleasures nonetheless to make their aqquaintences. Got some autographs from them, which was neat. I also met Erin Fitzgerald, the voice of Nazz & May on Ed, Edd & Eddy as well as her buddy Mel Crosby, both of them were incredibly nice and I swear talked to me for like 15 minutes. I got some great feedback from them after checking out some of my stuff so I did a decent amount of networking while I was there. Ironically, it was also mostly with people I didn't plan on trying to network WITH in the first place, which was a neat surprise.

Bought a few things, but not too much due to money troubles. I gotta sketch from Tokyopop Artist and FUNimation voice actor, Sonny Strait (Krillin, Usopp, Hughes) at his Artist Alley table. I got a copy of "Adventures in Voice Acting" on DVD, finally. I bought my own copy of Scott Pilgrim Volume 4 from the Oni Press booth, as well as a copy of good sir Chris Reilly's comic Igor at the SLG booth. Probably picked up a few other things, but most of my money was dedicated to eating...which is sad because I realize I didn't eat nearly enough as I should have during this trip. Also I tasted sushi for the first time, which is totally not groundbreaking by normal standards, I know, but it was a big deal for me. Oh and a bunch of us watched a screening of AiKa R-16, the first anime featuring Kira as a lead character, and we all laughed our asses off at the ridiculous amounts of unecassary pantyshots and titshots.

The only thing I was disappointed about was my farewell. I feel like I didn't get to say goodbye to everyone. Nonetheless, the fact that I got to meet everyone was enough to satisfy me. Along with satisfaction, I felt...resolved. That definitely describes this con pretty well, for me anyway, that a lot of stuff was resolved. Many of those things of which were a pretty big deal. I feel incredibly refreshed and happy. This was one of the best weekends...hell, WEEKS of my life. So to everyone...Tom Fulp and his lovely wife April, Flash Bros. Tom & Dim, Luis, Afro-Ninja, Anigen, Egoraptor, Ross, Hans, CZ, Mike Ruocco, Ryan & Jenna, Cycon and his DCK crew, Red and especially Kira, you guys made this fuckin' trip for me. Thanks to all of you so much for an amazing time.

Just got back home today, where my team and I saw off Tara and her mom & sister. We'll be seein' Tara down here in a month or so for school, but it was thanks to her and her family that this trip was even possible in the first place so thanks to you guys too!