Comic-Con 2007

Comic-Con International: San Diego "Swag" Report 2007

I have attended Comic-Con International in San Diego for 25 years. This year I was working but I did not let it slow me down. I didn't get to some booths at all but I made a greater effort than last year. I picked up as many Promotional items & Premiums as I could without being a greedy girl. There is a full listing of items that I have right after the report (12 paragraphs down). Please feel free to contact me with any questions. The swag is from Anime, Books, Movies & Television. There are Bags, Dog Tags, Hats, T-shirts, CDRom's, CCG gaming cards, Magazines, Trading Cards, Key chains, Buttons, Pins etc.

Wednesday Preview Night was a madhouse! I think the Earth tilted slightly from the volume of people at Comic-Con San Diego. Wednesday night proves without a doubt how important the upstairs Programming Panel tracks are. With no panels to distract a zillion people they all swarmed the Dealers Floor. Everywhere was crowded with eager shoppers. The Warner Brothers booth was bloody mayhem with everyone trying to get the 300 Shield & Smallville jumbo bag. I had my kids with me and it was bad. I was almost crushed and I can take care of myself. The WB booth had 2 problems. #1 they would say they were out of bags, but simply waiting around long enough produced more bags. This let everyone know early that they were lying. They should have set giveaway times and stuck to it. #2 they had no exit strategy. Attendees stormed the booth from all angles, which left no way out. Many other booths understood the problem and used stantions or human line control to get people going in a certain direction. No goodies until you get in line...good boy! Each year I get blown away by the massiveness of everything.

YEAH someone heard my cry from last year and brought more girl stuff this time. Hasbro had a Superhero My Little Pony and a pink Star Wars R2-KT droid. Two small booths had all girl items and sadly I did not get their business cards so I would print their info here. My Bad.

98% of all Attendees are good folk. They walk around without stealing. They take only a few freebies not a fist full. They get to a panel on time or early and walk in. If they need to, they find a line and get in it! They don't bitch and moan and try to cut in the front! Comic-Con hired line control people to help out this year. The brightly colored Tangerine polo shirts could not be missed. They helped out in the small rooms as well at the giant Ballroom 20 and Hall H. The first year a company does something is usually shaky but they did pretty good. Next year they will understand the magnitude of a million people trying to get into a room.

At the Futurama panel the voice actors read the special comic live on stage as 4200 people read along. It was very funny watching most of the room look down in their laps to follow the story.

At the Stargate SG1 movie panel the cast did a funny American Idol when a person asking a question decided to sing. Christopher Judge, Amanda Tapping & Ben Browder did a dead on imitation of the judges. Christopher said "Dog" a lot. Ben hated everything and Amanda did a hilarious drunken Paula Abdul. When I saw Ms Tapping at the Sanctuary For All.com booth during her signing she laughed and hoped that Paula would not be mad at her. We all know how stuff ends up on YouTube.

Comic-Con often has company people handing out freebies in costume, like a giant plush Pokemon or Sam & Max. This year there companies went the extra mile. The Batman Joker people confused all of downtown giving out real $1.00 bills with the Jokers face on it. There were 2 cute Hot Fuzz ladies for the fellows to look at. But my favorite was the 2 Pathfinder Men (and 3 Ladies). They all had very little on and were in top physical condition...and were SMOKIN' HOT!

Exhibitors had ticketed giveaways for their Premiums & Giveaways. I missed out on all the drawings because I was working and not there at the correct time. Due to greedy people, Disney, Viz, the SciFi booth & many others had handlers again. The staff members handed one Promo item to each person. There were always several of them working at a time. I failed again to get all the Eureka, Battlestar Galactica & Stargate items. Waaah!

For those of us who normally skip the prestigious Eisner Awards we may want to rethink that. At this years awards Englishman Jonathan Ross stated that "He loves comics more than masturb****". The British guys accent made it sound sophisticated even as everyone fell on the floor laughing.

My Best & Favorites: Best use of the WB bag was shown by a woman who wore a Smallville dress on Saturday. I don't have a picture, but I am sure someone online does. Best Bag: Is a tie between the Scholastic Harry Potter bag & the Cartoon Network Messenger bag. The Smallville bag was great looking, but it is too large to carry anything but laundry or human bodies...or make a dress. Best Lenticular: Pirates of the Caribbean lenticular guitar pics (12) Best Comic: All the Manga sized comics put out by DC, Darkhorse, Tokyo Pop & Viz Best Pin/Button: Hot Fuzz Badge Best Neck ware: another tie between the cool looking set of 7 Laura Croft dog tags and the useful Death Sentence bottle opener dog tag. Favorite Swag: 300 Shield Favorite Purchase: Asgard Storm statue.

Bought: Asgard Storm. Exclusive X-Men bust figure 200 of 600 Beantown collectibles. 2 key chains & 3 figures. Chessex 13 dice Disgaea manga #1 Funco Marvin the Martian bobble head Harry Potter & Hedgewick owl figure JLA 3pk w/ Hawkgirl, Green Lantern & The Ray Lil Pet Shop set My Little Pony Superhero Pheydon Space Traveler, clear green 3" figure Star Wars R2KT pink droid & Star Wars Minitures Starship Battles Booster Pack

Present: Ruth Thompson Egyptian themed art (Anniversary present) Uhura ornament Shirt- Gaming is as addictive as sex...but there's no orgasm to let you know when to stop

CCI Exclusives List 2007: This list is short and I am sure there are many more that I did not list. Asgard Storm X-Men bust figure #200 of 600 Harry Potter & Hedwig owl figure 300 King figure Wrath of Khan figure, but needed to buy the other 4 figures in order to get Khan Capcom Grab Bag $10 on Wednesday night. $20 the rest of the week. Hasbro handed out tickets to get in line. R2KT pink droid, Lil Pet Shop, Star Wars mini figs, Transformer figs. My Little Pony Superhero. Funco- Prototype raffle each day. Marvin the Martian bobble head JLA 3pk w/ Hawkgirl, Green Lantern & The Ray Bugs Bunny Invisible Ink figure.

Here are only a few of the many 2007 Swag pictures that I took:
(photos removed after 6 months)

This is my complete list of Free Swag items. I hope you will look at the 6 pictures and realize just how many items there really were...and then some!