After attending the Emerald City Comicon for a few years Eric, Kyle and I tried to get into the San Diego Comicon which is the largest and most popular of all the comicons. The odds of either of us getting passes through their lottery system was around 6%, but I lucked out and was able to get us passes for all four days.

The San Diego Comicon was much bigger than Seattle's, but the vendors and cosplayers weren't any better. In fact I thought Seattle had better cosplayers, but this may of been because the professional cosplayers tended to hang out in the front of the San Diego convention hall instead of actually attending the event.

What sets San Diego above Seattle was the panels. There were many more with higher profile guests. Unfortunately the most popular panels, usually involving upcoming movies and television shows, was in Hall H which required waiting a ludicrous amount of hours to get in. Essentially you had to wait all day in line to get into the next day's Hall H panels. Some consider waiting in this line a badge of comicon honor, but I skipped as it seemed like a waste of valuable convention time.

Even without Hall H I was able to attend some interesting panels including the Simpsons Creators, Berkeley Breathed of Bloom County, Sid and Marty Krofft, Jim Davis of Garfield and the Mad Magazine creators. I also saw some non-comic panels including Tomb Raider, Resident Evil, NASA JPL engineers and a retro video game discussion.

It was a fun experience attending the San Diego Comicon, but I'm undecided if I want to return. With the exception of the panels it isn't much different than Seattle's comicon. Also it's fun attending a comicon with the family and it's much easier to take a family of five to Seattle than to San Diego.

San Diego Convention Center

Powerpuff Girls

Ghostbusters

Inside the Expo Hall

Line for Hall H (line snaked through umbrellas and down through trees)

Waiting for the Simpsons Panel

Vanellope von Schweetz

Many Fetts

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July 21-24, 2016