New convention center lawsuit

26 NOVEMBER 2013

image courtesy of UT San Diego and Fentress Architects

While CCI and EPIC futz around with the pre-registration system, other Comic-Con players are moving briskly ahead; namely attorney Cory Briggs, who's filed a new lawsuit asking for the reversal of the California Coastal Commission's approval of the expansion plan.

I say "new" because he already has one lawsuit gumming up the works, that one challenging the project financing. This new lawsuit states that the $525 M expansion doesn't comply with the California Coastal Act and a consistency certification relating to the rooftop park is not legit.

Why he cares: he represents the San Diego Navy Broadway Complex Coalition, who has a keen interest in waterfront doings.

What the repercussions could be: getting a court order to stop all action on the expansion.

This article lists the various legal thrust and parry of his arguments, if you care to read them. Should we be worried? I doubt it. The expansion plan has too much municipal might behind it at this point. For now, let's call these lawsuits the death rattle of the opposition and assume the expansion will go ahead as planned.

Saturday programming is up

6 JULY 2013


Saturday programming has been published.


Hall H kicks off with Warner Brothers (Godzilla, Rise of an Empire, 7th Son, Gravity, LEGO Movie) at 10:45, Lionsgate (I, Frankenstein, Hunger games) at 1:35, EW's Women Who Kick Ass* at 2:55, 20th Century Fox at 4:15, Thor/Captain America at 6, and Kevin Smith at 7:15.

Ballroom 20 has just as heavy a lineup. Once Upon A Time in Wonderland at 10:15; Once Upon a Time Neverland at 11; Futurama at 12, The Simpsons at 12:45, Family Guy at 1:45, American Dad at 2:30 and then an abrupt shift to True Blood at 3:30, Vampire Diaries at 4:30, Arrrow at 5:15 and of course the Masquerade at 8:30.

And in the Indigo Ballroom, we have Machinima at 10, Geek and Sundry at 11, How I Met Your Mother at 12, The Originals at 1, The Awesomes at 2, Nerdist Industries at 3, Being Human at 4:00, followed by Warehouse 13 at. 5:00 and Cosmos: A Space Time Odyssey at 6.

Spotlight panels are on: George Perez, Jim Lee, Russ Heath, Leonard Maltin, J. Michael Staczynski, Gerry Conway, Paul Dini, Roy Thomas, Sam Keith, Jon Bogdanove, Frank Brunner, John Romita Jr, Richard Kadrey.

A tribute panel for Joe Kubert is in room 4 at 10.

Jeph Loeb talks Marvel TV at 10:30 in 6BCF.

Celebrate 21 years of Top Cow comics in room 9 at 11.

For YA Fans: When Grrls Fall in Love. Romance in the lives of YA heroines. 23ABC at 11.

DC rolls out some of its top panels today. Batman: Zero Year! is at 11:15, Green Lantern at 12:45 in 6DE; Neil Gaiman discusses the revived Sandman with  Dave McKean, Sam Kieth, Todd Klein, and J. H. Williams III. at 3:15.

Learn the Future of X-Box Gaming in 6A in 11:15 and get a look at Marvel Video Games at noon in the same room.

CBLDF is Defending Manga in 30CDE at noon and then hosting Part III of Comics on Trial at 1.

Did you think Twilight went away? It's still with us at Twilight Fan Fiction in 29A at noon.

The stars of Prism are celebrating its 10 anniversary in 28DE at 1.

Ray Bradbury may have left our dimension but he is coming to the big screen. Hear about Live Forever: The Ray Bradbury Odyssey in 25ABC at 1.

Discuss post-theory this and that at Comic Arts Conference 11: The Poster Session with a tribe of academics. 1:30 in 26 AB.

Star Wars Vs. Serenity is in 24ABC at 1:30. Although to my mind, it's not really a "versus" so much as an "and."

More zombie panels: zombie fiction at noon in 23 ABC and zombie video games at 1:30 in 5AB.

Apparently Lost will never fully leave the Con: the co-hosts of the Lost Podcast with Jay and Jack discuss Lost and other TV shows like Once Upon a Time, Person of Interest, Game of Thrones and Justified. 2:00 in 29A.

MAD is in room 9 at 2. 

Bask in the presence of Neil Gaiman, Scott McCloud, Jeff Smith, Denis Kitchen and Paul Levitz as they discuss Will Eisner and the Graphic Novel. 2:00pm in Room 23ABC

I thought Dracula was getting its own panel, but it might just be a trailer tacked onto the Grimm panel at 2:40 in 6BCF.

*EW's Women Who Kick Ass are Michelle Rodriguez, Tatiana Maslany, and Danai Gurira. No Aisha Tyler from Archer or the little girl who plays Arya on GOT? 2:55pm  in Ballroom 20.

Rod Roddenberry fans should report to 25ABC at 3 for "some incredible Roddenberry news and a sneak peek at some of the new and exciting things."

Fantagraphics and Drawn and Quarterly roll out their fall and winter preview at 3:30 in 26AB. This should be a good consolation prize for people who can't get into the Sandman panel.

If you attended Cosplay 101 yesterday, today you can graduate to Cosplay 102 in 29A at 4.

Person in Interest is in 6BCF at 4, followed by Revolution at 4:50.

This could be interesting or nauseating: The Power of the Geek: Superfandom and why Brands, Media and the World at Large Want In. Presented by Bonfire Agency, "the first marketing firm created to help brands establish and deepen connections with the superfan community in relevant, meaningful ways." The copywriter in me just died a little. Oh, and they're donating to the Hero Initiative "for every conventioneer who attends and stays for the duration of the panel." Conventioneers, they said. 4:00 in 28DE.

Honor Superman and his 75 year reign in room 6A at 4:15.

Gays and Comics and the ensuing Gay Comics Fan Mixer are in 6A at 5:30 and 7.

Jeff Smith and Terry Moore team up in 24ABC at 5:30.

Learn about the Star Trek Enterprise Bride Restoration and Museum in 26AB at 5:30. 

The Tomorrow People pilot gets shown again in 6BCF at 5:55.

See extended clips of Stripped: the Comics Documentary in 28DE at 7:00.

Lost Girl is at 7:15 in 6BCF.

The CBLDF Live Art Auction is in the Sapphire Ballroom at the Hilton at 7:30.

The Star Wars Trivia Game show is at 8:00 in 23ABC.

Spend your Saturday night with HP Lovecraft and the Necronomicon in Room 8 at 8:30.

 Is today the best day of the Con? I'm going to say that this year there isn't one. 

What to do if you didn't get a badge yesterday

17 FEBRUARY 2013


Today is the day 700,000* people are breaking up with San Diego Comic Con. Probably waking up the angriest are the unbadged people who went ahead and booked hotel rooms in the Early Bird sale, the veterans who've attended every year since 1996, and the people who made it into the waiting room but froze, and obeyed CCI's instructions to call them for naught. Actually, probably everyone is equally pissed off.

If you didn't get a badge yesterday, you can do the following:

• Wait for the resale - of which there could be one or two. There will definitely be a resale of all badges turned in (yes, people do cancel and seek refunds) around June, but CCI might also hold a small resale sooner than that, as they did last year.

• Try to win a contest.

• Ask any retailers you're close with if they'll have extra badges or need help at their booths. (You'd better be the best of friends, because everyone will ask them that.)

• Look into other conventions. WonderCon is coming up in March in Anaheim and you can still buy tickets and book hotels. Phoenix Comic Con is Memorial Day Weekend and is becoming a really popular con. The second San Diego Comic Fest will be later this year. If you're on the East Coast, save your money for New York Comic Con in October. Or consider Dragoncon in Atlanta in late summer. The perceived superiority of SDCC is mostly hype and bombast at this point - just my opinion. Smaller cons may not have as loud and glitzy an Exhibit Hall, but they can be a lot more fun and a lot less aggravating.

• Come anyhow and hang around the Gaslamp/convention center to participate in all of the offsite events. I actually wish people wouldn't do this, because it just makes an already crowded situation even worse, but I know this is a trend now.

• Remind yourself that: most of the panels will go right up on YouTube, most of the exclusives will appear on Ebay, most of the lines are so long that you can't see everything you want anyhow, and all in all, you just saved a boatload of cash.

What not to do: apply for volunteering (it's already closed) or buy a badge off Craigslist. They're almost always fake. Some people will, it's true, pick up a badge, then sell it to you outside - but it's a risk.

For now, be good to yourself. I think the stress of yesterday wore out my adrenal glands, because I was completely exhausted last night. And I was one of the lucky ones.

*Not an actual figure. I have no idea how many people have Member IDs, although I would sell my grandmother to find out.

Comic Con badges are sold out

16 FEBRUARY 2013


They're all gone. A resale of returned badges* will be held later this spring. I am intensely sorry for those of you who got shut out of the system.

The top failures:

• obvious server issues** and getting hung up.

• getting a message - this started almost immediately - that the waiting room was full and probably all badges were gone. This was not the case and probably dissuaded lots of people from trying.

• the fact that refreshing was the only thing that saved some people by liberating them from dead-end rooms, when CCI's instructions were not to refresh.

• people getting into the waiting room, then freezing and not progressing in line. This seems to be a widespread phenomena and it's galling that CCI knew about it in advance and let it happen.

• the help desk line either being busy or not working.

I've also heard a few reports now that people were somehow landing in the waiting room at lower numbers than their friends who'd gotten in earlier and had already been waiting for 20 minutes.

People are always accusing me of being "negative" on this blog but really, I'm trying to inject a sense of realism into the starry-eyed newbies who have no idea what they're getting into. If you lived through today, you may understand where I'm coming from. I know how devastating it is to get excited about Comic Con and then experience this kind of frustration.

* A word on the badge resale, because I think people are talking about 2 different things. Every year CCI sells off the badges that got turned in by people who can't go. That normally happens about May-June. However, last year, Registration Day was so miserable that CCI uncharacteristically held another, smaller "resale" at the end of March. I think people are hoping that will happen this year. I don't know if it will. CCI will notify Member ID people by email if it does.

** Commenter Steve Borsch posted a useful assessment of the system's technical deficiencies and proposed a few solutions. I've said it before: Comic Con attendees are an intelligent demographic. If CCI would just crowdsource some of their issues, we could improve or eliminate a lot of bugaboos. I know there will always be more people who want to attend than can be accommodated - but seriously, it doesn't have to be this bad.

The agony of Registration Day

16 FEBRUARY 2013



I know. I really do know. I am in this fight too. Between my and my friends, we had 6 computers and several phones on the job. Only one got in (me) and the others either got hung up, got the "waiting room is at maximum capacity and badges are likely sold out" message or had a server timeout message.

If you're new (like my best friend - this is her first Comic Con and today is her first taste of what I've tried to warn her about), this can all seem mind-blowingly incompetent. Believe it or not, previous Registration Days crashed the server so badly they had to be rescheduled. I thought that today might end up the same way, but people do seem to be getting in.


Tell me your pain. I'm trying to find out what badges are left and will post whatever I find out.

All times PST:

9:40 - I'm hearing reports that Preview Night is sold out - but I just bought two badges with it. Everything looked available and I am pretty much fainting with relief right now.

9:49 - Just talked to someone else who got Preview Night. Hang in there! My paranoia is telling me the system is broken and it's not monitoring the sold-out badges properly, but for now let's believe what the nice computer screen tells us. Maybe they made more Preview Night badges available this year? I don't know. But it's important not to give up.

9:53 - I'm seeing tweets from people in line offering to buy badges for other people - with a fat mark-up. Nothing like other people's anxiety and distress to bring out a profit motive.

9:55 - Remember how CCI warned that if your waiting room page freezes and your number doesn't change, to call them? That's actually happening to a few people. I love how they knew that would happen but couldn't apparently fix it.

10:07 - Someone I know just got four individual day passes. Which is nice that those are still available (and he started at like 40K). The waiting room numbers are way out of line with last year's.... either the system changed, more people are buying individually, or (my theory) some of the people who are hung up actually got a number assigned to them but they just can't get into the room. So people at higher numbers are getting good badges.

10:10 - Never mind, Saturday is sold out.

10:15 - Just heard Friday is sold out as well but that's not confirmed.

10:20 - Hearing a lot of complaints that the CCI help desk line isn't being answered. Shocking, I know.

10:30 - There still seem to be Thursday and Sunday badges left.

10:32 - The whole "frozen in the waiting room" thing seems to be happening to a lot of people. Not just a few. Apparently that's this year's new fail, like the weird name thing was last year.

10:38: Badge sales are now closed.

Tomorrow's Badge Sale

15 FEBRUARY 2013


A few last minute tips and reminders:

• You can only buy for 4 people.
• If you pre-registered and got a badge with Preview Night, you cannot buy a new badge for yourself this go-round. If you got any other kind of badge, you can. 
• Once you're in the waiting room, do not hit F5 or refresh. You'll go right to the back of line, also known as Staying Home This July.
• The number that tells you your place in line should refresh every 2 minutes. If it seems stuck, CCI's official advice is to take a screenshot and call them, but I think we all know what that's going to get you. It isn't a four-day badge.
• Once you're in, you need to enter your last name and Member ID. So please make sure your name is spelled properly in your Member ID account, and that your friends buying your badge also know how to spell it.

Not to go negative, but I must point out what I feel is a huge flaw in this system. You can buy for up to 4 people, yes. My version of logic tells me that it would make sense to enter all four names and Member IDs at once, and then the credit card information to buy all of them at one shot.

Instead, the process is that you enter them one at a time - last name, Member ID, credit card information, confirmation. Then you select Buy Another Badge and start over - the next last name, Member ID, credit card information, confirmation. And so on.Which means, given how fast badges sell out, that some people will most certainly wind up with mismatching badge types within their own family or group of friends.

Sometimes I wish it was 2006 again.

I will be on Twitter monitoring all the furor, and will try to post there and here any sell-outs as they happen. I know that seeing those can be an awful feeling when you're still in line, but people do like to know. Feel free to email me, comment on here or hit me on Twitter with your experience - I will be posting what I hear.

Comic Con Badge Sale Information

14 FEBRUARY 2013


Did you get your Valentine today from CCI? It was a link to Saturday's badge sale.

How you can prepare:

1. Make sure you and any friends you're buying badges for have correct information in your Member ID account.

2. Review the Comic Con Badge Sale FAQ sheet.

3. Watch the below psychedelic instructional video on navigating the badge sale.

4. Make sure your credit card works and have a backup on hand. No Paypal, sorry.

5. Make sure your link - which is in the email you got today - is on hand. The customer service hotline number will be posted on Facebook 30 minutes before the badge sale goes live. Although honestly, if you're having severe enough problems to call a hotline, you're already out of the game in terms of time. 

6. Confer with your friends and arrange a system where you all keep each other apprised on who's in line and at what number. Don't drop out of line just because your friend got in line ahead of you and he's going to get your badge. Wait until the deal is all the way done.

7. If you are really serious about San Diego Comic Con, for god's sake don't stay out all of Friday night and come crawling in at dawn to attempt the badge sale melee in your hangover 3 hours later. You'll probably make a fatal typo somewhere and lose everything.


And because I know I'm going to get emails on this: if you didn't get an email today, but swear you have a Member ID - go into your account and get it straightened out. Everyone eligible for the badge sale should have received an email today. Now is not the time to vaguely assume you're in the system. Check and check again.

Last day to get your Member ID is 11 February

8 FEBRUARY 2013


I kind of hate myself for even potentially adding to the number of people trying to get a badge this coming Saturday - but I would be remiss in my duties if I didn't remind you stragglers that Monday, 11 February, is the last day you can apply for a Member ID. Which you need to buy a badge for San Diego Comic Con.

At least, I think Monday is the last day. The site just says Member ID applications are shut down as of 12 February, but doesn't say if that's at the start or end of the 12th - so it's best to be safe and assume Monday the 11th is the last day you can register for one. Once you have it, you'll be added to the list of people who get emails telling them the link to Saturday's badge sale.

You can get your Member ID here. Trust me, it's a painless process.

San Diego Comic Con badges on sale 16 February

1 FEBRUARY 2013


At long last, we have our date: 16 February, 9:00 am PST.

Once again, you'll get an email with the secret link 48 hours in advance - I say "you" meaning "you who have Member IDs." If you don't have a Member ID? Then go get one NOW, because they're shutting that down on 12 February.

Who's eligible: anyone with a Member ID except these two groups: people who pre-registered and got a four-day badge with preview night, or people who've registered for professional badges. Let me be clear about this: if you did pre-register, and you got a single day badge, or a four-day badge without preview night, you're in the clear to participate in this go-round. Anything overlapping will be cancelled.

How many people you can register: 4. That includes yourself.

How it works: same way it did last year. You'll click the link, which will take you to an online "waiting room." There will be a number announcing your place in line - and then you just wait until suddenly you're pushed into a different area where you choose the badge you want. You have to pay on the spot this time; it's possible your badge choice will sell out even as you're typing in your credit card numbers, and then you'll be forced to select from what's available. Confirmations will go out a few days later.

My advice: have multiple laptops and browsers on the job, and have your information - name, credit card number, etc - all typed out so you can just cut and paste. Oh, and go into the CCI site now and check your Member ID to make sure everything looks like it should.

If you've never participated in Registration Day before, be prepared. You might get incredibly lucky, you might encounter an inexplicable technical snafu, you might get totally different badges from your friends. Or none at all. Use every Jedi-Zen trick you know to become calm and detached before it all kicks off, because trust me, you'll need it.

See CCI for more details. Good luck.