ComicCon.

Okay, this post has been a while in coming.

On Friday July 15th, the question I was asked more than any other was "can I take your picture?" I could hardly walk 10 feet without some one pulling me aside. But y'know what? I didn't mind one bit. It felt awesome. I felt awesome. Even though by the end of the day I was exhausted and felt like I could keel over, I still was smiling underneath my mask for every single picture. I couldn't help it.

Why was I so popular? Well the handsome cream certainly isn't the reason. Instead I was dressed as one of the least-feared villains in movie history: I was a Stormtrooper.

As I walked around the San Diego Convention center, I could barely see. I couldn't tilt my head up because the helmet would hit the back armor piece. I couldn't tilt it down because of the chest armor piece. The only way to see the ground in front of me was to bend from the waist. Also, the guy who's helmet it belonged to had glued his prescription glasses lenses inside the helmet, so that helped to make everything blurry and distorted.

But even still, I could see the people around me stare as I walked past. Some one would notice me and grab their camera. "Can I take your picture?" was always the next thing out of their mouth. Even though I could barely hear them over the noise of the convention, through the muffle of the helmet, and over the drone of the fans inside the helmet, I could have said it with them, I was so used to hearing it. And once I had stopped for one person, a whole flock would come rushing in.

A couple times, a mother would ask me to say hi to her son. "Hello" I would say in the deepest voice I could muster. "Be sure to eat your vegetables. It will make you a good citizen of the Galactic Empire." They never laughed (no one ever laughs at my jokes).

By the end of the day, I was so exhausted, I was nauseous. I hadn't eaten or drank anything all day. (I wanted to keep the tanks empty, so to speak; how does a Stormtrooper go to the bathroom?) I had been on my feet on the cement floor for close to 8 hours. (It's also really hard to sit down in Stormtrooper armor). By the time I got back to the car and took the armor off, I had bruises on my shoulders, in my hips, and on the balls of my hands. I had terrible shin splints from standing on the hard floor while wearing the costume. My legs were almost numb from the knee down.

But it was worth it. I was ready to do the same thing again the next day.

-The Backstory-

A few weeks ago (July 15-16) Rie and I went to San Diego for ComicCon. If you don't know what ComicCon is, imagine every geek in the Western United States in one room. That's ComicCon. It's billed as the "Convention for the promotion of Comics and popular art." A week prior to the event, I didn't know I was going. Rie had been planning on attending and had pre-registered, but I assumed she was going with her Star Wars geek friends. It was only just prior that I asked if she was intending for me to go.

At first I was really hesitant. I had no idea what ComicCon was all about. I figured it was just going to be some Anime porn thing with really weird Japanese comics. As it turns out, ComicCon is the coolest thing ever!!! All sorts of companies show up to display their wares. Most importantly, video game and film companies show up. Just to give you an example of some of the stuff we saw:

- LucasFilm had the largest "booth". I use the term booth loosely as it was more of a "small football field". They had all sorts of affiliates there displaying/selling stuff. Master Replicas was there and selling tons of lightsabers (really, really good quality replicas). Lego was there showing off some of the Lego sets (including the multi-thousand piece Prequel Star Destroyer). LucasArts was there and they had playable demos of Empire at War and Battefront II! (This was what I was most excited about). There were also a few other toy companies that were selling Star Wars related stuff. They also went all out in the setup. In the middle, towards the ceiling was a huge display showing all sorts of movies. They went through the trailers for all 6 movies; They showed a bunch of fan films; they had a guy walking around with a camera filming the fans around the booth (particularly those in costume); they also had a couple guys come out periodically and duke it out with Master Replicas' lightsabers (which the camera guy filmed for the big screen above). The LucasFilm booth was consequently one of the most crowded.

- Several video game companies were there, including Activision, EA, and most importantly Blizzard. Activision and EA were primarily showing there in-development games based off comic book licenses (like The Incredible Hulk). Blizzard had WoW and StarCraft: Ghost.

- Dreamworks, Disney, and Weta were also there. Dreamworks had some cool stuff (more shown later). Disney had a huge Chronicles of Narnia setup (again, more later). Weta had a cool setup with models from some of their different films (LOTR, Narnia, and King Kong). They also had a TV that was showing the trailer for King Kong as well as some behind-the-scenes stuff for Narnia.

- There was some booth that had something to do with Matt Groening. They had a bunch of the Simpsons comic books, as well as a TV that was showing Futurama. I watched part of the episode where Fry microwaves non-microwaveable popcorn (because it's in a metal tin) during a super-nova, which rips a whole in the fabric of the space time continuum and sends them back to Roswell, 1947, where Fry kills his grandfather and impregnates his grandmother.

There were a ton of other booths showing stuff (not just porn). Basically, if a company had anything to do with some form of animation or popular art, they were at ComicCon

So anyways, on to the pictures. But before the pictures, some more backstory. I had expressed interest to Rie about getting some Clone Trooper armor (before I realized how much said armor kits cost). So a couple weeks before ComicCon, Rie took me to the house of one of her Star Wars friends. This guy (Kevin is his name) is a member of the 501st legion and has his own Stormtrooper armor (to get into the 501st, you have to have an authentic Star Wars costume). He was also constructing his own Episode III Clonetrooper armor. So Rie and I went to look at it and while we were there, he showed me some pictures of some of the places he's worn his armor. Places like Celebration III (this past May in Indianapolis) and the AFI salute to George Lucas (he was actually on stage as part of the dancing Stormtrooper line, if any of you watched that on USA TV network). He has an additional Stormtrooper helmet that he's had signed by almost every major cast member from Star Wars, and also by The Man himself (Lucas). So while we were there, I tried on his Stormtrooper armor. We're about the same height and have almost identical builds, so it fit perfectly.

So anyways, Kevin was busy getting his Clone Trooper armor together for ComicCon, and he agreed to let me wear his Stormtrooper armor for the event. So I did.



I think I was sticking out my tongue in that picture. That's Rie in her Sith costume. She can't get into the 501st with that costume because it's not "Canon". Only a few non-canon costumes are let in (Mara Jade and Thrawn, primarily).

Let me tell you about Stormtrooper armor.
1) It's quite heavy. Basically, everything from the knees up is resting on two small points on your shoulders. I had bruises the next day.
2) It's not as hot as you might think. Yes it is plastic, which doesn't breathe well, but it's white, so even in the sun, most of the heat was reflected.
3) The helmet is the hottest part. To that end, most members of the 501st install CPU fans in their helmets to circulate the air. Thank goodness I had a couple (hooked up to 9V batteries).
4) It's hard to sit down. For the first 6 hours or so, I didn't even think I could. I didn't want to try, since it wasn't my armor and I was being extra-careful. Eventually, it was either sit down or fall over, so I managed to make do.



Ignore the bad Jango Fett costume guy on the left. Next to Rie, in her Sith costume, is Kevin in his Clone Trooper armor. He had done an awesome job with it and even applied some battle damage. The paint was scuffed up to make it look like he'd seen action. The Jawa is Kevin's 7-year-old son Christiano. After me is Kevin's wife, Brook, in the Imperial Guard get up. She's not exactly flat chested, so sometimes kids will come up to her and say "Mommy that one's a girl!"

In the above picture we're standing in a box made to look like a box of action figures. Entertainment Earth was the company selling them. Rie and I volunteered to pose with people for pictures. For every 3 hours we put in, we got a free box of the action figures.



Stupid Clone Troopers giving us Stormtroopers a bad name! They think they're so hot because they can actually hit their target!



This is at the Lego booth inside the LucasFilm area. There was a remote controlled lego R2-D2 rolling around.



Yeah, I wasn't the only Stormtrooper there. There were probably about a dozen just like me. In addition, there was a Sand Trooper (complete with sandy armor), about a half-dozen Episode II Clone Troopers, a few Scout Troopers and Snow Troopers, some Jango Fetts, a few Boba Fetts, (some modified Fetts, including one girl who had an awesome black with red highlight Mandalorian battle armor), a couple Vaders, and this Commander Cody. He was the only other Episode III Clone (aside from Kevin).



I think this is Rie's dream come true. In case you haven't been able to tell from the other pictures, she's wearing a leather get up (without the cloak she looks like Trinity from the Matrix) and high-heeled leather boots.



This chick's hot. Rie knows her name (I don't remember). She was one of about 3 slave Leias (and the one with the best costume). She goes around to a bunch of different events like this and poses for pictures (WITH the costume, you perv).



Here are a few other not-as-hot girls with some Amidala/Handmaiden costumes. I thought the one on the left was actually pretty good.



Gah! My own wife trying to kill me!



There was also a Han and Chewie that were wandering around. The Han didn't look much like Han in facial features, but he had a good costume and could act the part. The Chewie was perfect. His costume was perfect. He was perfect.



Keep in mind with that armor on, I'm about 6 feet tall. This guy could also do the Chewie call perfectly (Brrrrrr, or however you would spell it). The kid is Kevin's son Christiano.



After we took the group shot, Chewie grabbed Christiano and hoisted him above his head and Chewie-called to him. The kid loved it.



There were a few other good and interesting costumes there. I thought this one was interesting, if not necessarily canon.



"But you've forgotten one thing. I'm Captain Jack Sparrow." I think Rie's costume would look great if she had red contacts.

There were a number of other cool costumes I didn't get pictures of, including some great Jedi costumes. One guy had a Episode III Obi-Wan, with perfect beard and hair. There's also one guy that had a kick-arse Episode III Anakin costume. He had the perfect hair sweaty-looking long hair, he drew the scar over his eye, put the red make-up under his eyes, and even put in the yellow contact lenses. I wish I'd gotten a picture of him. There was also a Stormtrooper Elvis. He was wearing the armor, except for the helmet, a white cape, and had sideburns with elvis-style sunglasses and hairdo.

There were also a lot of non-Star Wars costumes. Some Klingons went into the Entertainment Earth booth to take a picture with Rie (she greeted them with a hearty "Kah'plah"). There were also a good bunch of freaks in weird Goth leather and stuff. I even found Waldo: Blue jeans, red and white striped shirt and cap, glasses, and cane.


2nd day

On the second day, I wasn't dressed up (we overslept because we were both so tired, then didn't meet up with Kevin to get the armor). So I was able to actually browse the convention and take more pictures.



This is at the Disney booth. They had a wardrobe you could walk in where they had samples of the armor and a trailer for the movie, with behind the scenes stuff (mainly talking with Richard Taylor). Mom would have gone nuts over it.



Ever watch Judgement Day on G4TV? Yeah, me neither. It's an inferior version of X-Play. But anyways, they were filming an episode at ComicCon. On the left is Tommy Tallarico, and on the right is his co-host Victor Lucas. They're not as funny as Adam Sessler and Morgan Webb on X-Play, but Mr. Tallarico is a cool character because he's also a video game music composer and one of the two people responsible for Video Games Live (the concert at the Hollywood bowl that featured nothing but video game music).

When they were done filming and began to move on, some people started yelling stuff like "Sessler sucks!" I yelled "thanks for Video Games Live." Mr. Tallarico turned around and said "Oh yeah!" I shook his hand and thanked him for all he was doing to put video game music into the main stream. He asked where I was from. "Long Beach," I said. He replied, "yeah, we'll be back in the area soon, in Irvine." "Any chance of making it out to Florida? That's where my brother is and I know he'd love to go." "Yeah, we're looking at perhaps either Orlando or Tampa." Awesome. Dave, keep a look out.



The episode they were filming is where they review Batman Begins, the game. Tommy gave it an 8.5 and Victor gave it a 7.5. Tommy liked how it integrated all the best parts from several different genres (GTA, Splinter Cell, and others). Victor didn't like how unbelievably linear it was. If you want to know more, just watch the episode.



Hey, did anyone know Dreamworks is making a Transformers movie? It's supposed to come out July 4th weekend, 2007. Anyways, this was cool. They drove in a big semi and covered it up. It was in fact a red cab with a grey trailer.



This is from the Dreamworks booth. They had some dioramas of the new Wallace and Gromit movie: The Curse of the Were Rabbit.







Bunnies! They're even cuter than the sheep.

That's all I took pictures of. There was tons of other cool stuff I didn't get. Some prop place had statues and models of Hellboy, the Terminator, the Alien, the Predator, and tons of other cool sci-fi stuff. Nintendo was also drawing a big crowd, but I was avoiding the big floating Pikachu balloon.

So anyways, it was a lot of fun and I have a feeling we'll be going again next year.