I took my nephew Noah, and honorary nephew Kelton, to the Comic-Con today. What a blast! I know I wouldn’t have had nearly as good of a time if it were not having two youngsters with me just freaking out as we turned every corner.

It started off with a bang. The minute we walked in we saw the Star Trek Captain’s chair and a group of Halo fighters walking around. Then some little girl walked by with a light saber and it was all over. Noah and Kelton went nuts.

Must.

Have.

Light.

Saber.

The entire first half of the day was spent trying to find light sabers and the second half of the day was spent trying to keep them from poking out somebody’s eyeball with their brand new light sabers.

Oh, and FYI, it is no easy task getting a light saber at Comic-Con. You would think the place would be crawling with them; that every vendor and their mother would have a freaking light saber for sale.

Not so. The only store/vendor that had them was the Mattel store. which, of course, takes an hour and a half just to find. But then wait… When you find it you don’t just walk  into the store and, you know, buy things. Oh noooo. You have to leave the concourse, go back outside, up the stairs, around the conference rooms, and into the sales pavilion where you must wait in a line to get a ticket that enables you to get in a line and spend money at the Mattel store.

Ok, so you’re getting an idea about what a clustertrunk Comic-Con is, right?

So, we secure our special ticket and start singing Willy Wonka’s, “I’ve got a golden ticket, I’ve got a golden Ticket” all the way back through the sales pavilion, around the conference rooms, down the stairs, and back into the main concourse to find the Mattel store where they permit you to get into a line that makes the Space Mountain line look like the line to get into the “Hard Punch to Your Face” store.

Those of you who know me know that I don’t do very well in lines, so I started punching Noah in the face to pass the time. I figured he owed me that.

Finally, we got to the checkout counter. What a relief. The clerk delivered three light saber boxes (one for the other nephew, River, who could not be there) and off we went.

We found a cubby hole where we they could open the boxes and they tore into them like Winos tear into vodka gift boxes. And the pulled out the parts, assembled the sabers, and VOILA!…

No batteries.

Holy Mother of Christ in Heaven why have you foresaken me!

Well, it didn’t take long to figure out that nobody in this godforsaken place sells batteries, so, off we went, back through the concourse doors, back outside, across the street of death, over the trolley tracks of dismemberment, and into downtown San Diego which, itself, was a clusterfunk thanks to ComicCon, for several blocks until we found a liquor deli (and i’m seriously thinking about scoring a fifth of Bacardi at this point) which had – naturally – a line that wrapped around the inside of the liquor store twice-over.

We waited in that line, purchased the batteries, and, at last – functioning light sabers.

I gotta say though, nightmarish triple-line scenario aside, it was all worth it. To see those two kids’ faces light up when the clerk presented the light sabers, and when they went “zzzzssh,” when they were powered up for the first time, well, it was one of those moments when I understood why people procreate.

And let me tell you, these were not bullshit, cheap plastic, forget-about-them-tomorrow kind of  light sabers. These were exact replicas of what they use in the Star Wars movies.  Solid, heavy and realistic looking (if light sabers were actually real). And they make the coolest sounds when they power up and power down. And the coolest part of all, the kids knew how cool they were. Auntie W. tells me that Noah had been pining for one of these for ages. Can’t say that I blame him.

The only other thing I have to report from Comic-Con is that apparently, Barzilla sold relatively well at the Puna Press Table. I say “relatively” because Puna Press is really not the kind of publishing company for which the people who go to Comic-Con are looking. We do poetry and art and whatnot. Not really comic books.

Still, we think it’s important to have a presence there and – what they hey – a few people actually bought Barzilla. Of course, it was more for the artwork than the words (the artwork in Barzilla is astounding) but it got me to thinking about my next project, and I actually might follow up on it:

A Barzilla comic book.

Hmmm, could be fun. Could even sell.

Ed Decker
07.24.09

MORE PICTURES BELOW…

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