Only four months until Comic-Con!

While the next 120 days will, for comics pros, be filled with planning for all the shows between now and San Diego — C2E2, WonderCon, Emerald City, MoCCA, TCAF, Denver, Heroes, and so on—for those with their lasers locked on Comic-Con, the planning is nigh. And now that the majority of badges have been sold, the next level of planning begins. Tony B. Kim at Crazy for Comic-Con has a good round-up of things to start thinking about, like parking (it’s sold in advance!) hotels and so on. I always have a to-do list that I start at the previous year’s con, and the #1 item is always “PLAN EARLIER” — it never seems to happen but it’s a good note to aim for.

Kim’s site also has a section for “My First Time” accounts, and while none of them seem to be very comics focused, for us battle-scarred veterans of many a comic-con, they do provide a nice window into what we’re sometimes too jaded and always too stressed to notice: that it is still a wondrous experience, as this post by a fella named Alex shows:

I decided to hop in line at 5:30 am on that Saturday, surprisingly i was one of the first 20 in line! Even the current pass holder line was short, so I felt great! Then, they opened the doors roughly an hour earlier than expected, and I was running through the convention floor in such excitement and confusion, I just stopped. I stopped in the middle of the floor, watching other people run to their panels, their Hall H line, retailer booths for exclusives, autograph lines, and i realized how happy I was! Watching Geeks, Nerds, Artists, Writers, Noobs, big, small, young and old having a blast to reach their first stop of the day. As crazy as it gets, it is so much fun to be in whatever line you need to be in! I actually became lost in thought throughout the day and did not realize how crazy Hall H gets, so I missed panels that day, still remember the Simpsons and Futurama panel I missed, but it’s okay, I was better prepared for next time!