SDCC 2011 - The Good, The Bad and The Ugly
 

We now have another San Diego Comic-Con that has come and gone. Already I find myself reflecting on the madness of last week and really take it all in. What could have been done better? What was a real success? What was missing?

So with this discussion I want to take a look at the good, the bad, and the ugly of San Diego's Comic-Con of 2011. If you were following the news back at home, what were some highlights and low points of the show for you based on the coverage provided? If you were at the show, sound off on your own personal high points and low points!

My personal list:

The Good:

Mattel's Mattypalooza Panel - Always a great time, always a huge response, and this was our most popular event coverage wise as well among all of the networked sites. Awesome stuff coming, the return of mini-comics, the announcement of the Filmation license, Thunder Punch He-Man! And we were given the first mini-comic as we left the room. Awesome!

DC Comics - They had some new DC Direct reboot figures and Flashpoint figures on display, which made me interested in DC again. The stuff surprisingly looked very good. They did a pretty good job at promoting Batman Arkham City at their booth as well, and as someone who is a big gamer I really appreciated it. Their booth was set up a bit better than Marvel's booth and as someone who is currently more into Marvel, I was surprised that I found myself at DC's booth more times than Marvel's.

Hasbro's Displays - Hasbro had some of the finest dioramas I had ever seen. There was a fantastic G.I. Joe diorama based on a USS Flagg aircraft carrier that caught my attention first, very large, had a Sky Striker and a Black Dragon VTOL suspended from the top of the plexiglass case covering the dio, hovering over the Flagg. Several Steel Brigade troopers laid fallen in battle while others fought on. It was something to be seen.

Surprisingly, the better display was found over at the Marvel Universe area of Hasbro's booth. This was absolutely the finest diorama I had ever seen, but as I said I never really pay too much attention to these things but this one drew me in. There were two Sentinels on the scene, one being taken down by a couple of X-force members and several mini battles and confrontations going on all over the place. My words really cannot do that display justice, and if you missed it you can check out photos here. It was really awesome and inspiring, now I may actually try to do some better displays at home thanks to this incredible piece.


The Bad:

The Food - If you have to rely on convention food it is consistently bad. There was not one thing eaten inside of the convention center that was any good at all. But this is to be expected. If you want to eat away from the con you will need a couple of hours because all restaurants outside are getting some heavy volume, so you either have a long wait to be seated, or very busy wait staff after you are seated.


The Ugly:

Hasbro's Exclusives Line - This is always a madhouse, even more so this year. The line is usually packed to capacity within 10 minutes of opening. Can't really blame Hasbro for it though, it just shows that there is a lot of demand for their product. Seems to be the booth that EVERYONE tries to hit first, and it remains packed and the talk of the show all weekend long. There were times we would be in line for something else, someone would see our Hasbro bags and say: "Wow, you got through the Hasbro line!?" as if we just scaled a mountain.

ThreeA Exclusives Line - This was the most ridiculous thing I have ever seen. If you lined up early on Thursday it didn't matter, you had to be a member of a club to buy anything anyways, and no one told you that unless you asked. Hall opened at 9 but they weren't selling until 11 anyways. Why? That makes no sense at all, you have a line, when you are allowed to sell, then sell. It felt too forced to generate hype or exclusivity or whatever. How ThreeA ran their exclusives at Comic-Con completely turned me off from their WWR line altogether.

Strollers and Infants - (This is a personal one for me so it may come off a bit preachy and may rub some of you the wrong way). It is VERY difficult to navigate the crowds at Comic-Con on foot. At spots on the floor it can take 10 minutes just to move 100 yards it is so crowded. There are people EVERYWHERE and at some places even shoulder to shoulder. So to try and navigate a stroller through all of that is not only foolish, but a little rude and irresponsible. As the father of a stroller aged child, I would NEVER attempt such a thing. My other issue with having an infant at Comic-Con? They are much more susceptible to illness than an adult. I saw a couple of infants probably around the 8 week mark while at the con and it just made me want to slap those parents. If you have a newborn, or a child that needs a stroller, stay home. You do not belong at Comic-Con.

Arent you missing in the good section all of the new awesome Marvel Universe figures coming out and the Marvel Legends Line along with a few other released toy lines?

I understand your feelings about the strollers and children being at the show but you also have to be a little sympathatic towards the true fans who have noone to watch their kid. It's kinda like saying that you cant bring your child in a stroller to a sports game or to the mall during holiday season.

Not in my personal "Good" list. There were not many terrific reveals at the Marvel Panel, we really only got one more wave revealed. Though I am happy to see Marvel Legends return.

Not sympathetic at all. If my wife was unable to watch my daughter, I would be at home with her. Those who put going to a convention as a priority over the well being of their children get no sympathy from me at all. This goes more towards seeing a couple of 8 week olds around the show, not really just the stroller people. The stroller people I was more just stunned to see people attempting that.

And it is not quite like bringing a stroller to a sports game or the mall. A sports game tops out in the 60-80 thousand range in attendance for the most part (usually outdoors in open air too). Comic-Con has a couple hundred thousand between attendees, staff, press, exhibitors, and people milling about outside without badges. Most of that time spent inside the same room at much closer quarters with other people than at a sports game or a shopping mall.

Fair enough. I was pretty impressed by that MU diorama and would have loved to have seen that in person.

It is pretty ridiculous how long those lines are for exclusives when youve already paid admission and then they allow people to buy them from HTS a few days later.

Damn good point! I forgot to mention the MU diorama! I LOVED that dio. I never really pay too much attention to dios but that one captured my attention that I kept going back and looking at it. The Joe one was real done too. Thanks for reminding me. I am going to go back and edit my post to include that!

Yeah. There is never any certainty with either, so I guess people just get paranoid and jump at any chance to get something. It is CRAZY! One of the few times I see mobs of grown men run.

I've never understood why Hasbro doesn't do pre-orders to help speed things along. This year was worse than ever. Any insights as to why they don't? The bottleneck comes down to high demand and only 5 or 6 cashiers.

I completely agree on the strollers and newborns. I have a 1 year old. He isn't joining me at SDCC until he's 5 or 6 years old. And even then, only for the Sunday portion where it's a smidge less crowded.

One of these days I will make it to SDCC!

Definitely understandable. Not a safe spot for an infant at all. I've been to big ass anime cons and people are %^&*()ing stupid and lack common sense. Entire groups of people just walking AIMLESSLY not looking where they are going. I imagine at SDCC it's much worse. Incredibly annoying and an infant should not have to go through that garbage. Plus the chances of said infant(s) getting sick is exponentially increased(been to enough cons to know...some fans will throw hygiene out the window...anyone who thinks I'm lying can sniff the air at a con).

Good - Amount of Thundercats stuff floating around. I was more excited about this than other lines, mostly because it's new and has potential to really take off. Seeing the logo and art all over the place, and various toys/statues coming down the pipe was cool.

Good - Exclusives. But not the ones everyone was super excited about. Got a skystriker and pink zarana, but only because I got lucky. Was prepared to not get anything there. Got no Matty stuff. But, I am excited for the other stuff I got - Figurarts Goku and Megaman, then past DBZ Figurarts to compliment. And TRU Lion O, and, 3 3/4ths Dexter figures!

Good - DC Reboot figures. Look great, and overall made me more comfortable with the new suits. If they are gonna look like that in non-art form, DC should be fine. Overall more excited for DC moving forward, may jump on with figs and books once the reboot gets going.

Good - Food outside the con center. Tons of great places, most were good.

Good - Play Arts Kai - Arkham City Batman and all Street Fighter figs - WANT.

Good - Having back home people to help. Joe and Shin, plus 2005 staff, helped A LOT!

Good - Having 3 people to cover the event. DeeFuzz and Destro rocked.

Bad - Only having 3 people to cover the event. Need 10.

Bad - LINES. FUCK LINES. HATE LINES.

Bad - WIFI/3g/4g signals EVERYWHERE. No excuse. FIX THAT SHIT. 250,000 extra NERDS in one place, and you don't think to boost your network a bit. And if you did, DO IT MORE. I hate every company that is involved with wifi or 3g/4g coverage at that place right now.

Bad - Free WIFI at my hotel. Works outside, but not inside. But inside sometimes, if you stand in the corner. F U FU F U!

Bad - Places to sit inside the convention center. FIX THAT ISH!

Bad - Server overloads and crap outs. This will be the end of me.


Overall - had a great time, somewhat happy with our coverage, and less physically beat than previous years. Looking forward to the downtime for major events tho.

Yeah, Toyark staff really killed it with the coverage. It's been mentioned in another thread, but I'll say it again here. You guys rocked the con this year with your news and pictures. Many thanks!

Thanks, it is appreciated.

And, edited above thread to give props to Joe and Shin, they ran home base support for incoming files and KILLED it.

Ironically, Defuzz... it was your personal peeve that I agreed with the most. That's not the place for infants. Full grown adults already have it rough enough at cons...

Out of the sites I check regularly for action figure news, ToyArk had the best (and fastest) coverage and photos by far. Well done, guys!

The tantrum a few posts above, not so much. :p

I was most excited by Masters of the Universe Classics and DC Universe Classics, even though I'm not a major collector of either. The Sorceress and the new Evil-Lyn look fantastic.

On the other hand, I am very disappointed in the move to subscription for DCUC. Now I'll be buying even fewer than I have in the past. And Shadow Weaver, one of the top (if not THE top) fan-wanted characters for MOTUC, has been made the subscription-only figure? I find that rather backhanded.

Though I'm still far from thrilled with Bandai getting Thundercats, I'm definitely getting excited. The 4 inch set are unimpressive, but I'll probably get them anyway. The 6 inch look much better than I expected from Bandai, and I can't wait to get them. Unfortunately, TRU Lion-O disappeared online in a blur faster than Cheetara could muster, and I missed him.

Dear Hasbrotoyshop:
You have handled the release of comic con exclusives through your website very poorly and unprofessionally. You have had several years to practice so you can't act like you're brand new at this and were not able to prepare. I checked your website every hour since midnight for the comic con exclusives. When they finally became available I found that quantities were limited. That is understandable, but were they limited at the convention as well? If fans were allowed to purchase more than one Starscream at the convention, but were limited to just one online, that is not fair. Even if you did limit the purchase of this item to just one at the convention, that does not mean much because people go to these conventions with other people. They bring people with them to wait in long lines with them. And those other people also buy another item for them. So don't throw that excuse at me. When I did attempt to checkout I just got sent back to the cart page, only with a notice that Starscream was temporarily out of stock and please delete this item. Why can't you delete it? If your website could handle the traffic maybe I could have made it to checkout before it sold out. Unfortunately it took several minutes for each page to load, if it would at all. After removing the item I tried to checkout again, only to have the page not load at all. I tried again through another tab in internet explorer and I got an error page from you acting like I did something wrong. Really? I just threw a bunch of cookies into my computer right before checking out? Bullshit. Several minutes later I was able to get hasbrotoyshop.com to load again only to find my cart empty. I don't need your Marvel Legends Thor that badly. Why did you make that figure anyway? There is already a superior version of that figure by Marvel Select that has been available for over a year. And your Transformers exclusives sucked. Those toys are going to be available everywhere in a month so no big deal there. Oh Prime Prime has metallic paint? Well butter my balls and call me a circus lion! BIG DEAL. I'm not buying anything today because I'm not going to be hasbrotoyshop.com's bitch. And I will probably never buy anything from you again after today's experience. You act like you're doing a favor for fans and collectors by offering these items and but you're really just giving us a slap in the face. My choice of tone and language does not diminish the validity of the points I make. You knew these items would be in demand and yet you did not create nearly enough supply. You knew your website would experience high traffic and yet you did nothing to compensate for it. Shame on your company. You should know better.

The Good

• I was able to score 1 of every exclusive that I wanted.
• I won both LEGO DC promo's, Batman and Green Lantern
• Eating & Drinking at Local Habit
• The weather!!!!

The Bad

• Having to spend almost $400 to ship everything home. Such BS!
• No Joe!
• Getting hooked on collecting MU again.
• The food at the convention center.

The Ulgy!

• The SCC is now to small for this show. BUILD IT BIGGER!
• The lines at this show are crazy long, it needs to be fixed.
• One per on the SKy Screamer!

Folks I am in the same convention center some of you were in last week. anyone have any recommendations of post convention activities and places (think food and fun)?

what do you mean shipping it home??? did you not just physically buy things and physically take them home with you?? in a physical sense of course!?? :/

Not if you're flying on a plane. Gotta ship back home.

The good: Marvel Universe and GI Joe 30th Anniversary offerings. I can't wait to get my dirty mits on these. Unlike the 25th anniversary Joes, however, I won't be keeping a duplicate of each toy MOC, just because I was all about the 80's cardbacks. Still, the figures themselves are amazing. Lifeline? Oh heck yes.

The bad: DC. Pretty much everything they showed fell flat for me. They have such a great cast of characters, yet somehow companies like Mattel still fumble at the goal line, if you know what I mean.

The ugly: Not really a part of SDCC, since it ends on Sunday, but Hasbro Toy Shop always finds a way to leave a bad taste in peoples' mouths at the end of SDCC. It's like having a great weekend party, only to find out Monday morning that some dude pissed in the fruit punch that everyone drank from. The debacle that is the buying of exclusives on HTS never ceases to amaze me. For me, surprisingly, this year it was fine, but for 99% of collectors, it sucked. Hence the UH-gly.

I'm glad I am not alone. I was feeling that I was being a bit preachy, or even being a little oversensitive as being a newish dad. But man that just got under my skin. I get a bit paranoid at cons for my health as it is, I would not want to expose my little one to that level of it at SDCC.

Thank you! It feels really good to hear that, we were trying hard to get news and images to you all. We are glad to see that you got something out of it!

That is a toss-up. This year we stayed a bit further out so it was more difficult for us to partake in after hours activities. There are many parties and events going on throughout the entire area so if it is possible to get in on one of those it is a good time. Game companies like to set up in the hotels outside like along 5th street and stuff so there is always some hustle and bustle around there.

As far as food, there are some awesome places way up at the end of 5th street but that is like a 10 minute cab ride. But I can completely and confidently recommend Local Habit. They are an organic food and local brewpub, and everything we had there was awesome. But it was a 10 minute cab ride away. Also the Palm is incredible but definitely on the pricey side. Avoid the Merk at all costs, food there was terrible and the service was lacking.

We all got Merk'd that night. Rough night and morning after that place...

Do any strip clubs around the con do a superhero theme weekend?

Good, Bad and Ugly
 

Good:
MattyCollector's pre-ordering system and subsequent fulfillment. Hasbro can learn a thing or two from how smoothly Mattel fulfilled their exclusive pre-orders...and no outrageous shipping costs!

Voltron exclusive. I haven't even opened it yet since I just enjoy staring at the windowframe box and playing the sound chip that takes me back 25 years.

Mega Man exclusive. This was a must have for me and, although it looks like the production quantity was large, this thing is sooo suh-sweet. It almost seems like an art piece rather than a toy.

The Sideshow collectible "booth." Just...wow.

Bad:
HasbroToyShop's unending lines, inevitable sell outs and then awful Tuesday online sale. I had the Cold Slither Zarana in my cart at 9AM on the dot and couldn't get to checkout before she sold out. BULLSHIT! I even waited to get the normal pink costume and was going to buy the more expensive Optimus when she sold out. Finally, I just gave HTS the finger.

Mattel forcing subscriptions on DCUC fans. Obviously, this business model is working for Matty, but I feel like I'm about done with MOTUC and with their crazy shipping and nearly 10% tax on those of us who live in CA. I may have gone with the Lion Force club, but $15 for a 3 3/4" figure is just stupid. Thanks but no thanks. I'll take my chances with the WSOD on sale day.

Lines, lines and more lines. I would have loved to go to a panel, or see a preview screening or whatever, but the lines where nuts. Ended up just cruising Hall H and finding cool independent booths.

Ugly:
OMG people, if you walked around the Gaslamp district at all on Saturday night, there were prostitutes everywhere! It's like all the working girls figured out that there were 100,000+, mostly male nerds in San Diego and they all took a flight to SD to take advantage. I have never seen so many hookers out in force.

Finally, a note on the strollers... I really didn't mind it too much. That being said, I wouldn't bring a kid under the age of 2 to SDCC.

You are definitely not alone. I wouldn't even take my 4-year-old to SDCC, let alone my 1-year-old. I can't even fanthom taking an 8-month-old.

And I will reiterate what an excellent job you, Tony and Destro did at the con and what Joe and Shin did for us here. One of these days, I'm going to go to SDCC as a birthday treat for myself (SDCC always happens the week of my birthday). Maybe I'll be able to pitch in then.

Ummm... fun?

And you didn't mind it too much, huh? Wait until one s**** itself in line and dear old dad insists on keeping his spot.