This is the point that the days all start to merge, hung over and getting on a water taxi do not mix. And I apologise to anyone who's names I misspell, but I've hit '
almost passing out' point...

A Marvel meeting with editor and friend Mark Paniccia followed by a couple of quick other meetings followed by a TV interview and then another with Jimmy Aquino. During the wandering around however, I saw that there were far more crowds appearing around certain peeople - now, this time I knew that it was more likely to be half naked women, but  this time I was wrong - instead, it was the 'Rock me sexy Jesus' guys from Hamlet 2...



 Today also seemed  to be the 'heroes love' day at the con, with both Spider Man / Black Cat pairings seen around the convention floor -



And more importantly, the 'Nick Fury / Spider Woman' Secret Invasion real life 'crossover'...



From there it was lunch at Dicks Last Resort with Chris Kirby and Dan Taylor and then an afternoon of madness at the convention. One of the highlights was seeing the 'KITT' from the new Knight Rider TV series with nobody bothering to go have their photo taken with it, to the point that the guy announcing was almost begging people to come overr. Most amusing.

The afternoon was also spent showing SDCC rookie Neil Kleid the joys of the SDCC convention centre, including the Industry Lounge, the the special, pros only 'Fulfillment Room', where - well, lets just say you were 'fulfilled'. 'Nuff said.



Kevin Colden as you can see, is a quick fulfiller.

Anyway, I had a meeting rescheduled with another publisher, hunted around the packed high number end of the convention for things to buy until I started to want to hurt people - at which point I backed away VERY slowly.

Around 6pm I needed to go rest my feet, so I taxi'ed over to the Marriott where I managed to sit down for a couple of hours, shower, change and then make my way back to the Mariott Marina for around 7.30pm where Bart, Chris, Sean and I had a burger at DW's and then made our way to the Hyatt for the rest of the evening.

Managed to catch Kleid, Colden and Kody Chamberlain at the Hyatt as well as David Gallagher and Valerie D'Orazio - I love David. He markets more than I do, which always makes me feel better about my own self serving attitude.

The partying continued into deep into the night and I got too see Jazan Wild, Comic's hottest chick and his even more beautiful wife Sharon.  I also caught Mark 'Showbiz' Bernardin and a ton of others. I can't remember much here, as it all gets fuzzy.

Suffice to say that it was aa good night and I collapsed as soon as I hit the bed...

And so the wierdness kicks in. I'm sitting here on a Sunday, writing about Saturday while already writing a column for Monday and planning tomorrow's flights. I am officially out of time and space and in some sort of grey limbo time, fueled only by caffine and jalapeno pretzels.

But you don't care about this, do you gentle readerfolk - no, you want the con floor gossip, the 'skinny', the news.

I don't have any. Sorry. Saturday was a quiet day for me.

The day started with a simple trip across on the water taxi and a quick chat with Larry Young where I bumped into the people who created the Lost Room, which I absolutely loved/ Luckily I didn't know this for the first five minutes of talking to them, otherwise I may have gone into sleep deprived meltdown a little earlier than expected. They were talking about comics (of course they were - every TV writer was there talking comics) and they were incredibly friendly. From there I bumped into Kevin Colden and Neil Kleid, and we went up to the IDW panel where although not on it, I got to see Doctor Who - The Forgotten on the big screen, chatted to Darwyn Cooke, one of the nicest bloody guys in comics, caught up with Steve Niles and Sarah, suggested a 30 Days of Night / Doctor Who crossover with Ben Templesmith (which the fans seemed to like but will never, ever happen), heard Jimmy Palmiotti's kiddyfiddler voice (well, his croaky SDCC SARS one) and met possibly the most unassuming celebrity yet, Locke and Key creator Joe Hill, otherwise known as Stephen King's son. Joe was great to chat to and was worried about his upcoming spotlight panel, as if nobody would be turning up or something. He's a class act.



He of course is the one on the right. Neil Kleid is the one gurning on the left. :-)

From there? Well, I went to Horton Plaza and watched The Dark Knight. Three hours of non-convention enjoyment including the Watchmen trailer. And one of the nicest pretzel's I've ever eaten.

So after that I went back to the convention and hung out with Denton, my new Doctor Who editor and explained in great detail the plot to The Forgotten until he started to cry. My job done, I wandered over to Matt Gagnon at the BOOM! booth where, while chatting to him I was accosted by not only Ed Catto and Joe Ahearne, the geniuses behind the Captain Action franchise, but a strangely familliar cosplayer...



This young lady also told me that there was  a massive congregation of Doctor Who cosplayers at the Maquerade, and invited me to have my photo taken with them, being an international celebrity and all that. And so, att around 7pm I found myself surrounded by all ten Doctors including about fifteen 'Tenth Doctors' and a large collection of Torchwood staff, Romanas, Roses, Marthas, Aces and Donnas. Oh, and half of UNIT seemed to be there. My camera only lasted one shot before the battery died, but there was a ton of photos being taken, both of the group and of a second one with just the Doctors around me, so I'm sure I'll be linking to some more soon...



From there it was to the Hyatt, where I hung out with Kevin Colden and High Moon wunderkinds David Gallaher and Steve Ellis where we discussed a variety of thing including Valerie D'Orazio's upcoming Cloak and Dagger series. From there we made our way to the Lobby bar where I finally had my Guinness with Chris Ryall and -

Oh wait, Jason May's just reminded me to mention him.

- where was I? Oh yeah. Chris Ryall and Ben Templesmith. We also had a Jacen Burrows and a Jazan Wild. I wish Jason May had been there two, just to fill out the 'ways to spell Jason' gang.

And now I have to mention TJ May and Shawn Granger, who are here with Jason. And Kevin Colden's now leaving for the airport as his flight's been cancelled.

Anyway, back to yesterday, I briefly caught up with Antony Johnston and also three of the cosplay guys, Salina, Jessica and Steven came over to say hi. I didn't mention this earlier, but the Doctor Who cosplay guys? Nicest guys on the planet. They really made me feel special, they seemed interested in the comic and even suggested I attend a Doctor Who convention in February. Cool kids. I saw Aquino briefly, he's given up trying to beat me and had removed his tie. I saw Jason Badower in the lobby in the tightest blue top ever and Phil Hester was in the comfy chair - and he wasn't moving...

And then it was sleep time. So we made our way back to the hotel for one more uncomfortable, snore-interrupted night of sleep....