Today was the first day of ComiCon for me. I started it out by waking up to Erin (@readiness) calling me– I’d overslept by two hours and she was waiting outside for quite a while. She bleached my hair as I delt with last minute ComiCon emergencies, and an electrician who was gonna make my apartment more usable. We tore the place apart while packing — i felt bad about leaving it looking wrecked, but I had to get to LAX to pick up an old friend.

I met Rich Johnston when I was 17yrs old. He’s a comic book creator from London, and for many years was the gossip columnist at CBR behind Lying in the Gutters. Now he runs a site through Avatar called Bleedingcool.com and was coming to SDCC on their behalf. I was picking him up from the airport cuz he bribed me with a suitcase full of candy to do it.

The first order of business was food, and the best ramen place in Southern California happened to be by LAX. So we went there and even got to sit at a low table on a tatami mat. Then, we bought EVEN MORE CANDY. Cuz Japanese candy is awesome. Then we sat in traffic til we got to the condo.

So we got to the condo and there was ANOTHER random british dude there! Apparently (and this took quite a while to sort out) the property manager thought he was staying in our room, and his room was at some place about 10mins away. It was super random. After that was sorted out, I dropped off Rich and headed to Mira Mesa to hang out with Todd and Christy Pluciennik, a couple of artists in my publishing group, Penguin Palace.

I had a blast hanging out, playing uno, and we got taquitos from Santanas. I’m going to spend this week determining if Sombreros or Santanas has better taquitos.

I need to convey how awesome FancyCondo is. It’s across the street from Balboa Park in a beautiful building, stunning harbor views as well as a skyline view. I’ve never stayed in a place this nice at ComiCon. The bathtub has armrests. There is a color printer. There is a full kitchen that makes me really wish I had time to bake or something. It’s REALLY AWESOME.

Tomorrow the madness begins. Wish me luck.