bonniegrrl | Comic-Con: Star Wars, Transformers and Glen Danzig? (Reply)

Every year I attend Comic-Con as a Lucasfilm employee, and every year I'm amazed at the cool stuff I spot walking the floors and hanging out in our Star Wars pavillion area. This year was no exception.

Like last year, we owned Comic-Con (sans the usual X-Wing) with not just our licensees out in full force (Gentle Giant, Master Replicas, LEGO, Hasbro, etc.) but there were more than enough fans who stopped by in full costume to show off their Jedi pride.

Even Natalie Portman -- who was there to promote her new film V for Vendetta stopped by the Star Wars booth to say hello to fans and allowed fans a rare chance to take their photos with her. Also spotted was Gene Simmons from KISS chatting with a few Stormtroopers, and Misfits' Glen Danzig was wandering around the convention floor as well.

I caught up with my friends Martin and Eric from Giant Robot magazine, as well as Lenore comic creator Roman Dirge (

taxidermied) and his lovely talented lady Kiana (

deadlybloom). Not to mention the many Star Wars artists I bugged throughout the five days I was there -- like Cat Staggs, Randy Martinez (

randymartinez), Terri and Tom Hodges (

tdhartist), Cynthia Cummens, Joe Corroney, Sarah Wilkinson, Matt Busch

planetmatt, Chris Trevas and Justin.

I also hung out with super-talented artist/writer Otis Frampton and Andrew Bawidamann (who I'm hoping to get to do Star Wars stuff for us).

I got to meet Matthew Wood (voice of General Grievous and sound editor over at Skywalker Sound) and chat with him about cough drops,

boingboing_net -- he never got his last issue of Boing Boing magazine -- and his legions of fans. I think I may have convinced him to do a VIP blog on our Star Wars Blogs site.

At our Gentle Giant/Lucasfilm party, I got to hang with my Lucasfilm pals, and met some new great folks from American Greetings. I think I may have been a bit on the obnoxious smartaleck side when I was chatting with them about Care Bears (one of the creators was actually sitting at the table) and Holly Hobbie. I thought I was being funny, but I tend to make really bad first impressions, so hopefully they'll forgive me for being a dork.

Before I could do any more damage, I was whisked away -- for "Some Potter Action" as I aptly called it -- by

chefgrrl, Mary, Amy, Pabs and the gang to head over to a Borders Books on the other side of town to stand in line for the latest Harry Potter book. I don't remember much of that -- but I do have photographic evidence I was there. So I'll post those blackmail photos soon...

The day after my birthday, since my license had expired, I managed to get carded and NOT let into a bar. Can you believe that? I'm 33 and they wouldn't let me in! Of course, the running joke of the rest of Comic-Con was that people wanted to hit the bars but then they'd look at me and giggle that I was too young to drink. Good times.

All in all it was a blast this year to be at Comic-Con, and I'm pretty sure my Flickr photoblog can prove it.

Check out all the photoevidence of Comic-Con here.