Yesterday (Wednesday, July 21) was Preview Night at San Diego Comic Con 2010. This year is my first attending Comic Con and the whole thing is quite new to me. Since purchasing my pass last September, I’ve read every “survival guide” on the internet and relentlessly planned for the event.

Yesterday, it (kind of) begun.

Preview Night means there’s no panels and a limited number of attendees have access. WB was doing some sort of preview screening of a new show, but I had no interest in that. So my plan was as vague as “wander the exhibit hall and see what happens.”

I had been warned that the best way to do Preview Night was to get there early. Seeing as I had nothing else to do with my day, I headed downtown and parked a little after 10am. I wandered the neighborhood for a bit to find some reading material for the line. (I settled on finally reading American Gods.) When I initially walked past the convention center, the line was outside. By the time I made it back - around 11 - it had moved inside.

I entered the San Diego Convention Center for the first time and made my way into line. Sitting next to me were some very nice San Diego locals that have been attending for 5 years. We chatted for a bit about favorite panels from cons past.

Badge pickup was supposed to start at 3 but we were let in a little more than an hour before that. We were frantically rushed to a station where a volunteer manned a laptop computer. The volunteer checking me in scanned my registration, which was thankfully still scannable despite being printed 10 months ago, checked my ID, and handed me my badge.

At that point, it was somewhat unclear what to do. After a moment, I figured out that the program and WB bags were being given out to my left, so I headed that direction. The bag-hander-outer line that I originally got into was taking forever, so I jumped to the next one. Thank goodness I did too, because I scored a CHUCK bag which was in my top 3 of bags I wanted.

Once again, I was unsure where to go but noticed people cueing up in the corner of the Sails Pavilion, so I jumped in line. I quickly figured out that this was the correct line to get into the exhibit hall and that we would be sitting/standing there (on concrete) for the next four and a half hours.

For that entire time, I was three feet away from a conversation that ranged from hilarious to irritating. I understand that Comic Con is my people. I embrace that. But I can’t help but be irritated by That Guy. The one that knows everything about everything (just ask him) and is more than willing to share it with anyone who listens. This particular version of That Guy writes his own treatments for comics and can wax endlessly on what should or should not be done with any particular character.

At the start of our four and a half hour wait, That Guy started talking to the two people standing closest to him. They were two sisters who were there for the younger one’s 16th birthday party. The older sister turns 18 next week. Their mom was with them as well. It only took one glance to know that mom had no idea what she was getting into with this event. Nor did she seem initially thrilled at the thought of her two daughters in a lively conversation with late-30s That Guy.

The sisters were awesome. Usually families are only blessed with one child as geeky as they were, but they both held their own with That Guy as he powered through the history of every major comic book superhero.

My favorite part of the whole conversation - That Guy: I graduated high school in 1994. Younger Sister: (enthusiastically) I was born in 1994! Mom: loud burst of laughter

Eventually they let us in. Lines formed everywhere and no one really knew what they were for. It was a frantic dash to find the lines giving away the free stuff and avoid the lines for exclusives/collectibles. My goal for myself was to get as much free stuff as possible. And I did. I’m not sure that any of it was worth keeping, but I was shoving stuff in my bag as fast as I could.

Quite possibly my favorite score of the night was all the comics DC was giving out. You had to stand in a different line for each corner of the booth. When I finally made it to the last of the lines, someone from the DC booth handed me a “This is the end of the line” sign. She said that not only did I need to hold this sign, but that if I got up there and there was anyone behind me, she’d kick me out of line. First thought: excitement that I made it into line. Second thought: patrol your own damn line! But I held it. And I told people they couldn’t stand behind me. They did anyways. By the time I rounded the corner to the table of free comics, there was quite a crowd behind me. (It only takes one rebel, then the others follow.) Luckily, the girl that handed me the sign was nowhere to be seen. I tried to hand it to the guys at the booth, but they didn’t really see me, so I set it down on the table. Finally one of the guys saw it and frantically said, “we’re cut off!” while people kept pouring past. As I got my stuff and left, I saw him go to the end of the newly-formed line and start enforcing the sign himself.

After wandering a bit, more and more “end of line” signs were appearing and it became clear than the free stuff rush was coming to an end. I changed gears and started checking out the smaller booths with stuff for sale.

I found a booth that had comics I was really drawn to (no pun intended) and got a 3 comics for $1 that I’ve yet to open. I spent quite awhile browsing the huge tshirt booths. I thought I had settled on Inglourious Basterds and Big Bang Theory shirts. Then I saw the most badass Rainbow Brite hoodie I’ve ever seen. It was love at first sight and I couldn’t walk away. I hadn’t budgeted spending $50 on clothes Preview Night, but I just had to have it.

My other purchase of the night was the SDCC exclusive of the new Darkwing Duck comic. The author was there and signed the books I bought. It was all very exciting. I was very tempted to buy some of the other Disney comics, but I had already spent way too much so I forced myself to walk away.

By this time it was 9pm and they were announcing overhead that we weren’t welcome there anymore. So I headed out to my car. Earlier in the day I had tweeted about my intentions to attend the /Film meetup at 10pm. I’m a huge /Filmcast fan and was hoping to meet the guys.

Leaving the parking garage was quick, but I sat in traffic for 20 minutes on the street outside the convention center. In the middle of googling where the meetup was, my phone died. I drove to where I thought it was, parked, went inside and plugged in my phone. When it booted back up, I realized I was at the wrong Marriott.

I decided to walk over to the other one so as not to lose my parking spot. About 15 minutes later, I arrived in the correct location. I quickly spotted Peter, Devindra, and Adam of /Film and observed the group of 15-20 people milling about. Meetups are hard to break into. I walked through, found the one other girl there and tried to say hi. She wasn’t very responsive, so I took a strategic bathroom break. I headed back into the lobby area and tried to break in again. And once again, no luck. So I gave up. I decided it was time to go. Just as I turned around and walked away, Jeff Bridges comes walking right past me, head down on his way to the elevator with an overly-excited bellhop following behind him asking if this was his first visit to the Marriott.

As soon as I saw him, I stopped in my tracks, made an about face, and followed him. Setting aside how creepy it is that my first instinct is to follow famous people when I see them, it turned out that’s all it took to finally break into the /Film meetup. Only one or two other people noticed Jeff Bridges and those of us that did looked at each other in awe and quickly alerted those around us of what they’d just missed.

This conversation got me talking with a brother and sister from Boston who were about my age. The three of us stood on the fringe of the group and strategized how to talk to someone. We saw that Chris Gore (of Attack of the Show) was talking to Peter Sciretta. We jokingly pondered what this meeting of the minds could result in. A moment later, I noticed that Chris Gore was gesturing towards us. I realized that this was our chance. I said loudly, “I think we’re being talked about” and Chris came back with a comment about how he was telling Peter that the meetup was a sausagefest and they were wondering what the two if us girls were doing there. This turned into a solid 30 minutes of conversation about movies, the con, zombies, boobs, and pocket beer with various people rotating in and out of the group. While we stood there, Guillermo del Toro and Morgan Spurlock also walked past.

Chris floated away at some point and I ended up in a great conversation with a friend of his about film festivals. Eventually the time had come for me to get some sleep and I worked my way to the exit. I said goodbye to the Boston siblings and Chris and made my way to the car. I spent the whole drive home feeling stunned by the whole thing. It was an awesome night. And how many people can say that Jeff Bridges save their /Film meetup experience??

Epilogue: I’m writing this on my iPhone in the Hall H line on Thursday morning. Believe it or not, I just looked up and saw That Guy a few feet from me. There might be 150,000 of us here, but we’re still a small community.