I started the day right early, early, so that I could be sure to get into town and score a parking spot with relative ease. Thus it was that I, for the first time in my life, entered the San Diego Convention Center at 7:30am.
I headed straight for the fabled Sails Pavilion to queue up for a wristband to allow me to purchase the Graphitti/DCC 3¾" Green Lantern 2-pack. Well, I could tell things would be rough when I noted that next to the nearly empty Graphitti line was a massively jam-packed line for tickets to enter Hasbro's store. In fact, it turned out that Hasbro's line when outside, wrapped around in two batches, went downstairs, and almost off of the Convention Hall's property... Well, at least I scored a Graphitti wristband on my first ticket pull (yep, just like the Rainbow Hals we had to wait in line for a chance to have a chance to buy the toys... great).
I realized that I simply had no hope with Hasbro so decided to get into the "enter the hall" line and wait my hour to be one of the first ones on the floor. As a result I was afforded a site most rare these days - as close to an empty Exhibitor Hall as any non-exhibitor can hope to see!
I had decided that my main objective for the day was to get the "Shadow Leo" TMNT figure from Nickelodeon so it was a B-Line to that booth and a truly horrible purchasing experience. It took me an hour to move 20 feet because A) their credit card machine was down and 2) they were running out of change. That was really a problem because they were charging tax! Aaaaargh! The biggest Comic-Con pain in the ass is tax. Just round up and make it easy! Plus, what, did you not expect to do commerce today? You just didn't think you'd need change enough to get you through more than an hour of the show!? Whatever, I got to the front and that it when they tell you it's a 1-per-person limit on Leo and that he costs $30 (plus tax), not the previously announced $20. Great and thanks, Nick.
It's almost 1 a.m. now so the rest of the day is a blur...
NECA unveiled their final "covered" prototype to reveal... Gollum!?!? WELL. It turns out they have the Quarter Scale rights to The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings, so expect more 18" scale figures from Middle-Earth!!! Gollum and Smeagol are first up (he looks about 10"-12" to me) for this fall and then more to follow next year. Sadly his legs are sculpted squat but he looks to have plenty of great articulation elsewhere and is sculpted to perfection! The idea of 12" Hobbits and Dwarves to fit in this scale is pretty exciting too!
I also went to three panels:
DC Collectibles
Independent Toymakers Roundtable: Turning Characters into Toys
and a screening of and panel for Comic-Con Episode IV: A Fan's Hope
Click the links to read more about those. The CCE4 screening was late and I'm exhausted so I'll post that tomorrow, sorry folks.
Beyond that, just a fair share of shopping. More as it develops, kids!
Regarding NECA I forgot to mention:
-Predator 25th (Dutch and SP Jungle Pred) should be out this year
-Aliens will be out next year
-They are planning the Predator 2 trophy wall/room for next year and it will ONLY include the one, gigantic skull - you'll need to have collected the skulls from the rest of the sets over the years (including this years SDCC exclusive)
Why am I not surprised that Nickelodeon/Playmates didn't think their SDCC exclusive through? And clocking in at almost $30 is a shock. I'm still debating on whether or not I want to get one off eBay, since no one seems to have them for pre-order.