Con Stories SDCC 2022 Edition: We’re Back!

Helloooooo San Diego Comic-Con we are officially baaaack! And as with every Comic-Con, we are going to be sharing one memorable story from each day! Each post below, as of writing, will be updated per day of the con. So follow us, dear friends, as we take you through our wondrous adventures through SDCC 2022!

Sunday Activities

Exploring SDCC Artists’ Alley

By @skkaw

After, what I can only say was an EPIC 3 days of Comic-con I was happily exhausted and looking to chill for the last day of this historic con. I decided that, day 4 of SDCC for me was going to be for exploring the SDCC Artists’ Alley. If you’re not familiar, the Artists’ Alley is where SDCC groups all the comic creators and comic artist booths. They also have small press area that sorta similarly groups small publishers and artists.

I thought it would be pretty cool if I got some custom art from some of the artists I wasn’t familiar with at the Artists’ Alley. To mix it up, I thought it would be fun to get the custom art drawn into a comic sketchbook, which is basically a blank sketchbook that already has comic panels built into it. See below, with some sample blank comic panels.

I had so much fun meeting a lot artists from the Artists’ Alley and getting custom art, that I will be making a full dedicated post for this in the coming weeks (soon!). For now I wanted to share my experience meeting three creators/artists from the Artists’ Alley. Two of which contributed to our comic sketchbook, and one big name creator you’ll hear about in a bit.

Pictured above, I met @Joseph_Michael_Art. Just simply epic art style! I was totally drawn to his Castle Grayskull (Masters of the Universe), and was so happy for the sketch he added to our sketchbook. You should totally check out his work, he has this unique and detailed technique which I believe is just mesmerizing.

Next up is @ManuelMartinezart, his art and work pictured below.

You all know how much of a Mando fan I am, if you don’t just check out my Star Wars Celebration post here. So when I saw Manuel’s Man Do & Cub print, I was sold. What looks to me as a Japanese inspired print, evokes an Akira Kurosawa feel that just totally jumped out to me. I can’t say enough about his other work. I really enjoy detailed inking and pen drawings, and as you can see above, Manuel’s ink work (and all his art) is simply impressive. Definitely check out his work!

And that’s just two of the artists I met and who contributed to the sketchbook panel, which we will now call the SKKAW.BLOG Comic Sketchbook from hereon out! Here’s a photo of the completed comic panel from our sketchbook:

I can’t explain how happy I was to get this completed with so many talented artists! This is now going to be a con tradition, maybe not for every con, but certainly I’ll try for every huge con like SDCC. This was totally a great way to cap my SDCC 2022 experience, and made for a very memorable moment for this year. Definitely stay tuned as I will be showcasing each, yes each, artist who contributed to the epic comic panel above, including sharing their work and how you can reach them.

My final con moment was meeting Larry Houston, producer and director for the 90’s X-Men cartoon, X-Men: The Animated Series.

I grew up on this epic cartoon, and even just hearing the intro music takes me immediately back to my childhood. It was so great to meet Larry and hear about his work. Also, Disney recently announced a new series that will continue the X-Men Animated Series. So we’ll be getting some new episodes for the show. It’s exciting to hear as it allows a new generation of kids, like I was when I was young, to experience the cartoon fresh. I know I’ll be looking forward to seeing it as well. Larry also talked about how the intro music, which I mentioned earlier is pretty iconic, went through 15 iterations and he personally chose the portion of the music (this electric guitar tune) that would later be forever associated with the cartoon itself. Just fun times, hearing the back stories to the cartoons that meant so much to me growing up, just makes it all the more meaningful and fun. A total con story moment from SDCC!

And that’s it from me from SDCC 2022! But wait, that’s not all we have in store for you. We will be following-up with some more panel reviews/experiences, artist creator showcases and some other surprises you won’t want to miss! We’re so grateful you’ve been following this far, and we’ll keep doing our best to share more of our epic adventures with you all.

Thanks so much and, stay tuned folks!

Saturday Activities

Panel Surprises, Cosplay Fun, and Exploring the SDCC Show Floor

By @skkaw

Friday was full of fun adventures, and Saturday had its own fair share of epic encounters and experiences as well. Since I got a lot done already on Thursday and Friday I decided Saturday would be the day I explored the Exhibit hall and attended a panel. For the exhibit floor, there were so many things on display!

For instance, being huge Marvel fan I gravitated toward the life-like display of some of the Marvel characters shown above. They were eerily accurate, and impressive. Almost like seeing them in real-life, and in costume! Certainly something you’d expect to see at Comic-con.

There was so much to see! Here’s a slideshow of some of the things on display on the SDCC show floor:

Another favorite was the life-size Thanos display by Iron Studios. It was HUGE! I had to get a Skkawlord photo beside it, pictured below, for perspective. I’m around 5’10 so you can see how tall the Thanos is. I also had a lot of fun with the display. Pictured below is Skkawlord trying to take the Power Stone from Thanos and keep it for himself!

Of course, I had some help getting the Power Stone from Thanos! There were many fun cosplayers around, and this one was one of my favorites. Kid Starlod and Skkawlord, pictured below, team-up to take the Power Stone from the all powerful Thanos. He never saw it coming!

Talking about cosplay, this was the day I focused on meeting some of SDCC’s epic cosplayers. Saturday is usually the peak of cosplay for SDCC, and this year, Comic-con didn’t disappoint! Here are some of the fun moments I had meeting some of the SDCC cosplayers. And of course, Skkawlord was in attendance!

Be sure to check out our SDCC 2022 cosplay post for the full photo gallery of our cosplay encounters. You can check it out here.

After all that fun, I ended up settling in to attend the Marvel Comics: Next Big Thing panel.

On the panel, not described in order, were C.B. Cebulski (Editor in Chief), Nick Lowe (VP & Executive Editor), Marvel editors Darren Shan and Lauren Bisom, a line-up of Marvel leaders including Christopher Cantwell (Iron Man), Ram V (Venom, Carnage), Collin Kelly, Jackson Lanzing and Jonathan Hickman.

They had plenty of announcements during the panel, for a detailed list you can check out Gizmodo’s post here. But two announcements jumped out to me, the first was the continued Dark Web series.

In the Dark Web, we see Chasm (Ben Reilly, clone Peter Parker) team-up with X-Men villain Madelyne Pryor, AKA the GoblIn Queen. The art looked really cool, and I have been a fan of the Ben Riley Spider-Man since they introduced him, but I was a little dissapointed he’s an antagonist now. But that’s comics for ya! Also, look everyone at the panel got a free exclusive Dark Web virgin variant cover comic.

Yes to free, and very exclusive, comics!

The major teaser/reveal at the panel was by Jonathan Hickman. If you’re not familiar, Jonathan Hickman did the 2015 Secret Wars run that may or may not be a heavy inspiration for the recently announced MCU Secret Wars movie. He made a cryptic announcement at the Marvel panel, and wouldn’t say anything more in detail. See below:

He did let slip on thing, that his editor dubbed what they were putting together as possibly “the Sandman” of Marvel. . . That sounds VERY ambitious, and definitely exciting! It sounds like there is a lot to look forward to for Marvel comics in 2023!

Lastly, hot off the heels of the Marvel panel, I was also lucky enough to meet Jonathan Hickman himself and get my Secret Wars (2015) comics signed by him. We had a nice chat. When asked if there was anything he’d like to see from his Secret Wars run in the MCU, this was before the MCU Secret Wars announcement on Saturday, he said he definitely couldn’t talk about it – which meant to me that there is a high chance they will be taking at least some inspiration from his Secret Wars comic run. So, exciting times for Marvel comics and movies indeed. Pictured below is Jonathan Hickman with yours truly.

All and all, my SDCC Saturday was another epic day that went by waaaaay to quickly. It was just awesome. But wait, there’s still Sunday! So keep following to here more from my SDCC 2022 adventures. Let’s go!

Friday Activities

Meeting Jim Lee, Cryptoys, and crashing a Totally UNDEAD After Party

By @skkaw

I had purposefully planned Thursday to me a very comic centric day, but I could not pass up the opportunity to meet one of the most talented and legendary comic artists of this time: Jim Lee. Jim Lee’s work can be seen far and wide, from the X-Men to the Justice League. He’s also currently the Chief Creative Officer of DC Comics. So although I hadn’t originally planned to do a comic signing on Friday, I jumped on the opportunity to meet Jim Lee!

Jim Lee had been on my list of artists to meet for a VERY long time. Pictured about, bottom photo, is one of my X-men comics from my original collection as a kid. It was so great to actually get this comic signed by him, even if there wasn’t much value to it. It was definitely the opportunity to meet, talk and see him holding my original comic. That just made my inner kid-skkaw proud!

The second memorable moment that day was meeting the Cryptoys team at the Mattel booth. Cryptoys is an NFT platform that focuses heavily on the utility of the NFT. It’s a story for another post on how I met the Cryptoys team. For some background, the cryptoys team was at SDCCC since Mattel chose their platform, aimed at digital toy collecting and gaming, for their Masters of the Universe (He-man) toy line. Shown below is me meeting the team, getting an exclusive poster signed. Did I say they also gave our free pins!

And to top off my Friday, if the above wasn’t enough, I had randomly walked into The Walking Dead Panel After Party! This in itself is an entire experience, worthy of a post all on its own. So I’ll just share a couple photos and keep ya’ll posted when I complete my dedicated post to what was one of the most memorable SDCC parties I’d ever been to!

That’s it for me from SDCC Friday! But don’t fret, I still have plenty of memorable moments to share from my SDCC Saturday. Including attending a panel and getting som exclusive swag. Keep following here for me!

Thursday Activities

Epic Comic-Con Signings

By @skkaw

After the epic Thor themed party on Wednesday night, I made some major comic-centered plans for my Thursday at SDCC! Basically, Thursday was comic artist meet and greet day. Firstly, our team was lucky enough to meet Adi Granov, a tremendously talent comic artist, and get his Mandalorian #1 virgin cover variant. I was also lucky enough to get him to sign the comics and the cards.

I was also grateful to snag an exclusive signing with Joshua Williamson and Daniel Sampere. Their signing was super exclusive as you needed to win one of comic-con’s exclusive lottery to get in on the signing! I was so grateful to get my Dark Crisis #1 signed by both. Dark Crisis is an extension of the Infinite Earths plot line and sees DC’s superhero’s dealing with a world without the original Justice League (e.g., Batman, Superman). It’s so good stuff!

And to cap my Thursday, I was also able to meet the cast and crew (again!) of Lumpia with a Vengeance. This time I had my Lumpia # 3 comic (Kickstarter exclusive) signed by Mark Munoz, April Absynth and the rest of the crew there. It was so much fun meeting them all in person, also I had not met Mark before and he’s such a kind person.

Did I mention I was able to attend the Lumpia panel and after party as well? More on that later, as I’ll be making a full post do share that experience. For now, I’m just going to share that seeing so many Filipinos at one panel presenting a Filipino-American film and comic meant so much. See some photos from the panel and after party:

I also got to meet Katrina Dimaranan, pictured above top right, for the first time. Like Mark, she’s just a totally awesome person. Also, April Absynth is totally rad and cool, pictured above bottom photo. What an epic cast!

And that’s it for my Thursday. But stay tuned for my Friday follow-up, I promise it’s a bit of an UNDEAD experience!

Wednesday Activities

Party Like it’s Thor’s Day!

By @skkaw

I wasn’t able to do preview night, but that didn’t stop me from partying like it’s the night before Ragnarok! Rather than bore you with wordy explanations, here’s a visual tour of this totally out-of-this-word SDCC 2022 Kick-off party. You’re ALL Worthy!