I can't say I recommend driving from San Diego to Seattle in one shot. We left at around 9:00 am on Monday and got home around 7:00 am on Tuesday. It's great to be home but I'm still pretty out of it. The things that I can remember about the Comic Con are really cool though.
Thank you to everyone who stopped by our little corner of the Gameskins booth. I am always nervous when people actually meet us. I'll never forget, once we had a friend from Sony Europe come to visit us while he was in Seattle on business. The first thing he said was "you guys are even bigger geeks in real life." I think he's absolutely right. I'm sorry if some of you have gotten the impression through the website that either of us is cool or interesting. I assure you nothing could be further from the truth. It turns out I was worried for nothing though. It was my first Con and so maybe I didn't know what to expect. But it was more like some kind of geek pride parade than a convention. It was someplace that you could feel okay about the fact that you have a bookcase full of Star Wars books because right next to you is some guy who's actually dressed as a Stormtrooper. No matter how big a geek you are you can look around and say "well shit, at least I'm not as bad as that guy." I saw young kids there with their super hero t-shirts and arms full of comics. I just wanted to hug them and say "it'll be okay kid, some day you'll have a high paying job in the technology industry and those fuckers on the football team will be living in trailers and beating their wives."
I also learned that apparently reading PA is some kind of pre-requisite for working in the game industry. We had people from Blizzard, Angel Studios, Blackbox, Lucas Arts, Fox Interactive, THQ and Capcom all stop by. When I found out I was talking to two of the guys responsible for the work of genius that is Soccer Slam I almost fell out of my chair. I guess they are making some kind of super soccer Slam for the Xbox and the PS2. They have added a bunch more teams for this version. It was all I could do not to kiss them. I actually did have to hug one of the Blizzard guys though. I am sure you have all drooled over the box art for Warcraft 3 just like I have. Well when the artist responsible for those images stopped by the booth I got all weak in the knees. He had two posters for us and since Monkey and I are the biggest WC3 fans in the crew he gave them to us. They just happened to be posters for the two races we play. So monkey got his undead poster and I got my Night Elf poster, signed by the artist himself. It was one of the high points of the show for me, and Monkey and I couldn't resist actually hugging the poor man. Another emotional moment came when a friend from Angel Studios came by. Apparently famed Capcom artist Akiman is working with them on a new game called Red Dead Revolver. Well they showed him Penny Arcade and he liked it enough to send me a little note with a sketch. I'd be lying if I said I didn't get a little misty eyed when looking at the picture. Here in my hands was an original drawing by the artist responsible for creating Street Fighter, and it was made out to me personally. The Madman himself translated the note for me. Apparently it reads:
"Hello Gabe san
Thank you for always supporting Capcom's games.
I hope you keep supporting us in the future as well.
Yasuda Akira"
Oh Christ, here come the water works. Don't look at me. I just have something in my eye. Damn Allergies you know.
-Gabe out
