I know what you’re thinking. San Diego Comic Con was so long ago, so long ago that I am currently closer to SDCC 2020 than I am to SDCC 2019, so why am I still talking about it? All I have to say is my same old excuse, I was just so overwhelmed with what was going on and I ended up falling super behind.

I’ve already mentioned how I got a corgi puppy last year so having to take care of him has taken some readjusting with my life. On top of that my day job went through some serious restructuring which made me question my job security so I was looking into back jobs if worst came to worst. My parents also were out the country for 2 months leaving me home alone with the dog. That was a really exhausting time because not only did I have myself and the dog to take care of but also their house. Then there were a couple other art shows popping up that I wanted to attend, art shows which I ended up putting up first before revisiting San Diego Comic Con and LA Comic Con just because I felt those were write-ups I could get to faster.

In case you’ve been living in a cave with your eyes closed and your fingers in your ears the world has pretty much been shut down due to the COVID-19/Coronavirus epidemic that is sweeping the world. Events have been canceled or postponed, businesses have been forced to either have their employees work remotely or close entirely and governments have asked people to quarantine themselves at home and refrain from interacting closely with other people unless it is absolutely necessary so that we can avoid spreading the virus further.

Before the whole Coronavirus disaster hit I had two events coming up: The Spring edition of So Cal Corgi Beach Day and Wondercon Anaheim, but like I said earlier due to the epidemic both of those events have been canceled. I’ve been looking at it as a blessing in disguise because it’s giving me the opportunity to focus on the backlog of content I’ve been sitting on which I’m hoping to get caught up before the end of the month.

Once again sorry for the delay and please enjoy more pictures from San Diego Comic Con 2019.

As I emphasized in my earlier posts on SDCC having multiple day passes really gave me the opportunity to explore what was going on. If it wasn’t for that I wouldn’t have had the urge to really check out all the outdoor activities and I wouldn’t have been able to find the Adult Swim On The Green activation that they had going on behind the convention center. Unfortunately due to the crowdsI wasn’t able to go inside and really check it out because I didn’t feel like standing in line out in the sun but based on what I saw it looked basically like a smaller version of the annual Adult Swim music festival.

As part of the activation they had some inflatable heads decorating the area.

With Rick and Morty being as hot as they are right now it was no surprise that Rick Sanchez’s head was one of the decorations.

A giant inflatable Earl from Squidbillies. Of all the Adult Swim characters I wondered why they choose him and after a while I figured it was a mix of Squidbillies being Adult Siwm’s longest-running series and also because he’s already shaped like a disembodied head.

After checking out the area behind the convention center I decided to continue exploring the surrounding area for other SDCC activations and found some stuff in a parking lot next to Petco Park.

The Discovery Channel had this big animatronic shark set up to promote that year’s upcoming Shark Week event. To top it off they were also throwing stuff into the shark’s mouth to crush and not small stuff either. While I was there I saw them throw a jetski in the shark’s mouth. Unfortunately I couldn’t get a picture of it because I was on the far side of the lot and I didn’t have a telephoto lens and also it happened pretty quick.

This huge RX-78-02 Gundam was also in that lot as part of an exhibition celebrating Gundam’s 40th anniversary. I’m wondering if they staged it this way on purpose because it was the middle of Summer and it was supposed to represent partying on the beach or if this is just how they transport it.

Here’s a statue of RX-0 Unicorn Gundam that was also part of the Gundam exhibit.

On my way back into the convention center I met this corgi service dog dressed as Spider-Man hanging out outside.

While I was back walking around the convention center floor I was captivated by the Toynami booth. I’ve seen Toynami at other conventions but it wasn’t until I noticed them at SDCC that I realized how big they are. This just goes to show you that San Diego Comic Con really brings out the best of its vendors. Toynami apparently has the licenses to produce products based on several well-known animes and cartoons but at a casual glance you wouldn’t know it since their booths are usually 90% devoted to their Acid Rain line. Looking back at my photos I really wish I got more of Toynami’s setup because then I could have given them their own standalone post like I did Bluefin/Bandai and some of the other toy companies I saw. Although honestly I don’t really know enough about their product line to BS a stand alone post about them. I tried looking up their Acid Rain line to see if I could learn the story and mythos behind it but based on my research I don’t think there is a story behind it. They just came up with this futuristic war-theme and just started cranking out stuff based on that idea.

I did some digging and I believe Ashley Wood is one of the designers for the Acid Rain line. Although if you’re familiar with Wood’s work it should be pretty obvious since some of the stuff from Acid Rain looks like it came from his Zombies vs Robots series or Automatic Kafka. For those who aren’t familiar with the name Ashley Wood is a comic book artist and illustrator who is known for his mixed media works which are usually a combination of oil painting and digital art.

Here’s a couple robots that caught my eye. From left to right we have the Laurel Worker, Laurel Rescue, and Laurel Ghost. If you’ve ever seen Ashley Wood’s work, more specifically his Zombies vs. Robots series you can tell that Wood definitely had a hand in designing these.

Here are various soldier figures from Acid Rain World.

These vehicle designs remind me of Halo.

Here are some sand-themed Acid Rain soldiers and sets. I’m wondering if by “sand” they mean desert.

The Field Wildebeast and Flakbike. If you ever needed more proof that Ashley Wood did the designs for Acid Rain it’s right here.

Some more soldier figures and robot playsets.

Here’s something different. Construction-themed figures and robots. Whenever there’s a military toyline or property involving robots the robots are always seen as like artillery vehicles, or exoskeleton extensions of soldiers. You rarely see robots representing support staff like engineers.

Here are some B2Five figures including a few prototypes.

When I was done checking out Toynami’s area I stumbled into Weta Workshop’s booth. Weta Workshop is a New Zealand-based design and effects company who have had their hands in several movies and TV shows including the Lord of the Rings trilogy, Thor: Ragnarok, Furious 7, Chappie, and Ghost in the Shell. On top of doing works for movies they also run a really good collectible shop.

Here’s Egon Spengler, Peter Venkman, and Slimer figures based on how they look in the IDW Ghostbusters comicbook.

Next to the Ghostbuster figures was this Psycho, Tiny Tina/Crunkbunny and Maya from Borderlands 3.

A life-sized statue of their Tiny Tina/Crunkbunny figure. After playing Borderlands 3 and seeing this up close I have to say they really got it down.

Life-sized version of the Pathfinder from Apex Legends. This thing kind of looks like the lovechild between Chappie and GLaDOS from Portal.

Galadriel from Tolkien mythology. Except for seeing the Lord of the Rings movies I’m not all that familiar with Tolkien universe. Since this piece is officially called “Dark Queen Galadriel” I’m assuming it’s supposed to be her from the Hobbit trilogy rather than the Lord of the Rings trilogy. I’m also assuming that she’s evil in the Hobbit trilogy. I should really get around to watching the Hobbit movies and reading the books so I know more about this universe.

Apparently it was the Planet of the Apes‘ 50th anniversary. Although I looked it up and according to what I found the original Planet of the Apes movie came out in 1968 while the novel it was based on, La Planete des singes came out in 1963 it looks like they’re off a little. Although I think this might have just been recycled from last year’s Comic Con. This display is a bit minimalistic but it does have elements of all the incarnations of the franchise. At the top you have busts of Caesar and Maurice from 2011’s Rise of the Planet of the Apes. In the center is a statue of Colonel Attar from Tim Burton’s 2001 Planet of the Apes reboot, and on the bottom you have Dr. Zaius, Zira, and another ape female from the 1968 Planet of the Apes film.

I really regret not getting a close up of the Mount Rushmore of Apes miniature in the center but because this was the only display I saw and I was so eager to explore the con it didn’t occur to me that I should stop and take a closer look.

With Crank Yankers making a return after almost 12 years of being off the air, Comedy Central had this setup where people could listen to old calls or get previews of new calls. I remember when listening to Kevin and Bean on KROQ they exposed Ryan Seacrest’s Ryan’s Roses bit as fake because it is legal to record phone calls unless all parties involved give their consent. For Crank Yankers I assumed that they did what most reality prank shows did and after pranking people they would get permission to use the recordings on TV and just throw out the ones they couldn’t get permission for. Instead I found out that under Nevada law you don’t need permission from all parties involved to record phone calls and that’s how Crank Yankers got away with all the shit they pulled, they just produced it in Nevada. I also learned that this is why Crank Yankers had such a spotty production schedule because it was so hard for them to get comedians and celebrities to come out to Nevada to do work for them because so many of them had other long term commitments elsewhere.

Nickelodeon’s booth was basically the SpongeBob SquarePants booth. I’m not surprised that Nickelodeon made SpongeBob so prominent in their booth considering that it is their longest-running and perhaps most successful series.

I never grew up on SpongeBob because it premiered after my family moved and we stopped paying for cable. I did however grow up on all the original Nickelodeon cartoons that came before it like Rugrats, Rocko’s Modern Life, and Doug. Seeing how those other cartoons had basically zero presence in Nickelodeon’s booth makes me sad because it makes me think that they’re just completely forgotten. I know most of those series are currently available on various streaming platforms but I highly doubt that kids today are watching them and I also highly doubt that adults my age that grew up on them have the attention span to even look for them.

Here’s the merchandise that Nickelodeon had for sale. While they do have merch from their other properties note how it’s still like half SpongeBob-related products.

On top of all the other merchandise Nickelodeon also showed off these upcoming SpongeBob edition Nikes.

This company called Korben FX had a model of the USS Orville for sale for the low low price of $8000 bucks.

I remember reading somewhere that when designing the NSEA Protector, the spaceship from Galaxy Quest, since the film was supposed to be a parody of Star Trek the designers wanted to create an anti-Enterprise and so while the Enterprises and other Federation starships in Star Trek have circular hulls with straight engines the Protector would have a straight hull and circular engines. It never occurred to me that Seth MacFarlane and his designers on Orville would take the same approach designing the Orville.

Clip Studio Paint, an alternative to Adobe’s family of graphic design software was on site doing demos. I saw a girl working on this screen and was shocked because I thought she was just a con-goer and did it because she was bored. It turned out that she was one of CSP’s reps and was actually working on it all weekend.

Wandering around I found Cinema Makeup School creating this airbrushed Hellboy.

I’m going to close this out with this inflatable Steven Universe display that Cartoon Network had on top of their booth. The Cartoon Network booth was basically just a stage where they had people come up and sing Karaoke. Like the Nickelodeon booth I was a bit sad that out of all the stuff Cartoon Network has put out over the years they would only make one of their properties so prominent. Although I guess they chose to do it because the Steven Universe movie was scheduled to premiere that September and they just really wanted to push that.

This is a good place to stop. I still got one more post about San Diego Comic Con to put up as well 1 maybe 2 more cosplayer posts from SDCC to throw up as well so stayed for that.