Every year San Diego Comic-Con International event just gets bigger and bigger. Veteran “Comic-Conners” had several things to look forward to this year as they do every year. The one obvious thing about this convention is that it’s not just about comics anymore. The toy enthusiasts hovered over Hasbro, Mattel and Square-Enix. The movie buffs were given free passes to sneak previews such as “Shoot ‘Em Up” and “Beowulf”. There was even a special showing of “300” to kick off the DVD release at Qualcomm Stadium on Friday night. The “line-sitters” looked forward to seeing celebs like Jessica Alba, Liv Tyler, The Rock, Matt Groening, Seth McFarlane and the entire cast of Heroes. There is just so much to see in just a span of 5 days that one really needs to prioritize what they want to do most.

Not too long ago, Preview Night was only attended by Professionals, Media and 4-day Pass Holders. This year everyone that had a badge, regardless of the day it was for, attended Preview Night. Since there were no panels on Preview Night, everyone that walked the show floor which looked and felt like being in a can of sardines. This was just a taste of what was to come on Saturday and Sunday when a majority of the attendees that couldn’t take the previous days off show up, and I shuddered at the thought.

A huge crowd gathered around Hasbro for the limited edition Transformers, G.I. Joe and Star Wars figures. It was an absolute mad house over the exclusive Rodimus Prime, Destro and My Little Pony figures. Hasbro did not anticipate the amount of people that would show up at their booth so they were unprepared and risked getting shut down by the convention center fire marshal. Attendees were getting upset and I honestly thought a riot was going to break out. Square-Enix sold out of several figures, collectibles and jewelry from their Final Fantasy and Kingdom Hearts series.

Among the piles of comic and toy booths stood several game booths. Capcom promoted their “HD Street Fighter II Turbo” which will be released in the coming months for XBL and PSN. Cartoon Network announced their MMO “Fusion Fall” which allows you to interact with several Cartoon Network characters in the game (minus Adult Swim). NCSoft showed off a playable demo of their upcoming MMO “Tabula Rasa” which sports a sci-fi space theme. Other featured games at the Con are Iron Man, Penny Arcade, Heroes and Lego Indiana Jones. The games were also reinforced with their own action figures displayed in the surrounding booths. Two of the most prominent were figures from the Halo and Street Fighter series. Several attendees also walked around dressed as their favorite video game characters such as Kratos, Chun-Li, Ryu, Link, Resident Evil R.P.D. and the Metal Gear Solid Soldier with the exclamation point behind his head.

A big chunk of attendees (including myself) took part in panels from Thursday through Saturday because they featured all of the upcoming movies, tv shows and stars. All of the major studios hosted their own panels to promote their high caliber movies. One of the biggest of course was Paramount Picture’s Iron Man starring Robert Downey Jr. as Tony Stark. The second biggest in the panel was the video message given by Steven Spielberg and Harrison Ford on the set of the next Indiana Jones movie due out next spring. They also gave away gift bags filled with t-shirts and posters and even displayed Tony Stark’s car of choice in the movie which was the Audi R8. Columbia/Screen Gems was proud to present exclusive trailers for the last of the Resident Evil Trilogy along with a personal appearance from supermodel and star Milla Jovovich. Other popular panels were for the next seasons of Family Guy, Heroes and Avatar the Last Airbender. Every panel gave a great opportunity for the fans to really interact with these talents which was one of the greatest aspects of attending this convention in the first place.

Organization and security was a little weak at first because no one seemed to know what they were doing. However, after the first few days everything began running quite smoothly. Although I can’t say the same for some of the studio promotions that had taken place during the convention. One in particular that made a very bad impression on me and several others was New Line Cinema’s sneak preview of “Shoot ‘Em Up”. Tickets were given out Wednesday evening to watch the movie Thursday night at 10pm. No where on the ticket did it say you had to exchange that for an actual printed ticket in order to get in. Both the movie theatre management and the studio’s promotional team failed to inform those that had been waiting in line since 7pm that they needed that to get inside. So when it finally came time to go inside, those with the non printed tickets watched as 50 people that were originally in line behind them walk on through. So those with the non printed tickets (including myself) ended up in the first two rows of the theatre. More than half of the theatre was already taken up by press and studio members which left barely 100 seats for everyone else. Some may argue that it should have been common sense to check in with the box office first before falling into line, but apparently last year all of the sneak previews used the non printed ticket to get in which is what many assumed it would be like this year. Either way, I’m sure the promotional team along with the theatre management will be getting quite a bit of flak from the way it was handled. The way I and many others see it, all they had to do was just let us in (since we waited 3 hours for their movie) and allow us to exchange the non printed tickets for the printed tickets on the way in. Not that hard.