Category: SDCC

June 18 / Jon / Comics

The Complete Guide to Haggling at a Comic Con

Haggling is like a game of Texas Hold’em. It’s less about the cards and more about out-playing the player.

In my world, I use these skills to get the best deals on vintage comic books and collectibles at comic conventions, garage sales, etc. But it’s important not to overstep your boundaries and to err on the side of being a polite and respectful person. Remember, sellers have the right to sell any merchandise as they please. Even if their prices are insultingly high. I’m by no means perfect but I’ve experienced both getting great bargains and overpaying that I can probably help others with the Dos and Don’ts.

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July 27 / Jon / Comics

Tips on Finding Treasure in Dollar Bins at a Comic Con

One of the biggest rushes of going through dollar bins is finding those hidden gems. That Defenders #10 or that Moon Knight #1 for $1 are fantastic finds. Some times these books are mis-categorized or overlooked, or the dealer is simply unaware. There are 2 reasons to look through dollar bins – the first is to fill in any missing issues in your collections, a worthy and noble cause, and the second is to find comic books which don’t belong there. We’ll be talking about the latter.

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July 15 / Gene / Cons

Our Favorite Moments from Comic-Con 2015

San Diego Comic-Con 2015 just wrapped up, and we’re still trying to decompress and soak in all that we experienced. This was personally my favorite SDCC I’ve been through, for many reasons. I’ve chatted with other Shortboxed editors who went and these are some of our favorite moments from 2015 and we’re excited to give you a tiny glimpse of our con experience.

Princess Leia, Luke Skywalker and Han Solo reunion. During the second half of the Star Wars panel, JJ Abrams brought out the Holy Trinity of the original Star Wars cast – Carrie Fisher, Mark Hamill and Harrison Ford. When Ford came out, all of Hall H went into a frenzy and gave him a standing welcome. We were among the first on our feet!

Photo courtesy of ilpost.it

Lauren Cohan texting the cast of The Walking Dead. During The Walking Dead panel, one person was missing from the table – Lauren Cohan, who plays Maggie. She was with her family at the time and couldn’t make it to Comic-Con, unfortunately. She texted the cast and asked Steven Yeun, who plays her lover Glen, to read it aloud. She apologized to Hall H for not being there with us – it was very personal and a nice way to thank the fans and give us something special. She ended the text by asking Steven to, “say something funny.”

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June 30 / Jeremy Dizon / Cons

SDCC Guide: A Veteran’s Perspective

As a new editor to Shortboxed, I always knew that San Diego Comic-Con would be a big topic for us to write about, thus the SDCC Guides were born. But even though it is an exciting topic to write about in hopes our fearless readers would find value in them, this year’s SDCC is special because I’ll be returning to San Diego after not attending last year. And my return will be the inaugural visit of my 16-month year old son, Aiden Marcus. This won’t be his first comic book convention, but definitely his first time in San Diego and the awesomeness that is SDCC.

I’ve enjoyed attending the show in past years and hope that what I learned from those visits is applied to my future trips. The guides that I’ve posted are learnings from my SDCC trips so there were some heartache and stressful trips. But that’s the nature of the game and if there’s some tips and tricks to be taken out of my ramblings, then by all means, apply them to your own SDCC experience.

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June 25 / Gene / Cons

How to Camp Out in Hall H Line for SDCC

In Norse mythology (or simply just Thor continuity in many of our readers’ cases), Valhalla is where Asgardian warriors go to in the afterlife when they have died honorably in combat – it is their reward for a life well-lived. Hall H is Valhalla for San Diego Comic-Con geeks.

We battle all night, fighting off hoards of line cutters, the growl of hunger pains, the shiver of the pre-dawn sky and the sister of death herself, sleep. For those that survive the long, grueling night, they are gifted with entering the majestic Hall H.

Many have heard horror stories about camping out for Hall H – all the questions and confusion about when and where to line up, what time you can enter, who’s allowed in and out, something about wrist bands and an unofficial line, and so on. Once you do figure out when and where the line starts (we don’t even know ourselves, and we likely won’t find out until the actual con itself), the next important thing to do is figure out how to make your overnight campout pleasant enough so it doesn’t feel like you’re sieging a castle for six months.

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June 15 / Gene / Cons

How to Avoid “Con Crud”

There’s no way around it – human beings are filthy, germ-spreading animals. We use our hands to touch everything, we sneeze and cough in public, and some of us simply have bad hygiene habits. All of this gets cranked up at comic book conventions like SDCC. Imagine 130,000 germ factories all squeezed into one place, side-by-side, for four and a half days and you’ll begin to see the importance of taking preventive measures.

At a mega-con like San Diego Comic-Con, everyone is too busy and too stressed to think about personal hygiene and proper manners, so it’s up to you as an attendee to make sure you don’t catch or spread any germs, otherwise known as “con crud.” It happens to the best of us, no matter how extreme your measures are, because there’s nothing you can really do if the person sitting next to you in Hall H sneezes on your face and you have to spend the next 8 hours pressed up next to them.

One of these Hall H attendees could be Patient Zero.

Thankfully, over the years I’ve learned some best practices to at least lower the chances of catching con crud. I personally follow each of these rules myself, so they’ve been through many real-world tests:

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