We hadn’t intended on getting the convention center too early in the morning. We didn’t have any panels until noon, so we were trying to pick up our badges the night before. Unfortunately, that didn’t work out too well for us. There was the huge traffic line just to get to the area badges were being distributed… and our vehicle was almost out of gas. So, that meant us waking up early and making a beeline to the convention center to wait in line to pick up our badges at 6 in the morning.

I must say, it might be the sleep that I actually managed to get, because the wait didn’t bother me as much this year. We were a bit further back in line… but I think I had more fun this time around. It also seemed like the badges were given out earlier than last year.

Thankfully, the line, when registration was finally open, was very quick. I think we maybe stopped moving for a whole five minutes before the line started up again. I still marvel at the efficiency of the Comic Con registration line. Especially after being stuck in Lineagedeon at Fanime this year.

Once we finally had our badges, we made our way to brunch. We weren’t concerned about our panels Thursday morning as we didn’t have anything until noon. We made the trek (albeit, a brief one) to a restaurant called The Mission. It was highly recommended by people who are gluten-intolerant/Celiac and people who love gluten alike.

They have a pretty decent sized gluten-free menu. It wasn’t just an item or two, there was quite a bit available if you can’t eat gluten. The food was good, and more importantly healthy. It’s hard to eat healthy when you’re at a con and most of the stuff on-hand is highly processed and… frankly, not that good.

We got to relax and enjoy a flavorful breakfast. That was something that was missing from last year. We also had the time to pick up some toiletries that we needed as there were some things that we had forgotten to pack.

After all of that, we headed back to the convention center.

I still had about an hour before my first panel, so we sat in on the panel that was before. The panel was titled “Witty Women of Steampunk”.

Now, I’m not going to lie, I’ve been burned out on Steampunk since before it became a big thing. It’s an interesting aesthetic, but it’s not really my cup of tea. A more scientifically advanced Victorian era is quite interesting, but I think I like to think more about Dieselpunk or something like that.

The panel itself was actually quite interesting. It was put on by women who are creators of Steampunk art, comics, video games and books. The women were funny and it was interesting to see some of the Steampunk things out there. One that appealed to me as a comic called “High Society”. It’s a Filipino speculative comic. They also talked about Steampunk erotica. Given that the Victorian era did give us the vibrator, it’s not a huge stretch have Steampunk fiction include erotica.

After that panel was the panel I was interested in. I went to the Pitching Hour last year to try to get some interesting information about how to forward a career in the film/television/comic industry. It didn’t let me down this year. This year also was rife with information that they didn’t mention the previous year. There was more information on video game pitching and what is needed to pitch a video game to a game company.

There was more discussion of what actually works for protecting your copyright and your intellectual

property, especially in this era of everything being so attainable online. This year a greater importance was placed on networking. After all, it’s the best way us creative folks have to meeting each other.