Ypulse Guest Post: A Day At Comic-Con With Teens In Tow

Last week as I was watching G4's Comic-Con coverage and reading about the panels on EW's PopWatch, I put the call out to any Ypulse readers who might be attending to see if they wanted to write a Ypulse Guest Post. YA author Marlene Perez (Dead is the New Black) responded and sent over this dispatch from Friday's festivities along with a link to her photos on Flickr. If you work in youth media or marketing and want to write a Ypulse Guest Post, just email me with an idea.

A Day At Comic-Con With Teens In Tow

The 2008 Comic-Con is the fourth Con I've attended, and every year, it gets bigger and bigger.

I drove to San Diego with my son, my daughter, and her friend (Marlene's daughter and her friend are featured in the photo, along with the "Killer Tomato"). We left early, but evidently, not early enough. We were still on the 5 Freeway when the local radio station 91X announced that traffic was already bumper-to-bumper near the convention center.

Parking, as usual, was scarce, but we finally found a spot near PETCO Park.

Outside the convention center, NBC was getting ready to unveil the new "Knight Rider car. It was still under wraps when we arrived, but I nabbed a "Kitt Happens" bumper sticker.

Once inside the convention center, we headed to the freebies table, where we loaded our bags with giveaways, including a slightly ominous postcard, which simply read "You are being deceived" and offered this link.

On to the exhibit hall, where we were overwhelmed by the sheer magnitude of choices.

The lone male teen in the group wanted to head to the G4 and Mattel booths, check out the new James Bond car for the "Quantum of Solace" movie, and of course, wander around the gaming section, particularly the Xbox booth. He also had to make his annual pilgrimage to Stan Sakai's booth to worship at the feet of the creator of Usagi Yojimbo.

The girls wanted to head to the Sci-Fi Channel's booth, VIZ, NBC, the Cute Oddity booth to check out their new clothing line, and Artists' Alley.

We stopped by ABC Family, where they were handing out temporary tattoos for their new "Samurai Girl" show. "Samurai Girl" is based upon a series of young adult novels.

Despite the crowds, getting bumped with those huge bags of swag everyone was carrying, and sore feet, everyone we encountered was friendly and polite.

Vampires seemed to be a major theme at the conference. We saw an ad for the new TruBlood HBO series, which is based on Charlaine Harris' SOUTHERN VAMPIRE mysteries, but what I really wanted was one of the TruBlood tee shirts I saw someone wearing. "Lost Boys, The Tribe" also debuted, and of course, there was a big panel and sneak peek of a full scene from "Twilight," the movie, which was based on the vampire teen novels by Stephenie Meyers.

We tried to get in line for the "Twilight" movie poster giveaway, but they cut off the line just as we arrived, and told us to come back later. When we went back, the line was around the corner. We eventually gave up.

Zombies were popular this year, too. There were several zombies roaming the hall and we also discovered Z.O.M.B.I.E. art at the October Toys booth.

We stopped by the NBC booth to look for swag from our favorite television shows: "The Office" and "Heroes." We received "Pinehearst Company" pamphlets from the Heroes folks. Very intriguing.

In the meeting hall, we saw the actors who voice the Powerpuff Girls doing an interview. It turns out it's "Powerpuff Girls" 10th anniversary.

We missed Joss Whedon's panel on his new short film Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog, which is already available on iTunes.

The lines for the panels are always long, but we managed to get into the "Family Guy" panel. Seth MacFarlane and Seth Green and the producers gave us a sneak peak of the new season and talked about the new spinoff "The Cleveland Show." The two Seths had the crowd roaring with laughter.

Next up was another FOX show, "Bones." Emily Deschanel was a no-show, but David Boreanaz, Michaela Conlin, Tamara Taylor and John Francis Daley kept us entertained. My daughter and her friend commented about how hot David Boreanaz was. I reminded them that he was my age. "Still hot," was the reply. I had to agree.

Despite our best attempts, we left late in the evening without seeing everything there was to see. But there's always next year…

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