San Diego Comic-Con 2025 has come and gone — and the Never Seen It crew is here to break down every chaotic, bizarre, jaw-dropping, and occasionally smelly moment from the show floor. In this postmortem episode, we dive deep into the highs, lows, and head-scratching decisions that defined this year’s convention. From the moment badges were scanned to the final exhausted shuffle out of the convention center, we cover: Our boots-on-the-ground perspective from the panels, parties, and pop-up events. The biggest reveals and surprises (and a few painful letdowns). Exclusive merch drops and the long, long lines that came with them. Cosplay highs and lows — from jaw-dropping craftsmanship to “bless their heart” attempts. Celebrity sightings, awkward encounters, and the art of surviving crowded hallways. How SDCC 2025 stacked up against previous years in terms of scale, hype, and organization. The stuff you won’t see in the official highlight reels. Whether you attended, watched from home, or are just here for the tea, this is the unfiltered, brutally honest, and occasionally ridiculous recap you didn’t know you needed. We’ll laugh, we’ll complain, and we might even get a little sentimental about why SDCC still matters in 2025. Grab your lanyard, your best walking shoes, and maybe a deodorant stick — it’s time to relive the madness.
San Diego Comic-Con 2025 is officially in the history books — and the Never Seen It crew has lived to tell the tale. Four jam-packed days of fandom, spectacle, corporate hype, indie gems, and more than a few unexpected curveballs left us with stories you won’t find in the press releases. This year’s con was a whirlwind of excitement, chaos, and a little bit of sweat (okay… maybe more than a little), and we’re here to break down every chaotic, bizarre, jaw-dropping, and occasionally smelly moment from the show floor.
In this deep-dive postmortem episode, we go far beyond the surface-level coverage. We take you inside the convention center and beyond, from the first badge scan to the final, exhausted shuffle out the doors — dragging swag bags, sore feet, and overloaded brains along the way. We’re covering:
Our boots-on-the-ground perspective from packed panels, buzzing parties, and immersive pop-up experiences that ranged from jaw-dropping to head-scratching.
The biggest reveals and surprise announcements, including the ones that genuinely blew our minds… and the ones that left us wondering, “That’s it?”
Exclusive merch madness — the drops that had fans camping out at ungodly hours, the ridiculous price tags, and the rare treasures worth the wait.
Cosplay highs and lows — from screen-accurate perfection that deserved its own Hall H slot to the endearingly questionable “bless their heart” attempts.
Celebrity encounters, both magical and awkward, plus the art of surviving the human traffic jams of the autograph lines and photo ops.
How SDCC 2025 stacks up to past years, from the overall hype to crowd control, accessibility, and whether the con is still living up to its legendary status.
Behind-the-scenes moments you won’t see in the official highlight reels — the small, strange, and hilarious interactions that make SDCC an experience like no other.
Whether you were in San Diego soaking in the madness, watching the livestreams from your couch, or simply living vicariously through memes and hashtags, this is the unfiltered, brutally honest, and occasionally ridiculous recap you didn’t know you needed. We’ll laugh at the absurdities, gripe about the gripes, and maybe even get a little sentimental about why Comic-Con continues to hold such a special place in the pop culture calendar.
So grab your lanyard, slip into your most comfortable walking shoes, pack a portable charger, and maybe keep a travel-sized deodorant handy — we’re taking you right back into the thick of SDCC 2025. Let’s relive the madness together.
Welcome to the Never Seen It Podcast.
The only podcast called Neveren It That's worth listening to.
Tonight, we are joined by Arnie, the one Man Party, aka.
Arnoldaleo, Mr. Dalaily.
Dares, aka.
Filipino Grigio, aka Alex Calo, the Brothers Calo.
Mr. Donnie Applesee, aka.
Donnie Guzman, the Cousins, Galaleo.
And then, of course, Ghost Nerd 88, aka.
Mr. Justin Holden.
And there's me.
Boots Too Big, a.K. Dream of Torre, here on
a special recording of the Never Seeing Podcast, wherein
we are doing a postmortem on Comic Conon
2025, which was attended by three out of five of us, not so bad.
We promised you full team coverage.
You guys were our
soldiers on the ground in the trenches dealing with all the stenches.
See what I did there?
But yeah.
Oh, there you go.
You got a poster.
You got all kinds of shag.
Wait, what's a fan?
What is that?
Nice.
It's a shagagag.
It's the bag.
That is one of the biggest swag bags I've ever seen, McDonald's.
It's the bag that if you wear it, your back is going to get super sweaty.
Oh, I bet, yeah.
I bet.
Yeah.
Were you on the old Spice Trainer, Arnold?
What brand of deodorant do you use, Arnold?
I'm curious now.
I use degree.
You, it's it's a special one.
It's um It's a white white, um.
Especially formally faded from Arnold.
Yes.
Especially formulated in a lab to match Arnold's pheromal levels.
I always feel like degree is the grown-up version of deodorants.
Like, you know, you're an adult when you buy degree.
Degree
I'm partial to the dumb men's Care Plus deodorant.
I do agree with you, Justin, and I also feel that Old Spice is your high school of the years.
Yeah, yeah.
Man, I feel like Ax is high school.
I think was on the same.
Ax is high school.
Yeah Yeah. yeah, yeah.
Okay, okay.
Exts all the hot ladies.
It depends on which store you
went to, like if your mom went to like Sam'stung or Costco, you can make a good old bulk.
You're right.
Yeah.
However, Old Spce, they, they had a presence at Comic-Con
because they know that it can get really, pretty stinky up in there.
And I remember the first morning, Thursday morning, it was like 9 in the morning.
I was like, wheoo, already, man.
Yeah.
I think within 10 minutes of us walking in, you had mentioned something about the smell.
Remember, I went to a school that had a game design design department, so you can imagine that.
I'm guessing this is similar.
Okay, so talk to me.
Walk me through day one, preview night.
What happened?
Arnold, let me start with you because I feel like you're ready to go, like, really ready to go.
Preview night, talk to me about preview night. night.
Oh, man.
So,
uh we checked into our our hotel.
We picked up Donald at the airport.
We were there nice and early.
Yeah.
We got gas.
It was 629 a gallon.
Are you serious?
Yeah, because I was like, Oh, you.
Because it's right by the airport right by the airport.
Yeah.
And that's where everybody's like, oh, crap, I got to go fill up
my rental. or else I'll charge me.
Wow.
You know what I mean?
Yeah.
Well, butter my biscuit.
Yeah.
That's quite the expensive per gallon price.
Anyway, go on.
Sorry.
629.
Yeah.
Jesus.
We had a four-day pass, which
I don't know, should I say?
We had a four-day pass, including preview night, including preview night.
Yes.
So, uh.
We really should have vetted Arnold's script before the show.
Geez, Ar.
Go ahead.
We got in.
Well, we picked up up our bags and we're like, okay, well, we're here.
Let's wait in line.
And I wish I had my collapsible chair, which I now I bought and
was ready for.
But what I was not ready for was how
hard the collapsible stool is because at
Comic-Con, it's lines everywhere.
And so
And hold on.
You had a little bit of an injury.
Tell us about all that.
Well, yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah, so on July
12th, I only remember it because I had to fill it out on my physicalical therapy paperwork today.
I injured my knee.
I had a little tear in my meniscus,
and I was like, oh, damn, no, it's Comic Con's next week.
So I did everything I could to try and get better,
but then MRI showed that it it was a little tear.
So it was the first time I ever did Comic Con
like within an injury and like with with a cane.
So I was hobling around.
I think it benefited us, though, right?
Because we were able to check it early.
I don't know if that's the reason, but I think it helped.
Yeah, I tried to.
Yeah, I tried to.
You were on the crutches at that moment.
We checked in.
You.
He wasn't just using the decaine.
He had the crutches with him, too.
So he was like..
Oh, yeah, yeah.
I mean, that was.
I was like.
We checked in at like 11, 1130 and like, typical check it's like three.
I've never had that happen before.
So maybe they just like you.
Well, we did run into our cousin Lance.
Well, he was staying with us, but we had to go pick up his
bags before we checked in.
And he works at a hotel in Denowntown in
Margaritaille, and he was saying that they had to
had to inspect 160 rooms. was that what he said that morning.
Oh, that's right.
And so that morning?
Yeah.
So they were trying to get everything done early.
So I would imagine
all the hotels were trying to get all the rooms.
And that way they could get everybody in.
I mean, I feel like the faster people can get checked in, the
people, they're not having their bags waiting around in like luggage rooms.
And so like, you know, that makes a lot of sense.
I have a question.
if you're you have a disability, do you
get special fast, pass type access or does that not matter at all?
So, yeah, you do, but then
usually you have to sign up for it like while ahead of time.
And because mine happened so
like recently and I mean, it was painful, but
the doctor gave me a brace and and that brace, it made the world of a difference.
Like I was I was actually able to walk and hobble around.
But I don't.
Although one day you made the mistake of not using your cane still.
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah, what happened then?
Oh, well, because, so the nature of it, you know, you're going.
You're walking around the convention, and then,
especially if I'm wanting to record content
or take pictures and stuff, you know, you got to have
a hand, free, and then, you
know, you buy stuff or you get stuff for free, so you're holding something.
I didn't want to have my hand,
you know, holding a cake and all the time.
And, you know, you essentially only have one hand
So I decided to leave that and just only use the brace.
I was really hobbling around and I
hobbled around a lot more than I actually thought because Lance and
Clark there were like, yeah, dude, we saw you from the distance here.
Like, you look really bad.
Does it mean badass?
Bad to the bone?
Bad to the meniscus?
Bone?
You know what was the trip for me was in the hotel.
This is the first time I've ever seen it coming from a city full of hotels, right?
But like, there's no buttons in there.
It's like you swipe your card and then it tells you which elevator to go in.
And so if you're not really familiar with the process
you go in there and you could technically end up in a rolling elevator and like go for a ride.
And some people did. happy to come back down.
Some people did, yeah.
Some people did.
And you know We're just thinking ride.
It's crazy.
Yeah.
Very interesting.
I thought it was very...
I have I have two questions for you guys.
First question, would you guys say that Comic-Con is like the Disney World for nerds?
And second question, is, how much crossover is there between Comic-Con
and like furries?
I'm really curious about that.
You say furries?
Furries.
Fries.
Like Lebubboos?
There has to crossover.
I. I think Justin can answer that.
Yeah.
Justin.
Wait.
Yeah.
Well, no, no, no, you were you and I were.
We were the witness of like.
Like, I've been to Comic-Cot with
Alex, and there was like a hotel, I think it was the Hyatt or whatever.
And there was like a furry convention going on at the same time.
Whatever.
I don't think Ferries it wasn't more of a meetup.
It wasn't more of a meetup.
Let's.
Well, it was a meetup.
Yeah, more of a meetup.
But it's like, furries aren't necessarily synonymous with
Comic-Con, but do furries participate?
Yeah, of course, because there's like a lot of like
uh artists that cater to like the furry fandom.
But if it is it a like
furry convention or it's a place that furries can
go, but I wouldn't say that's what Comic-Con is meant for.
I guess I'm curious because I've
heard that it's kind of a big subculture.
Like it's a big subculture from one I've heard and read.
I would say like the cosplay in general is like the big subculture for that, right?
But not like, I would describe people We'll put in thousands
of dollars into their furry costumes
And obviously, there's also like online forums.
There's, you know, these people create
a character with their fur sona...
They definitely got their thing the own thing going on.
And, you know, I would say that some, most furries get a bad rap, though.
I'm not particularly a huge fan of the furry
you know, fan base.
However, they get a bad rap rap because there
are a lot of times that they'll have like conventions
at like hotels and things like that.
And then they just completely fuck that shit up like literally and figuratively.
Yeah, there was a This was a while that there was a furry con,
and it was a complete disaster in a lot of ways.
Most of the time it is.
I would I would say furries are a
subculture of a subculture, you know?
Of a couple subcultures, right?
There's like
a subculture of cosplay.
And when you say subculture, and emphasis on
sub, I think, in some ways, as't subscribed.
I mean, yeah, it's a fetish for some?
Yeah, it is a fetishure.
And it's a fandom and it's a lifest.
I'.
I'm not kinkshaming, by the way.
Do your thing.
As long as you know, what happens between consenting adults is none of my goddamn business.
Speaking of about, Josh, Furry,
I'll be right back in just a second.
I think my fur baby, Bruce, I think he needs to go outside real quick.
Okay, go ahead, Arnold.
We'll talk amongst ourselves.
What was the other half of the fair question?
You're saying..
The other half was, is this is Comic?
on, San Dieo Comic-on specifically
sort of like the Disney World for Nerds?
Disneyland, whatever you want to come.
Go ahead, Don..
Go ahead.
What do you think?
No, I was just going to say, like, I could see how somebody would describe it as that.
I think it's whatever you make of it, right?
It's like for, I mean, it's whatever the experience is for you specifically.
I mean, there's people that go to that
just to profit, right?
For example, as like a, like one type of person that would go through that.
And then there's somebody who's like totally nerd and is there for all the
to learn about all the new and upcoming things that they're all into.
So it's really what you make of the experience.
Yeah, there's scalpers who come there just to buy exclusives, and they know what they're doing and they make a lot of money
going there, right?
They'll go and buy all the exclusives.
They know the ins and outs.
They even can probably have friends who are vendors
who will stand in line for them while they've
been trying to like, like.. push
that away to get like not have that so
predominant.
There still are people who are finding ways to like
game the system, so to speak..
And they've been like, but then there's also like people like
us, you know, like we go, I've been going every year because
for me, it's a sense of community.
Like, I've never never felt
at any time, like, I'm welcome
at San Diego Comic Con, you know?
And I think that's the beauty of it, too, is
that it's because of the of what it represents.
Anybody can find something that they like.
You can find people who are like super into film, right?
They were like, there was like representative of like stuff like David Lynch.
You know?
There's tons of like booths that were selling
David Lynch like related merch, you know?
I picked up
I picked up one of of these.
I got I got a sketch.
By the way, our Inland Empire episode available
now for you to to download and listen to.
Yeah, I got this.
I got this.
I don't know.
You can see that David Lynch.
It's not going to show great because of the filter.
Oh, that's very cool..
Okay.
I liked it.
That's cool.
You'll have to send me a better picture of it.
I'll I'll'll drop it in the edit later.
130,000 people annually attend Comic Con.
That's insane.
There's cities that are not that don't have 100,000 people in them, alone 100 people.
That's just the 10Ds.
That's that doesn't count like a bunch of people that visit the
city just in general that didn't get tickets.
Yeah.
Because there's a lot of people that just hang out outside.
There's a lot of activations outside that you can participate in.
Yeah, locals.
Yeah, this is a huge.
Locals show up in droves
and just do the outside offsite stuff.
Like, that's who's getting all the off-ite ticket..
It's not like the 10&Ds.
I mean, they are a good portion of it.
But I think the locals know like, oh,
we're not going to, but they're the ones who are wing stand in line because there's
like, I think there was one for
Percy Jackson.
I heard the wait for that Percy Jackson offsite was six to eight hours.
Six to eight hours wild.
When I When I passed by.
I passed by like at 4 p.m.
And it was like, oh, this is a three to four hour wait.
I'm like, what?
And then, and then, yeah, some of
them was like a Lilo and Stitch thing, like by the Thunderbolt thing pop up.
And that was like also like a two to three hour wait.
I'm like, and it's all just to like take a picture
There was no shade there.
Man, yeah.
No shade on you either, Arnold.
No shade.
I know.
I got really tan.
I didn't I didn't realize it, but like the 10 minutes here,
15 minutes there, were just walking out in the sun, I came back and people were like
like, whoa, you got dark.
I'm like, I did?
Hey, but what a world of a difference to stay that close to the venue, right?
Like, because last year, when we went, we drove in
every morning and it was kind of like a trek dealing with traffic, trying to, you know, parking, all that stuff.
So it was nice to be able to just.nold to the hotel.
Arnold had to like pee in the middle of the drive when we were waiting in traffic last year.
Last year, yeah.
That was a fun. during those water bottles.
Yeah.
Yeah.
We had to do like a switcheroo in the middle of the, you know,
the meta freeway, but highway.
So So yeah, I think a better analogy would be
like, this is a nerd mecca because I mean, we're talking Yeah, yeah, for sure.
Hundreds of, you know, several hundred thousand people
generates about 160 to 165 million million annually.
That's crazy.
That's a lot of money.
I've heard something that, in comparison to a Super Bowl weekend,
like whatever city Super Bowl lands,
it like matches or beats the amount of money that
a Super Bowl weekend brings to a certain city.
That's crazy.
Well, I mean, that makes sense.
I feel like you could fit more people in a convention center than a football stadium, I would have to say.
One of my favorite things.
Yeah, how much does a...
Oh, go ahead.
I was just going to say, how much does Hall H fit?
Do you want you guys know that set?
6,500?
Like seats?
Yeah, that's 600.
Maybe.
That' big.
And that's the big one, right?
That's the one that's hard to get into.
Yeah, that's just the wind.
I think it's actually 6,500, but they need to try to increase it by like 400 more seats.
One of my favorite things about Comic-Con is the food
But speaking of great segue.
We've got a lot of I was food traditions.
You know, one of them is like we would go to this burger joint called Had's.
I wonder if Kyle Madson's been there since, you know, he's doing
the Guy FD tour.
But dinner you need tonight, Arnold?
Dinner has arrived, guys.
This is my.
This is just for for me.
Forget the snoozmeter.
We're doing the food emter.
We're doing Arnold's
each time we record his food review, whatever meal he's, enjoying that night.
Is that it?
What is that?
Is burgers?
This is..
I got from from Luna Grill., okay.
It looks like.
It looks like a Mediterranean?
Looks like a deconstructed euro.
Yeah.
So we got rice under here.
Pita.
Meat lamb.
Euro meat.
We got some vegetables and stuff.
Tziki.
T. I'm to get some after this, actually.
O sounds like you're right.
That's.
This is all for me.
Good stuff, Arnold.
Just a little.
You're going to have to give us your food rating after, by the end of the show, by the way.
Now you're going to have to you could do like a set of pictures where you're
like skinny and bloated, bloated, bloated, bloated by the end, you know?
That's your rating.
Does that make sense?
Well, for the show, I'll do it.
Oh, yes.
Okay, so so preview and I, getting back to that really quickly, we'll wrap up that really quick.
So what is what if what I saw it looked like it was a big
outdoor thing, preview night?
Or what was it, exactly?
What goes on in preview night is the question.
Well, you wait like when we were waiting
upstairs in the,
they call it the sales pavilion, and then it's
for everybody who who has preview night and then they could not let you in like a little bit early.
Because we had preview night. yeah.
Uh-huh.
And it's just for a short while, it's from 6 to 9
and you know, because of normal hours.
So basically.
You get first dibs.
You get first dibs and everything.
So the history of preview night.
So the history of prenight was this.
San Diego Comic Con used to be
Thursday's only Thursday through Sunday, right?
They didn't have Wednesday preview night before.
But wait, but they did do is they would let early
attendees who like registered for early
come in like two hours earlier than the rest of the crowd, right?
On Thursday.
So they everybody would let everybody in.
I can't remember when they started.
I think it was maybe almost 15 years ago.
I could be wrong.
It could be more than that.
But
I think it was shortly after we started going, they
started adding. on preview night and Preview Night was
this thing where they would add on
this other badge for Wednesday where they have three hours
earlier, three hours of just being up to get in before anybody else.
And it was like half
Originally, it was like half the capacity of
what a regular days were.
So, but now it's, it just feels like, okay,
everybody who has can afford to get it in, you know.
it's it's like a normal day, right?
It's just it's it's just as crazy as any other day.
Can you do day passes or do you have to buy the whole shebang?
No, you can do day passes.
Yeah, you can do.
I understand that.
Well, my experience with preview night in the past
was that.
So I remember me and you know,
Donald, not Applesed, but the other Donald, Don Christina.
We were like..
Sh out, Donald.
Yeah, shut up, Donald.
We were Donald's in this world.
We were so good. not so great.
All the Donalds are great.
We were like, yeah, let's like
try to like sneak in on preview night, sneak in like an hour or two early or whatever.
And we made it onto the floor floor.
Like, it was it was actually pretty cool.
We were walking around just trying to see like what we can get into and what we can
you know, as far as swag goes, if there's, you know, people handing out slag.
And I believe we did get like a couple of
things, but we ended up getting stopped by
security and security's like, oh, can I see your guys's badge?
And we show them the badge and he has escorted us out.
How old were you?
I think I was.
Wait, then was Donald there?
I think I'mmem in this correctly.
No, no, I I think he was there.
I think Christina was there too.
And then we kind of all split off.
We took the elevator from the top and we went down.
I remember that.
And I remember we were just all on the floor
Yeah.
and and then security escorted us out.
They were like, oh, you can't be here right now.
But it was like an hour away or something like that.
Oh, yeah.
We got a really.
It was cool experience.
Because, um That's cool.
You got to see everybody like building their booths still
and others people like giving stuff away.
And
yeah, it was a, it was a an interesting experience.
So you're, you're, you're definitely getting a side of
ComicCon that like some people get to see and some people don't.
A lot of people don't care about pre-view night because it's only like a
couple of hours, but I feel like you get insight
on like what you're going to do the next day, you know, get a so
you can navigate the convention center and be like, okay, I know
what I'm going to do tomorrow morning when this shit opens up
Now I know where to navigate to.
I know what aisle it's down, you know?
Because sometimes I also feel that like
last minute they kind of change
the layout of where certain vendors
are going to be, even though it's like posted ahead of time.
Sometimes they like change that shit up sometimes.
Yeah, 100% agree with with
you, Justin, because like that first night or that peepy night that we went, it was just bananas, right?
But the second night, Thursday evening, like the last couple
hours, I felt like more relaxed.
I knew where everything was, and I was able to actually like make purchases.
But that first day, I was just like
I was, I was like overstimulated I was like, I
didn't know what I was going to do Yeah, I didn't even get anything the first night.
So I had a better shopping experience Thursday to secure some things that I wanted.
And then there's also like a lot of people that
um there's some vendors that give out
exclusives on preview night too.
And then they're sold out the next day.
Like I've experienced that before.
There's I forgot what it was one of the years.
Like I went to preview night and the line was just too long during preview night
And I was
like, oh, okay, I guess I'll get in line for it tomorrow.
And then I go back and it's completely sold out.
The thing I wanted.
I was like, damn.
I was like, how do they make that preview night exclusive only?
That shit's crazy.
Yeah.
Yeah, I remember, like that on
preview night, we were trying to get into the yesterdayterday's line.
And Donald, you, you got you got a time ticket, right?
I had a time ticket and I still didn't get shit.
With the time ticket, it was like a three hour wait.
So it was like, if I decided to get that, it would
basically be like my whole night in one line to get one pin, right?
It's like, was that, is it worth it?
Yeah.
You know, it gets crazy.
Yeah.
That's one of those things.
So we opted out.
Yeah, not to get it.
That's one of those things too, that I think one
of my things, one of my things that I always
say is make a plan, but be willing to throw it out the window.
You know, like We definitely got to be flexible.
Yeah, there were multiple times we had to do that, right?
There was two times that we stood in line for hall H.
Or one time that we literally stood in line for hall H.
It's the second time we walked past it.
And then we're like, no, screw that.
We're not getting into that.
So we just walked away.
And what did we do?
It was like, it was on like Saturday, right?
Like yeah, I forgot forgot what it was for.
But that's a hard decision, right?
Because you committed two hours of your time already.
And you're like, should we wait it out to see if we get in?
Or, you know.
No, I remember.
It was like on Saturday.
And we decided that we were trying to get into Tron Aries
and Predator and Alien whatever.
But then we decided we ended up going to the Scott Pilgrim thing,
which was even better.
It was good.
Yeah.
It was even better.
It worked out for us.
It worked.
You know?
Did you run into Mr. Sarah or Miss Plaza again?
No.
That'd be awesome, though.
Did they go last night?
time?
No, that would be cool.
During the..
Alex ran into Jason Schwartzman.
During the original Scott Sbman movie
But like.
What year was that?
Oh, 2010.
Oof.
Yeah. 15 years ago, guys.
That's crazy.
I feel old.
Yeah, well..
You and me both, my friend.
Such a good movie.
It is a good movie.
I need to watch it. rewatch it.
Even the series is good.
Was it a series or it a cartoon?
Or was it a cartoon?
What was that?
Justin Justin got me on to, but Which one?
It was like on Netflix.
I was like, hey have you seen this?
It's a movie, K-pop Demon Hunter.
Remember?
Is that what you're talking about?
No, we're talking about, no.
The Scott Pilgrim.
Oh, Wasn't there like an animated one?
Yeah, Oh, sorry.
I'm spaced out.
Yeah, there's an animated's an animated series right now, and it's really cool.
Yeah, good too.
Scott Pilgrim takes off.
Yeah, Scott Pilgm.
Okay, That's it.
Yeah, yeah, all right.
That's also a.
I never seen.
I've never seen Scott.
So we need to watch that watch.
We need to watch that.
We got to watch that..
We have to fired.
I heard you watch it a lot of times, It's on the books.
I know you watch it a lot of times, but
I didn't really pay attention to.
I didn't.
It's good.
It's a fast-paced movie, and it's based I guess it's based on a graphic novel.
A graphic novel or a comic?
It's actually kind of technically a manga.
Yeah.
Okay, Breakdown for me.
The difference comic book versus graphic novelvel versus manga.
So I. So
the difference between comics slash graphic novels, American
style versus manga, is just the technical, like,
if it's read from right to left versus left to right.
So, that's.
So when you buy the manga the books, they're always, you don't
do the traditional way of like reading it where
you can turn to the left..
That's why when I go to Barnes & Noble, I'm like, what the hell is this?
It's like, yeah, I get that.
It's like back to.
I know nothing and I know everything at the same time.
Go ahead, I'm like, sorry.
That's basically the technical difference.
I mean, other than like the cultural difference.
Well, hold up. but what's a graphic novel compared to it?
Graphic novel is just like larger format.
Like, there's not...
Like Watchmen.
Yeah.
Yeah, Watchmen, V for Vendetta
you know, even..
Akira was like,
it could also be like targeted to like a different audience.
Like sometimes the graphic novel is like more adult, right?
Like they're like they're more violent?
I don't know.
Hold on.
I've seen some very questionable things in a lot of mangas I've read
I would say the differentiation
between the two is that comic books or
graphic novels are definitely more on the
American side of media while manga is more like Japanese.
Korean, you know, on the Asian side.
It's a more Asian culture thing, but America
has like adopted it and there's some really good stories out there.
And Adrian, if you ever get the chance, I have I have a couple
of recommendations that you might want to check out.
For sure.
Well, I on my I have a big to
to read pile, you know, and I have Peroppolis
and I have mouse because I've heard those are classics.
So I haven't read it on you.
I started Peropolis.
I think that's how you say it.
I'm probably saying it wrong.
But
that was pretty good.
But yeah, I need to, yeah, I'm always in the lookout for the
next good graphic novel. read.
Well, good stuff.
Okay, so let's see.
Oh, yeah.
Because don't don't you also have a podcast?
I do.
Oh, I should mention this.
I've been talking about it.
I have another podcast.
I never.
I do call the Book Brothers podcast, a friend of mine named David Cardozo.
I had to think of his name there for a second.
uh That's sad if he's watching us.
Sorry, David.
But him and David Cardoo and I, uh
we do a book uh review pod.
It's basically like a book club and we just talk about, we read the same book, sometimes
not, and then we just talk about, it's kind of like this, but, you know, um,
uh, yeah, so check us out.
Book Brothers.
We're on YouTube.
We're only on YouTube.
We're only on YouTube.
So check us out on YouTube, Book Brothers podcast.
But yeah, Always on the lookout for the next great read.
Is there a book convention?
I feel like there should be, but I don't know if they've ever heard of one.
A novel convention.
They do have like
publishers there.
Like Penguin, Random House is there.
You know, so traditional, like books that
like, I mean, obviously they bring their more like,
teen oriented, like young adult oriented, even
children's books, you know, there's they' they'll bring those books
and, you know, sell, you know,
people go those, you know, booths just as much as they do.
It.
Did Didn't we go to a booth where we were able to basically get a new book?
Yeah, I was just about to mention that.
It was pretty big.
You and I, like my friend Daniella, she's a fan of the show also
had recommended substance that the substance episode.
She was the one who recommended that to me.
But she was like, she sent me a picture of that booth and said like Alchemist.
And I guess it's an upcoming book in September.
And she was like, if you see this, you have to stop by and check it out.
I need to know
And, I mean, there was online there, but not that crazy.
And so we're like, okay, cool.
Yeah.
You, um, you got a book for your girlfriend and I got a book, I got a book for her.
And it happened to be one that was, um,
uh, it was a pre-release book.
And so when I gave it to her, she was like, that was that was like so cool.
It was like, she's never had a pre-release book before.
And so, it was cool the way they did it, right?
Because like they gave you like a questionnaire and then you
would answer it based off of like what was more fitting to you.
And then at the end, it would pop out like, what novel
you should pick up and then they would give you that book for free.
Oh, that's cool.
Yeah, yeah.
It was pretty cool.
So when I did mine, I got like a. speaking of fans on the show show, a quick shout out.
Healing laughter Power on Instagram.
She's the MVP.
She likes all of our stuff, so just a quick shout out to.
Nice.
So you healing L Power?
Yay on our Instagram.
Thank you, healing.
Shout out to you.
It sounds like Comic Con is kind of a catchall for nerd.
Excuse me.
I feel like it's movies, it's shows, it's obviously comic books
Books as well.
Is Is there a video game presence at all?
Or was that just E3 or?
There is a video game.
Yeah, there's video game presence.
I kind of thought. video game, yeah.
What about like, what about music?
What about, I don't know.
What else is doing out there?
That's pretty much it.
Yeah.
Maybe, man.
I mean, I mean, Justin and I have attended several music
events there during that Comic- Con.
Like A lot of like life changing music events events, to be honest.
In a good way, in a good way.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Like, there's some crazy stuff that happens.
Like, there's some like secret parties that you can try getting into.
Oh.
Yeah, man, it's kind of like a cluster of everything, man.
There's a lot of crossover, right?
A lot of crossover for everything.
Well, this year, Alex, when you were walking?
IGM.
Yeah, I think you were going to reference this Dustin or Donald.
We were walking back to the hotel
and at the IGN party, all American Reject was playing.
Yeah.
Wow.
But like, hey, and they were playing R live at the rooftop.
Yeah, and I was a ticket of it was one of their popular songs.
It was like, oh, dang, I don't know those songs., but whatever.
It was kind of cool.
Yeah.
And then Denz.
Denzel Curry was playing at the free
Crunchy Roll at Festival on Saturday night.
I wish I'd that was one of the things I was would have liked to see me too.
But we like every night we almost tried to do like um
end our nights at the adult swim dance party.
And they always had really great DJs, like, especially this one.
Shout out to Akira, Akira.
He's like one of our favorite DJs every single night
Akira, Akira.
He puts on such a fun show.
Like, and adults Swim does it right.
Like, don't.
It's like no frills, but they have like this lazaser show that was really, just really fun.
Well, I was going to say, speaking of music, I saw you guys went into like a Rick and Morty themed rave show.
That's what we're talking about.
That's the one, don't swim.
Yeah, yeah, that's.
Okay, okay, okay.
Oh, nice, yeah.
I don't know if I can.
My bed's a little messy, but I have
I'll throw my camera over there.
I have a poster on my wall of the
one time they did that Rick and Morty poster.
Oh, yeah.
Didn't you get it signed?
No, I didn't get it signed.
I wish I did.
I got I got, actually, I can't turn around.
I'm show you guys.
I did I got like a couple of the
cast members from Aquatane Hunger Forced to Si stuff.
And also, the show, Adult
Swim Show My Pretty or Your Pretty Face Is Going to Hell
I got the whole cast or the whole main cast to sign that,
which was pretty cool, but I have a few signed memorabilia from Comic-Con.
And that's where you and I first met Ron Astar.
That is where we first met Ron Astar.
Yep..
Who's that?
That sounds like a wrestler or something.
He is the spoiled meat gold
suit wearing guy from Tim and Eric Awesome Show.
Great job.
And then we befriended him.
Yeah.
That is a lot of words, some of which I know.
What's his name?
Ron Allstar?
Ron Allstar, yes.
He's
he's the spoiled meat guy.
And who wants to meet your dad?
He's like.
Spoiled meat.
Yeah, he wants to meet your dad.
Yeah, he's he's He was a wonderful gentleman.
Okay.
Speaking of like music crossover, we forgot to mention, we even met..
I' Peter, what's his name?
Peter Bergman from Managucci.
Oh, yeah.
Scott Pilgrim.
Yeah, yeah.
We met.
We met him after the Scott Pilgm EXP panel.
Super nice guy.
Hope to get him on the show.
We've been talking
crossing our fingers.
But he's he's..
Let's get Neil Hamburger.
I don't know about that.
That's a throwback.
Oh, man.
Is he still alive?
Oh, Neil Hemer reacts, for sure.
But I kind of feel like..
How is he?
I don't know.
He's probably in his like..
So young to be president.
Probably, I don't know.
But He's probably in his 50s now.
Oh, yeah, he's a young chap.
Yeah.
He's..
Shit, Wikipedia is not.
He's 57, so, yeah, he's way too young for Congress.
Way too young.
He's He's young whippersnapper.
Yeah.
Thinking about more of the crossover.
Yeah.
Donald and I and I, we went to the Holy.
Hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on.
I'm sorry.
Let's distinguish because I'm dumb.
Donnie on this show is..
Donnie.
There's a Donald.
Is that a different Donald that you refer to as Donald, or do you refer to Donnie as Donald as well?
They' to me as Donald.
Okay.
I refer to.
I'm going to need some
shortcut way to remember.
We refer to Donald, our cousin, as Donald.
And our brother They have an older brother named Donnie.
Our older brother is Donnie.
Yes.
Yeah.
Okay, and then Donnie of Donnie Apple said.
Okay, okay, okay.
Sorry, sorry.
And then we have Donald Miller.
Donald Miller.
I couldn't remember his name.
Jesus.
He was like, Donald Christina.
Donald.
I can't even get my own family.
Donald Cina.
I would just say Donald Christina because yeah.
Yeah, they come in.
They come as a peck.
Arnold.
Go ahead, Arnold.
Sorry.
Oh.
Well, one of the hall H panels that we did get into, me
and Donald, we attended the, uh,, well,
you attended the the full panel of it.
It was Joe Coy and and Fluffy.
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
They had a panel in H, which Gabriel surprisingly
was pretty easy to get into.
It was on Thursday, right?
Yeah, we just walked in pretty much.
Were they promoting something or were they just there?
That's exactly like, because they I was like, well, what is it?
I didn't even know what the panel was going to be about, but it was them promoting the biggest
comedy show, which is like, they're taking both of their audiences and kind of putting them together.
I see.
Oh, I see.
They're going to perform at Sulffi next year.
Is Joe C the guy that had a movie
Yeah, that I am I thinking of a different Filipino?
No, yeah, did.
That was kind of cringy.
I did not like this.
Yeah, But I do like I'm not.
Yeah, I like the joke.
I only saw the trailer because the trailer kept popping up on TikTok when that one was coming out.
I like the part where the cop, the lady cop is like, oh, I dated your dad.
I could have been your mom or not.
I'm like, that's good.
That's a good joke.
That's a good joke.
One of the cool things about, if you get into these
panels, especially Hall H, you'll see
people with a vest that says like, giveaways or or something like that.
And you're like, oh, yeah, we're going to get a ticket for something that
you redeem later, you pick it up in a another hotel.
Well, I think it was an art hotel, but you know.
It wasn't.
But one of the cool giveaways was
I got a freaking a Joe Coy hoodie.
Oh, awesome.
I got a Joe Coy hoodie.
Oh, it's a size medium.
I's aX.
Because I'm a medium.
Is it a zip-up or a pullover?
Pull over.
I believe it's a pullover.
It's a pull under.
It's a pullover.
Well, for Arnold to pull game strong.
for Arnold, he's going to have to cut it with scissors and then alter it.
He has to cut the nipples out with the scissors.
Because it's a size medium.
It might be a little tight.
A little tight.
Tight, tight Tight for his massive a.
So
good stuff.
Really?
So, okay, you guys were talking about logistics earlier.
How do you structure each day?
Like, do you plan each day out or are you just kind of go with the wind?
Just kind of go with it, man, man.
I mean, I feel like. has something different.
You know what I mean?
Like, for me, I always pick up a panel or two
to go to or say, like I have a goal.
Like, okay, for like the first three days,
like preview night, Thursday and Friday, I was trying really
hard to get into the a peanuts booth because I'm
a huge fan of the Peanuts gang.
I know.
You love peanuts.
You give Snoopy energy
I will say.
I appreciate that.
And I was like.. each time..
I don't know what I mean by that, by the way.
It's fine.
But I tried.
He had had so many items that I wanted to get.
And each day I was turned away because like they would sell out really fast or
the line would get capped and like, okay, you can't
stand here and wait for the line to open it up.
You have to walk around.
So it was, and endless parade of like trying to
walk around that perimeter of like that specific area
to just try to catch the line opening up, right?
And it was so hard and almost just felt like I was I was wasting my time.
So like, I don't want to do this.
So I just kept on just like giving up for the day and
then like, again, like I said, just throw pounds out the window and
and then, you know, you look at it, like the cool thing about the San Diego
Comic Con is that they have an app
and it shows all their panels and, you know, and you
can actually even look at booths on there, too and be like, oh, I want to go check out this booth.
So you can look up the booth of the vendor and then like find know
where exactly where to go or like say you know where panel is.
Okay, cool.
So I would end up like making meeting up with Donald or
like or just go by myself.
Like I think
I would meet up with other friends too. like our
friend Nura, him and I, we ended up meeting up at the end
of like the WWE panel.
They had like a Mattel.
And it's that's always a fun one.
Like you get to see some of the wrestlers from like that you
like or don't like or whatever, you know and just cheer or boob them or whatever.
And it it's just a fun time.
Yeah.
Because you're around other wrestling fans and
they could either be like really like annoying
or really like funny. depending on
the fish you sit next to you.
I had just missed that one.
I remember trying to get into that.
And it was the same day that they announced that, oh Hulk Hogan died.
Oh, yeah.
And then, so I knew that like, oh man, it
might get busy, but and sure enough, when I got there, it was, it was capped.
So that's when I decided to go to the hall H with
for Joe Coy and Fluffy for that.
But then afterwards, I had
I won on the..
Comic-Con does like a raffle for like to
buy toys or these like meet and greets or something.
And I had won a raffle for the WWE meet and greet.
So
even though although I miss missed the panel, I still
got to meet all the wrestlers who were in the panel.
So Kind of jealous that you got to meet Julia.
Yeah.
I mean, I got the fist bump them.
Nice.
That's all that they did.
They said like like a signing on
the rapple, but then when we got there, they're like, they're not doing a signing.
You just take a picture of them.
Like, all right, cool.
This.
Okay.
Well, I have to ask, though, because
just being me.
Have you guys ever seen anybody crash out at Comic Con?
Have you ever seen some drama unfold before your eyes?
And if so, what was it?
Justin, you're really shaking your hands.
I want want to hear it, yeah.
Let's hear it.
What's a crash out you can remember?
You can recall?
I'm not even really entirely sure what the context of it was, but
I remember I was walking the convention
floor by myself, just trying to figure out other stuff to do on my own.
Because I think that day everybody was in Hall H, and I couldn't get in.
So I was like, I'm just going to walk around for like two or three hours.
And
I just, I remember now, mind you, like Comic-Con
is in the middle of the summer.
So, uh, there was like.
Yeah, but you're San Diego.
It's like, what, 80 degrees, 85, maybe?
Okay, hot.
Well, the thing is, it gets hot.
I mean, obviously, Arnold has a tan.
But in Vegas it's a tripleple digits.
But we don't go outside.
We don't go outside.
Yeah, I don't.
How do you think I keep my nice white complexion?
Anyway, I stay indoors.
No, okay.
There is there is something and it makes sense because
there's this person in a costume
and it's obviously like large armor.
I don't know what character they were playing, but they had large armor on.
They had like a sword.
And what I presume was like his girlfriend or something
I think he was like hot and bothered, like he was just
trying to make his way through the crowd.
This is in front of the convention center, the main walkway,
and there's just tons of people walking back and forth through there.
And then this guy, he just straight up turns around.
Again, I don't know the context.
He turns around and just starts fucking screaming in his girlfriend's face
just full on.
And so it was so bad that there was like
event security that had to go over there and kind of like hold
him from hold him back from about to do whatever.
And that kind kind of crash out happens, man.
I don't know the context, but I feel like Do you remember what he said?
He was hot.
He was No, I don't I can't remember.
This was years ago.
He was It was obviously hot
He was obviously annoyed with the crowd
around him and she probably said something or
he just got frustrated with her because of what she said or did it.
Who knows what the hell happened?
But that guy crashed out big time to
the point that like like I said, event security got involved
and then, and then as I'm
like walking away, because I'm like, oh, I don't want to be part of this because there's like
a crowd for me now watching this spectacle.
But this motherfucker just straight up starts like breaking down and crying as I'm walking away.
I'm like, oh, shit I'm like, oh, oh my God, these guys the time of his life.
I've, I've heard lots of different stories of like crash outs and
like, I in particular this
year, uh, for the Tron Aries booth, they had like a light cycle there.
And I guess
on Thursday, I guess on Wednesday and the Thursday,
they were handing out these nights inch nails because Nine
Inch Nails is doing the soundtrack for Tron Aries.
And they're handing out these t-shirts.
And people started finding out by Thursday morning
that you could get a lot of money on eBay for these nine Inch Nails t-shirts.
I guess they were going for like a couple of hundred.
And so the people were trying to get in line and
like people who wanted to get in line just because they wanted to get the because
there's a light cycle there that you there's a photo op, right?
And you get the free t-shirt.
and there was like a fistfight from what I hear.
Like, at the, you know, because like somebody cut in line or..
Over a t-shirt.
Over, Well, obviously it was a scalpper because there was like, Right.
You know, they're wanting to like sell the, you know, well, it might
have been between a scalper and a true fan, right?
That's what usually happens.
Like, the scalper will take advantage, which is what they usually do
And then all of a sudden, the true
fan who's like been waiting there for hours and then the scalper cuts in line or something.
I don't know exactly exactly details, but I guess
there was a fistfight and had to get it broken up.ikes.
And then like years ago, I guess, I mean, it's
been kind of of exaggerated, but you guys have heard
this, Justin Donald Arnold, about the guy getting stabbed in the eye with a pencil
in Hall 8 or something?
Yeah, the Twilight?
Yeah, it was the Twilight A. Jesus.
Yeah..
That's wild.
That is not a valid crash out, by the way.
Yeah,.
It is not about crash out.
Yeah, Here's I pull it up on eBay
This shirt.
I that was eBay.
Sold for $300, wow, That was crazy..
That's insane.
See, while we were at the..
Some people get tipped more on on OnlyFans.
We't just do OnlyFans.
While we were at that swim
event, they were giving away stuff
And one of the things they were giving away was a record, like a an LP, right?
And I grabbed for it and some chick grabbed at the same time.
She goes, oh God.
I remember that.
And then I was like, I have it.
And she's like, I'm not letting go.
And then I was like, well, I'm not letting go.
I'm obviously going to overpower you, right.
And then like, because she was smaller to me.
And then she was like, I'll give you this.
Please let me have it.
She was like canning me some like, I don't know what it was.
It wasn't a Funko, but it was like the same size, right?
And then so I gave her a record.
I was like, fine, I'll take whatever the hell you're giving me.
And they grab it and she goes, what is this?
I go, it's a record.
And she goes, I don't even have a record player.
And I was like, oh my.
She's all, can we change back?
And I was like, yeah, here.
And I was like, you dumbass dude.
And I was like, you don't even know what you were fighting for?
I know.
I wanted to say no, but I wanted the record.
So I was like,
I was like, all right, I'll take it.
I was like, whatever, dude.
I was like, I bet that it was hilarious.
Yeah.
Because I was like, you don't even know what you're fighting for.
So there's the Toxic Avengers and then there's also toxicity at Comicon.ity.
Real toxicity.
Who happened to be dressed up as the Avengers?
And then there's toxicity and then there's intoxicated.
Oh,member that.
Remember that one guy at at the adult Swim?
We're in.
Oh, man. security on music.
You know, the light show, the music.
And then then I noticed this guy who's um who's walking
around the whole thing in a circle.
He had like, like a, what do you call those hat, those bucket hats?
Oh, like like a.
Yeah, a leopard hat. leopard.
And then a leopard.
Wow.
He had a button shirt, but then he had it up just completely open
And you know, it was nighttime and he's wearing yellow, like, shaded sunglasses.
But then we see him like walking around, but he's walking around kind of like fast.
And he and then he kept making circles.
And it's it's probably, I don't know, it's a pretty good size
lawn of grass.
And then we're just like counting how many times I'm like, man, he's on something.
He's on wood for sure.
And then like, he must have, at least from when I started counting,
I counted at least like 15 to 20 times.
Yeah.
And then he would walk around in circles and then he would there
was like a big like circle that people were dancing in the middle
Then he would he would go up in the circle and
then do some weird dance moves or kind of just like lay on the floor.
He would just like then get back up and then
and then walk around again.
And then didn't he like he like posed with the the Rick
and Morty statue that was there.
And then Donald.
You were like, Yeah,
he was posing with the Rick and Morty statue, but the camera was facing me, so
when I looked at him, he was taking a picture of me.
And I was like,
And I was like, dude, what the fuck?
So I went up to him and I engaged and I was like, what are you drinking, man?
And then like, I was like, what do you want to get a drink like yours?
And then he just like handed me his drink and he wanted me to drink his drink.
And I was like, oh, I'm good dude.
Do you want some of mine?
Yeah, yeah.
I was like, I'm good, bro.
He briefied himself.
Yeah.
Well, at the end of
the party, right, he ended up just kind of like falling face to
face flat in the middle of the dance circle, right?
And he You don't how like
like in the 80s, like you'd see like media of like girls like
when we were talking to each other that were teenagers like on the phone like with their feet kicking in the back, you know?
He was he
He had his face.
He was like face planted.
And then he.
But he his feet were like kicked up.
And then this guy guy who was kind of like dressed like a
Raver version of Finn from Adventure Time, he was kind of like making fun of him.
And he was doing like he was like sitting under his hands like over here and he was kicking his feet in the back.
But I guess he didn't realize the guy was just like crashed out.
And then he's like, oh, okay.
Brittney Spears coded.
Very bright.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Fun time.
And that was only on Thursday.
That was on Thursday.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
So, I mean, how do you guys, I
mean, you must have been exhausted day to day to day, or is it, does
it all hit you at the end of it when you get home and your feet are sore and fucking
I mean, the trick is meth.
Oh, just kidding.
Alex and I didn't even go out.
Like, we were all supposed to be meet up one night and we're just like, dude, I'm tired..
We just crashed.
Friday, yeah.
Well, I was just like, I'm not going to go out tonight.
I'm just going to kick it, dude.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And I decided to party.
I went I went to the I went to the club with the cane.
First time I ever I went to the club
legit.
Not for a costume night.
I thought you were okay.
I legit needed it.
That's why I walk with a little...
I walk with a little extra limp, you know?
That's your slag walk.
That's your
And that one thing I love about Comic-Con
is when you go to like the bars and the clubs,
like people would go there in full-on costume.
There was like Wolverine.
There was a, what's that?
Doom?
Oh, Dr. Doom.
Doom Little.
Fantastic Four?
Doctor.
Doom?
Yeah, Doctor.
Doom.
You know Spider-Man, all kinds of people
in full-on costume, and they're like, you know, they're just parting and like..
Why do I don see like only Yeah, lots of
times you'll see, like even just like celebrities or cosp players.
I remember one time we went to
Justin, you like like bought drinks for Jessica Negree.
Yeah, I bought a drinks
for Jessica Nigri and her whole crew famous cosplayer.
Actually, one of one of the famous cosplayers of the time.
I don't know how revalent she is now, but
She probably made that bad.
not much.
But she was she was very popular.
Let's just say that.
But yeah, I bought drinks for them.
I was like, oh shit, it's just going to.
I'm going to go buy drinks.
And then, you know what they did?
Didn't acknowledge us or nothing, didn't say thanks for the drinks.
They just took it and ran.
Yeah.
Yeah.
He out, dude.
Jerk.
Not at Comic-C, but.
At the Ace Hotel.
Although, you know, like who did acknowledge
us and like hang out for like a little bit.
No.
Milana Vrub from the AT&T
commercials broke.
She like, was super cool and she hung out with us.
Wait, wait, wait, wait.
Yeah.
B, was the.
I was there.
Yeah, and then I turned to look at Alex
and she's pretty short.
I turned to look at Alex and then I noticed she's there, but I was at the moment,
I was like in the moment, I was like, why, she looks so fucking familiar, but I couldn't.
And then after That's Guilfoyle's girlfriend on Silicon Valley.
That's Guilfoyle's girlfriend..
It was crazy, but go ahead, Alex.
Sorry to.
No, no, no, no, no..
See, and that's the cool thing about like Comic-Con too.
Justin
we all come away with different experiences, right?
Like, Justin's point of view of what happened in that
night is completely different, although related to what we experienced.
Like, Justin saw all that happening while I was kind of like, I was just talking to her.
It's like, dude, I love your comedy, you're such a great actress.
And like, I took a picture with her.
And then she hung out with us for a little bit
and danced even, like our buddy Adura, who's like a really good dancer.
He's like, like, like he's really into crumpyy.
Like that, that style of Yeah.
Yeah, Crumpy?
Yeah, yeah..
Crumpy.
He's really good.
He's a good dancura.
Shout out at D
man. crumpy.umpy.
I'm It's a very.
What's the style of dance.
South Bay, San
Francisco era area.
Arnold, can you do it?
Do you know this one?
No.
Ar cannot do it.
It's a very.
It takes a lot as a skill.
It Adura's really talented at that.
And it was kind of cool because he had like crumping while like
Milana Vrope was like hanging out with us and it was a good night.
That night was.
It was a good time.
I have another.
He was from battling with somebody from that night too.
Was it?
I'm not a dancer at all.
I just moved to beat, whatever.
I'm just there, moves shuffle inside a side.
I know the Charleston.
You know the Charlest?
Which is kind of funny.
Yeah, I do, actually.
All white people know the Charleston.
That was a guess, by the way.
No, I know, I know how to know how to square dance, swing, dance, in Charleston.
Anyway, strange
Yeah.
Actually.
So that night, like, when all of that was going down, again, we're like, we're drunk.
No.
We're all drinking heavily, lots of drinks and stuff.
And I just remember like, this one,
like, okay, so I just want to put it out there that I am a fan
of, you know, curvier bigger girls.
Okay.
And there was this big girl that was there.
I't have guessed that.
There was this big girl that was there
that I was definitely not attracted to.
Okay, I would just say that just, so I'm not getting canceled here.
I wasn't attracted.
Not one bit.
And I remember that she was trying to dance
up on me at some point in time.
And I was so, I don't know if Adjura was just kind of like in the moment.
Shout out to him because he kind of like saved my life.
I guess, in a way.
But like he comes in, he dances, and then he completely
takes her away from me and I was like, hell yeah, dude..
Whether he he intended to do that or not, I
was like, oh, thank God, I don't have to be a part of this awkward situation.
Anyway, that was another
moment of that night.
Ad Adura is the man.
He's like always the MVP of
every single Comic Con, like he cosplays the con.
He like, he does cool stuff, dude.
Like he like, I wonder he came as the predator.
Like back
that's an intense, that's an intense cosplay to do.
And it was a really good.
His costumes are really legit, too.
It was really good.
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yeah.
Like, he made it when he was the predator, like, he
made it on, like Comic like Comic Con Internation's like top
cosplays of the year.
No way.
And he also made it onto several, like,
there's a lot of people, like photographers and video videographers who will come
in there and it's just make like cosplay music videos where
they'll like, like shoot a lot of video and piece it together and like showcase a lot of cosplay.
He made it onto several of them that year.
And I think he did
made it onto with his Predator
costume and his Trek costume.
Yeah.
He's also very tall.
Wow.
And he's very sorry he is too.
And like all around, yeah, he deserves it.
Yeah.
Yeah, he got onto like a karaoke thing even
like when we were at one of the experiences this time.
Oh, yeah He He sang gorillas.
What's that song?
Oh, yeah, yeah.
Sunshine.
Yeah, Oh, I love that song.
He did a good job.
It was was funny because we ate at that Brazilian place,
Galo Go, and then
the head server.
Oh, yeah, was us.
She was right there in line at Twisted Metal while he
he was doing karaoke. crooning.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yeah.
And then I know she noticed because it
was like looking at him like, wait, you know, look familiar,ar
But he was like, he was all focused on
on his performance And otherwise he would have stole her heart..
I have a question for you guys, because I don't know much about it.
Because I know you guys went to a different Brazilian steakhouse.
What happened to..
Rog Gado.
Oh, man.
What happened to Rogado, man?
Because that was the place place.
For Brazilian.
Last year we were there
the last day before they...
There was a fire.
Yeah, there was a fire.
Like the next.
Well.
We ate there last year.
Yeah, so we had the very next day kind of fire.
Yeah, we usually go there on Thursday for lunch because it's cheaper on the weekdays.
And then the next day, I
think we were coming out of like a panel.
Oh, yeah, Donald, you and I were coming out of that panel that was in
the Hilton Bayfront for like, it was like.
It was like a Simpsons thing.
And we were walking out to the..
Oh, that's right.
The Paul H.
And you could see the in the distance, like, like smoke, right?
And
everybody's saying it's like, oh, it was at the Batman, the penguin experience.
I had caught on fire, but then it was this kind of like misinformation.
But later on, we found out that Rogado had caught fire.
Kind of sad.
Yeah.
You know what sucks?
That building also was housing for some Airbnbs.
Yeah.
And so a lot of people were like displaced like last minute, you know, because they couldn't get into the building.
And so people were like, hey, I need a place to stay.
You know, a lot of that going on too.
Oh, my exclusive.
No.
Yeah, yeah,
No.
That's sad.
I'm sorry.
Those people who we got..
Hey, going back to the celebrity thing that we were talking about, I think it's always cool when
you run into people and you're like, you know, they're actually cool.
You know, they're actually cool when you identify them.
So, we were walking the first day on preview night and we
ran into some YouTube personalities, Mr. Beast's, best friends, Carl Jacobs and Nolan Hanson.
And my son's all about Mr. Beast.
I'm not a big Mr. Beast fan, but he is.
And so I was like, hey, my son's a big fan.
Do you guys, could you guys make a small video just saying hi to my son?
And they were cool about it. you know, like, they were just like, hey, Silas, how you doing, man?
Like, they were just like talking to him into my phone.
So I thought that was really cool.
And then showing Silas, you know, the video, he was just like, oh, man, they said hi to me.
Like, that's really cool.
So like, that, that was it was always, it always cool to do that.
Yeah.
Fortunately, I put up Mr. Beast embargo in this household because it's too much.
It's too much.
Yeah, my crap stuff us and and the other skibbid fine, but Mr. Beast
You do skibity over Mr. Beeast?
He likes to say it, and he likes the dumb music.
Oh, I hate that shit, man.
Like, I should.'s so annoying.
You got to make compromises.
I get it.
I get it.
I get it.
Man.
I wish you were here.
We could do a play date.
You know, kids could talk
Alpha.
I' It'll happen one day.
You know what I mean?
Maybe next Comic.ma, bro.
Maybe next Comic Con, we should all go.
We should make it a point to all go.
And I might bring Silas.
And then you can bring your son.
I don't know.
It'll I could go for a day because his
bandwidth is about two hours.
Hey, I get it.
It would have to be a day trip for me.
I'm already in California.
But yeah, that could be a good idea.
I've never gone.
I think you should go without your son first gauge it.
And then.
Yeah, it is pretty intense.
I was just about to say that.
It is pretty intense.
I already talked to Alex about it, and I was like, if I end up bringing
Silas, I'm probably not going to see you guys.
I'll probably meet you guys to eat, but it's going to be a completely different experience because,
you know, I have to entertain him, first and first from Forbos..
Even though it's sensory overload for everybody, it's, yeah, it's
if you bring a kid there, you can easily, you can lose them.
I mean, there's some people there.
Conwise, though, he's been to tons of cons.
He loves it.
It's almost dangerous for me because he wants everything.
And I'm like, oh, I should't have brought you.
I should have brought you here.
Yeah.
Wow.
Okay, guys.
Well, hey, I mean, that all sounds great.
Are there any other things you guys wanted to touch on?
I feel like we's been a good discussion.
I went by fast.
I kind of feel like
this goes out to like Justin as well.
Like your perspective on, everybody's perspective on
like how this year's. convention compares to previous ones.
Obviously, Arnold might have like a pretty expansive
idea of how different
it was this year versus like previous years.
Justin, I mean, well, you didn't attend this year.
You have previous experience going and you
could you could probably could tell somewhat from video
of how different and even just like what,
even just on paper, you know, you could see that different.
And Donald, like all your your experiences, even including,
like when Donald and Arnold and I went to our
first San Diego Comic-Con altogether.
Was that 99?
That was in 99.
So like So I went in 99 and I went in
2017 and then I went to 200 2014 and 2025.
So mine are kind of spread out.
Yeah.
So you have a perspective definitely and
they're very significant in your memory.
Like for Arl and I are it's kind of a blur
Yeah.
you know?
I mean, I mean, a big thing is definitely the
size-wise and what it's grown into and when it's changed, how it's changed, right?
Over the course of9 to5.
It's definitely like the whole city is involved now.
When we went to 99, there was there was some stuff outside
of the convention, but I wouldn't say like it was like a takeover almost, right
But well, now it feels like the whole city's involved, you know.
What was the vibe I like?
I have to know.
What was the vibe like in 99?
I mean We kind of went into it not knowing
what to expect of, you know, like, right?
Yeah.
That was the first year that I
ever heard of and learned of Ali Baggett.
Who's that?
That's a Playboy model that we read.
It's an important car model.
But Cararma went to playboy eventually, I think.
But like, for me, there was a lot of that.
For me, though, like, I didn't wanting to go to...
So in high school, I wanted to be a comic book writer, right?
And I
and then one of my friends who I worked with..
I didn't know that.
You Alex Lauren.
I'm. unlocked.
And one of my coworkers at VD Depot,
he's like a big comic artist and has gone to Comic-C before.
And he's like, if you want to get into writing, you should go to Comic-Con.
And like, what's Comic-Con?
And so he just kind of like showed, he brought the
back in the day, you had this mail out,
the order form for a bag badge.
You had like select, and then you'd like pay it with a check or whatever.
And I was like, I was nervous this one, I'd never traveled out of town by myself
to do anything, unless I was with friends to go to shows.
But like this is something, it was like kind of a big ordeal because
like you're, you know, get a hotel and like plan this whole thing out, you know?
And I've never really done that in high school.
But fast forward to 99.
Our dad, he used
to be able to get two free, two free nights at every
Hyatt, you know?
And so what he did for us was he booked us two nights at the
Mission Bay Hyatt, which is kind of kind of close to SeaWorld.
And then two nights in the downtown San Diego Hyatt.
And when we moved over there, it was like it
was right when we were about to check out.?
We were looking at the window.
And like when we drove into downtown San Diego, I kind of noticed, I was like, oh,
San Diego Coon.
Oh, cool.
They had all the banners on all the gas lamp lights and it everything.
And I was like, wow, did they already happen?
But like on Sunday, I'm looking out the window, like, we see people cosplayers.
Mostly like Star Wars and like, like stormtrooper series suits.
It's like, wait, it's happening.
And, like, our older brother was there too.
It's like, let's go.
So we go there
and this, these are the days where you can just walk up and buy a pass, right?
It's just like, you can't do that ever.
Yeah.
Like, unless you're buying off a helelper, right?
But like we walk up we walk up to there, buy
our passes and we're just like blown away.
And this is even before the Days of Hall H
right?
Like, they't they hadn't completed it.
I don't even think I went to a panel.
It was more about just hanging out, having fun and kind of just walking around..
I don't recall going to a panel.
Yeah, I remember that was the first time, like, I already known about giantout magazine, but then I realized they were there.
I was like, holy shit.
This is a real thing.
Like they are also are also from nerds and they also had like cool stuff and
yeah.
And then, I don't know.
It was just kind of cool.
Like like you guys were into like the import for model thing, but
then I was like, ooh, Vampirella's here.
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah, Vampirella.
Hell yeah.
Shout out giant robot.
They're always so cool.
Like We've met them up like numerous times.
Alex even like, was he able to interview him this time.
I saw that.
Eric Memuro, shout out to him.
Mark Wong, the founders of General,
they're very, they've always been really cool to me, always hospitable.
Definitely going to get them on the show.
But yeah,
yeah.
Well, I have to say, I would love to have
gone back to time travel to 99.
I feel like they always say like each
decade kind of ends a little bit into the next decade.
Like the 90s, or the 80s kind of ended like in the early 90ss and so on.
It's always kind of shifted, right?
Culturally and stuff.
And you always hear like, you know, like the 90s really ended on 9-11, right?
Because like, that's when like, holy shit, big, huge shift in history, obviously, right?
I couldn't think of it bigger.
But, you know, and this is semi-unrelated, but like, you know, you see kids now sort of like adopting.
It used to be the 80s.
Now it's the 90s is the big thing now.
Now the kids are adtingting 90s culture and stuff.
Justin, you yourself went, I believe, to a 90s museum recently
And I know this is kind of unrelated, but I have to know, like, what was that like?
The 90s are now, you know, museum worthy.
I don't think I went to a 90s museum.
I did post about a 90s museum, but I did Adrian't know.
It's in Colorado.
Oh, yeah., yeah.
Yeah.
Oh, that's..
I was about to ask if you've gone.
It's in your city.
Well, I've heard of it.
And then I saw Justin's clothes, and I assumed that that you went to one in Vegas or something.
I mean I know, I saw that.
I mean, I didn't go to that,
but it's like, I was playing
video games the other day and sometimes I'll just
join random lobbies with people.
And it's whenever I like
reveal my age, like, just the other day,
they're like, well, you're like halfway, you're like halfway in the coffin.
I'm like, what the fuck?
That's fucked up.
what?
I was like, what the fuck?
Yeah, dude.
I don't know.
I do get, however, when I'm
at work by a lot of people, they're all like, oh, wow, you
look like you're in your late 20s.
I'm like, oh, no, I'm going to be 37 pretty soon here.
Next week?
Yeah, next week, yeah, which is crazy.
Alex comes shortly after.
It's It's It's always been kind of like an interesting thing
singing like, oh, like, look at this old technology.
I'm like, for me, it doesn't feel old.
Like, none of this old technology feels old to me.
Like, I still have VHSS in a V VCR.
You know, I still like to dabble with
my Nintendo 64 and Sega and stuff
But yeah, I don't know.
I heard kind of an interesting theory recently where
they were saying like, the reason why people are so nostalgic for
pretty much anything pre- 2000 is because we kind of
stopped having like distinct decades because of
the internet and because of technology and because of capitalism and the way everything kind of just
becomes very homogeneous throughout society, no matter where you are, pretty much.
And it's like, so kids growing up to like me and Donnie's kids, right?
the present example, like their generation, you know, they grew up on the internet.
That's all they know.
And they're going to grow up, they're going to become adults and they're not going tore
going to have their own experiences, but they're not going to have
that same tactile experience that you had in the 90s when
it came to technology and when it came to cultural stuff as well.
So I think there's something there to that.
And so it's so funny, seeing that kids these days thinking
that like Nirvana is like, oh, that's oldies, you know, wearing Well, to.
And they've never even listened.
To bring back around to like, to bring it back around to like
Comic-on. like, that's the beauty of Comic-on as well.
Like, it's a time capsule that comes around every once every year.
And you have... these mile
markers represented
all throughout the convention, right?
You have modern, you know, newer
things, but then you have like people who love older things, right?
Older comics, even Tamagoti.
Like Tomoti, like, for me, like, I love Tamagotchi.
Like, I picked up this, uh
peanuts, Tamagoti.
Right?
Oh, cool.
And it was like, it was like, that
thing never existed, but it was kind of like a blending of,
you know, past technology.
And the people who like, they'll go to it and be like, oh, I remember when the most came out.
And so it's almost like this sharing of,
art history, right?
And like people will have.
There's definitely a lot of nostalgia.
Yeah.
Attached to Kicon.
Right?
Yeah..
Well, it's because Comic-Con, they still like celebrate the
like gold and silver ages
of comic book session and beyond.
You know, I mean, there's still that presence there, and I hope
that presence remains, you know, for that culture
because that's what San Diego is
all about is, you know, celebrating
you know, the stuff that helped make these properties
become popular, you know, these people behind it, you know, uh, even the resellers.
Yeah.
Well, yeah.
Not that you need to, but I wonder how many people go to Comic-Con have never even read a comic.
You know, I know it's not just about that, but, you know, that's kind of.
You'd be surprised.
Like, there's a lot fun.
You'd be surprised.
Yeah, yeah.
I'm pretty sure.
You what?
You've never read a copy book?
I have.
I haven't.
But you know, the free ones, especially the free ones that you get.
And actually, I did buy one.
There we go.
Oh, you did?
buy.
Oh, you did buy one.
You did.
Oh, I't buy one in the.
Hibidadura picked that..
I'm talking about classic rock
That's pretty cool.
That's pretty cool.
Hold on.
One of the What that at?
I didn't see that.
Yeah., that's cool.
It was that Artic.
It was What's that?
What's that sticker on it?
It's 30 damn, dude.
See, again, that's what I'mm saying.
Like, everybody walks away with a different experience.
And that's what's so cool about it.
Like, I missed out on that.
That's really cool.
And then, like, I've experienced stuff that, you know, like,
I mean, you guys got the experience.
Like, Donald and I got got to experience meeting, you know, Pete Peter Berkman, right?
Nobody else got to do it, you know?
Like, to be honest, like, if you think about
it, it's like, that experience is like very almost like one of one, you know what I mean?
Yeah.
I know you've..
But the three of us did each get to get some, some
ice cream which I decided to keep the container.
That's where I can.
That's a very cool thing.
Yeah, yeah.
Within 15 minutes of walking out outside of the convention,
we stopped at three activation points and they were all heading out different types of ice cream.
Oh, just like coincidentally, I was like, oh, ice cream.
Oh, more ice cream.
More ice cream.
I was like cream cream.
We all cream for ice cream.
So I had two different ice creams before I even had to.
I was like, geez.
Well, I had a ice cream. ice cream.
We all screamed for ice cream.
I had an experience with Alex like a few times at Comic-Con.
I mean, I don't know how many times you've met
him, because you're a huge fan of like Kevin Smith and stuff.
But remember that one time, like, we like randomly
just ran into Jason Mews at the day front?
like that was cool, man.
And then like we fuck me?
We got to see Doug Bson
coming out of that hotel that one time.
Eric Andre coming out of the adult swim experience.
Wait, wait.
Who was coming out of our hotel this time?
Who was that?
Oh, in Immortal Kombat show.
Oh, April O'Neill.
April O'Neill?
Oh, The order from Genie?
No, no, no, no, not April O'Neeal.
Oh.
That's crazy.
I don't know. stay at the
Yeah, that one time that, um, we ran into Riley
Reed, like in front of the.
I don't is.
That was crazy.
Uh, Well, no, there's a lot, Dave.
There's a lot of different.
Like, um There was one time I was, we were coming back from
uh, I don't know, a night out drinking
or whatever and we were all like trying to make our way back to the hotel and
everybody was super just plastered, especially Arnold.
I think he was so plastered and he got sick.
No, not Arnold.
And
we all kind of just ended up like
splitting up and we were making our way back to the hotel.
And I was like, man, I'm like really fucking hungry.
And again, I'm crossfed as hell.
And I remember when I was on my way
to Gas Pizza by myself
I ran into, who looked and okay,
he looked like him and he and when I asked him who he was, he confirmed that it was him.
Again, I'm not even too sure.
But I ran into Joss Whedon and he was like drunk as hell too.
and he wanted to go get some pizza as well.
And I was like, oh yeah, I was like, oh yeah, man.
I was like, hey, are you, are you Joss?
And he's like, yeah, dude, I'm just looking for some fucking pizza.
And I'm like, yeah, I'm like, I'm going there right now.
And so we like both went over and took like grab
a slice and that was and that was pretty much it.
Like I talked to him for like, I talked to him for a a
little bit and then and then we went our separate ways and then I went back to the hotel after that.
And then that was when like I thought I was going to be the first one back at the hotel.
I was like, I was like, there's no way because I was so far ahead of you guys, even after getting the pizza
And then I get back to the hotel and then Lance is there.
I was like, how the fuck did you get here before me?
And I looked before you.
And the fucking oohber.
Didn't he also arrive with a bunch of food too?
He had like burgers and stuff.
Yes, yes.
He had food, too.
I was like, how the fuck did he do this?
Yeah.
So I was the second went back to the hotel.
I was busy.
That night, I was busy protecting Arnold from.
We like, I kind of like we were about to get mugged.
Because like, that's right.
Go back that night.
So there's some of the sketchy dudes, right?
They like, I've heard about this kind of
like, like tactic, right?
So it'd be like two people kind of just like one like at the curb
and another guy at the, like standing against the wall, right?
And they would watch the crowd going back and forth.
No, that's not about the street.
No, they were. on the same sidewalk.
But they would be like, when there's like leaning against the wall, when is like
standing up here, like maybe like against the lampp post or whatever.
But they would kind of watch the crowd, right?
and they'd be kind of like, they'd do a little whistle, you know?
And like, I knew they were eyeing us because I was walking Arnold home, right?
Because he was drunk.
And like, I think he they were targeting us
and I was like, like, because like as soon as..
I think you particularly me, because I remember you were like, Arnold,
I was probably maybe 15 feet away at that. or behind you.
Oh, I think I was ahead.
And then you're like, Arnold.
And then I'm like, la- da, what's open to eat right now?
I got the munchies, man.
It's three in the morning
You know?
And then and then I remember you called me over over here
and you didn't really say until like, until we kind of got.
I't think I've ever seen Arnold drunk.
Well, what happened was like, we actually, so
I had to like whistle you over to like get over here.
And I
we walked towards where there was a bigger crowd in front of like
an open building where there was like.. possible security.
And they were following us.
They were literally following me.
Yeah, that's scary.
And I was like, I kept. sold.
Yeah..
Jackpass her like all our money or something..
Yeah.
They were have sold your kidneys on the black market, dude.
Seriously.
I think maybe I shouldn't have worn those short shorts that night.
No.
Not the dy dick.
That's what it was.
That and the tooth top.
Zuchios.
It was also the year that I
hooked everybody up with a ton of weed, too.
I just brought a shit ton of weed
Yeah.
And some of us, not all of us, but some of us got pretty cross-faded.
Are you weed, Justin?
No, I don't believe that.
I'm innocent.
You can't prove it otherwise.
Do you remember you're straight edge, right?
Do you remember the year, like, Like this, like this?
A lot of times, I love it.
People, well, whenever I mention like, oh, yeah, I'm going to Comic- Con.
They always, well, ask, oh, do you cosplay?
And then, like, we never, hardly ever cosplay
just because I've seen how it is, like, especially if you have a really good costume.
Adura would dress as predator or Black Panther Black Panther Black Panther
you get people like, oh, oh, hey, can I get a picture?
And then he puts his mask on and he poses and stuff.
He walks around and he's like, okay, it's getting hot.
He takes his mask off.
And then someone's like, oh, can I get a picture?
You so you have that like all day, you know?
So you got to be prepared to do that with that.
That's But like, one of the years.
That's the one thing about like, like having a cosplay your friend
is like a you're always having to be willing to like be just chilling out on the side and watching.
Yeah.
You and never taking a picture.
Yeah.
Can picture of this?
Yeah, sure.
You got to start charging?
Do you remember the year that our brother, Donnie,
he made shirts for all of us
So the Comic-Con security,
they would use, it was it was Yeah, company company was called.
He made me then.
There were the red elite shirts, but then, so
he made ones that were similar to it, but instead of saying elite,
it said, elite, the L333 T..
And then but then it was like, you know, we dressed up,
we had to have black shorts or red shorts
with the red polo.
And then so what our thing was that we would do is we all wore it.
And then, because back then also, like if there was a celebrity
or something, you would know because you would have security.
They're like, excuse us, excuse us.
Out of the way, out of the way, coming through, coming through.
What?
So then we decided to, we dressed up as that and we would do that to random people.
We're like, excuse us, excuse us, coming through.
And then they would be like, oh, what?
You know, like, who's this?
Okay.
And then you.
And then the actual security
The actual elite security saw that.
And then they're like, that's Gie grade.
And the actual actual captain of like that
team that was there, he was like, I love this.
And he took a picture with us.
It was great.
That's funny.
That's so funny.
One of the funny things is so our cousin Clark, who goes every year
with us, he used to go to
school out there at SDSU.
And so one of the random girls that we decided to pick and do that to
we were like, oh, excuse us, out of the way, out of the way.
And then she looks over at Clark and he had like a fake mustache on.
It was an dangle version
of the Rna 901.
Yeah, she looked at him and she's like, Clark?
We had no idea that that he ran into somebody that
They invited us. went to school.
Because they invited everybody else.
That's funny.
Good story.
Wow.
Okay, guys.
Well, hey, I I think that's a great wrap up
of Comic-Con 2025.
Unless there's any other big stories you guys want to share?
I think we did it, guys.
I think we did it.
Yeah.
And we shared a lot of old stories, but yeah, this year.
Good anecdotes..
I think the main takeaway is this.
Comic-Con, while it has evolved and changed and is continuously evolving.
Like right now they're in this.
Hollywood is in this flux
time where there's, you know, they're
not setting as much money to market. movies. there.
They're still doing a lot of money, sending a lot of money to market TV.
But
it's going back to like we had kind of talked
about in the the pre- Comic-Con podcast, how
it was everything was going in towards independent comics
and DIY and, you know, smaller publishers.
That's the case.
That's what's going on right now.
Like a lot of us
like, the floor was so busy.
Like, everybody was, and there were new brands there,
like new companies were there.
Like, just a lot of new stuff.
Like, a lot of the old guard is kind of like going away or just losing their luster and shine.
Like Funko is like not the T town like he used to be.
It was all about Pop mart.
Pop mart when it came to like Pop mart.
Loo.
They're opening it down another store here in Vegas, actually.
Now that you mentioned that.
But like I said, it
Yeah.
it's all different, but it's still the
same community, that the same sort of thing.
And if you, if you want to go to Comic-Con, I encourage anybody to go.
Like, I think
if you, you're curious about it, if you think you're going to find,
yeah..
There's something for everyone, that's for sure.
Yeah.
It's not just for like nerds or whatever people may think.
Yeah.
No.
That's for everyone.
Nerd.
This is culture is in.
Anything pop culture related, you'll.
It's like.., let's go around and just do socials really quick and then that's it.
Un Unless you really have a final thought.
Arnold, we'll start with you.
Y'all can find me,
Arnie Klego, on all the socials.
posting maybe I've been posting a
little bit about Comic Con Siva, you know,
the things that I ate, the people, just the random sights and sounds.
I mean, there's just nothing like it and I was going to I'll probably put together a video. people you ate?
Yeah.
Just, you know, like every
year after Karmen Connor' like, oh, I miss it.
And so, I can't wait until next year.
He's going to the Hills have eyes activation next year, right?
I want a pass that,
like, if I was rich, if a pass was $50,000 and
I had the money and it was like nothing, but then it gets you into everything,
like whatever you want to the front of the line, I'll do it.
They have something like that for Disneyland.
Now, if they have it for Co
they should have it for Comic-C.
You know what I mean?
They're a non-profit, man.
They're not forprofit.
Okay.
That's a great idea.
You should pitch that to him.
Justin, let's go to you next.
What are your socials?
Where can people find you?
You can find me Ghost Nerd 88.
That's my art page.
Or you can
definitely check me out on my personal page, Shibbs is Zombie.
But yeah, click on the links.
I do Twitch streaming.
My YouTube, I'm going to have like a couple of
new videos coming out on my YouTube pretty soon.
But yeah, I guess like the
final things I got to say about Comic-Con is that, yeah, I haven't
been for the last six years, but I did go for four
years, four or five years, four years years, straight
between, I think, 2014, 2017.
29?
No, I went I went to 2019 as well.
You went from 2014.
I went.
You went to 2014.
It so longer than that.
Yeah.
I went I went.
We'll have a research interns looking.
Whatever.
Yeah, we'll look into it.
But the thing is, is like, I initially went to
Comic-Con because of Alex and
because we were trying to start Palm Springs Comic-Con.
It was a more of a research thing.
And then ever since I went, I was like, man, this is great.
You know, I think the only unfortunate takeaway I have
about Comic-Con is that every time I go, I end up just going completely broke.
And it kind of stresses me out.
And I think that's that's like one of the only things that I feel
like I need to do better moving forward going to Comic-Con is saving that money
and not spending it all in one booth.
And, you know, beinging
mindful of, you know, how to navigate
on a budget at San Diego Comic-Con.
Because when you run out of, when you run out of funds
to kind of do like fun stuff with your friends
it is it is kind of a downer and it does, you
know, take a little bit out of your trip.
But for all the things that have
happened throughout the years of all the years that I have attended, it's, it's been
a blast.
And I've said this on the pre-Cic-Con show, is that..
Well, can I just say really quick?
You should budget better.
That's always a good idea.
As far as the past, sun cost fallacy, right?
And think of it this way.
What's more valuable than things?
Experiences?
Ex, you have those experiences now.
And that's, I mean, you can't really, you can you can't buy that anymore.
You know Those memories are, are, you can't put a price on that.
Yeah, you can't.
And I I've gotten into some
like crazy situations with with Alex and and the rest of.
You have a lot of stories.
I have a lot of stories that I wish we had more time to tell them.
But, you know,
the takeaway from it all is, especially
about like how it's gone.
I remember the first year that I went, I'll keep this short.
I remember the first year I went.
I
I was dumbfounded by it that
an entire city dedicated their entire
weekend to San Diego Comic Con, like being able to experience
like activations where they were like very thorough
and detailed and some of them, not so much, you know, I
had a bless at doing all of them.
And
seeing, because I have dipped in and seen some
of the videos and pictures and stuff that you guys supposeded this year and
it seemed like everything that was like worth
going to was actually just at the convention center.
It seemed it seemed to me that it was very light
on the outdoor activations this year, although there were some
like the Peacock and Twisted metal and the
peanut stuff like that, that all seemed like really cool.
But I remember the first year I went, there was fucking
giant signs, giant experiences for just about any
media that you could possibly be a fan of.
And although I missed that, I feel like a lot
of a lot of the best memories were
when we just went out drinking.
I'm not even going to lie.
A lot of it was like going out drinking, hanging
out with friends, like-minded individuals.
And that's the biggest in the guestla district.
And that's the biggest takeaway for me is that I had the best time
just being around you guys.
It was the best of times.
It was the best of times.
You know what I'm saying?
But yeah, thank you for that, Justin.
That's why it sounds like, yeah, I need to to get my
shit together and try to get out there at some point.
So we'll see.
We'll see.
Maybe next year, all five of us, the Never See a podcast will all be there.
And SIP activation.
What do you say, fellas about?
I'll bring some cardboard, but I'll have a panel.
We'll do a panel.
Yeah.
I'll cook.
And and then we can show a movie
and then everybody can give their Z rating.
I'm not going to lie, man.
You guys, if we're all able to make it out next year
I'm going to be serious.
We should have like the worst looking
activation that people can go into for free.
Dude, and see it'd see like what we could we could pull them off.
We could just probably set up a table, nobody would bother us.
That' table, yeah.
You know what we should do?
We should get one of those refrigerator boxes, the cardboard boxes,
and then have like the instant activation.
But you know what I, you know, We should get one of those big photo booths.
What ones that you blow up?
You know?
Those are really popular.
People would actually walk in there and be like, what is this?
Yeah, yeah.
What's going on?
You know, actually, actually, I kind of think it would be kind of cool is like, if we could find a place that would let us like set up a camera
and like be like, hey, tell us
about the movie that you've never seen that you thought, like a few people keep on.
I think that would be really cool.
Yeah, I know.
Before they leave, they have to subscribe to us on Apple
Podcasts or wherever they get podcasts from.
They have.
They got to give us our.
You know what?
those numbers up.
We walk into a space and we're like, what's that?
They got a free blicky sticker.
There, there you go.
Yeah.
As long as they subscribe to us.
If we literally go up to a place where we're like, hey, we're here to set up the photograph booth.
Do you know where it's at?
They're like, oh, oh, you go anywhere. oh, okay, well, did we just set up?
Like, no one's going to bother us.
Like, it's so much going on.
I don't have the ladder.
I'll have a ladder already.
You know?
You need to show up with the ladder.
Yeah. ladder?
Or a iPad.
We'll have one of those headphones with the mic or the.
Break or break.
Or walkies.
Cool.
Daes.
Well, Donnie, let's go to you next.
Where can people find you?
Yeah, mainly on Instagram, underscore Donnie Apples. is my main.
You can find me my photography on 125 photography,
and then I do a little thing for Hatch and Wagon Alliance.
It's for people who I catch back since station wagons.
So I'm on those threeD you can find me on.
Awesome, awesome.
Alex, where can people find out?
You can find me at Daily Dares on the socials.
And if you go to, especially my Instagram, and if
you go to my bio and Instagram, you can find the link
tree that shows all the stuff I'm involved with, including Collectible Galaxy on Depop.
Well, cool.
I like that.
Hey,
I'm going to put my Jerry Springer head on for a second.
If you guys remember, he used to do a final thoughts, I
wrote a little Diddy, and I just wanted to say to end
Word usage, right?
Yeah, so, you know, every year, Comic Con
at Comic Con, people come together, nerds, normies,
cosplayers, collectors, all united by their love of stories
Whether you're dressed as a Jedi, a spider-verse
variant, or just in line for the Hall H in the fifth hour, you're part of something bigger.
So maybe the real cosplay
was the friends we made along the way.
Take care of yourselves and each other.
Amen..
100%.
Well, there we go, fellas.
That's it.
Another one in the can.
You can follow me at Boots too Big on social medias at Boob on TikTok for reasons we won't get into.
We did it.
But the you can follow me as the podcast
Never seen a podcast.
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We'll take it all.
Big thanks to Mr. Kyle Mason, a burn cycle for our intro music.
By the way, that episode's out now, so check it out.
And by the way, next week,
we have Don't Dke Me During the outro, damn it.
Next week, we' discussing Horizon.
and American Saga Part one with special guest Amber Wyatt again,
which was a great, by the way, great discussion on that movie.
That's all I' say for now.
And yeah.
And by the way, going back to Kyle, follow
him on Instagram selfies, underscore food underscore and underscore pets.
Thank you for listening.
Any, any final, final, final for the love of God, final thoughts from any.
What happens at Comic-Con stays at Comic-Con?
Yes.
Unless you have a podcast.
Unless you.
Yeah, exactly.