Swag Bag: What I Brought Home From Comic-Con 2011

Thanks to having a grand total of four hours to explore over 5000 booths, I purchased nowhere near as much at Comic-Con as I did at its little sister, Wondercon, but thankfully, included in my small bounty was almost every item I coveted going in, and once you include the incredible freebies available this year, a whole lot more. Here’s the rundown of the best items I walked away with at Comic-Con 2011.

Purchased
 
Britney Lee Print
Ever since purchasing a large Britney Lee print at Wondercon a few months ago, I’ve been thinking about a wonderful smaller print I passed up that also, of course, featured a girl and a cat. So the second I had a free moment on Sunday, I sought out Britney’s booth and snatched up this adorable print.

Dollhouse Epitaphs #1 Comic-Con Exclusive Edition
Created by Jed Whedon, Andrew Chambliss, & Maurissa Tancharoen and taking place in the post Dollhouse world we got glimpses of at the end of Seasons 1 and 2, this comic was high on my list to pick up. Especially because one out of every five was signed by the creators. Unfortunately, I didn’t get one of those, but I’m excited to read it nonetheless.

Harley Quinn Mimobot
The moment the doors opened Wednesday evening for Preview Night, I made a mad dash to the Mimobot booth and was the first person to pick up one of eight hundred Comic-Con Exclusive Arkham City Harley Quinn Mimibots – 16g. Greatest purchase anyone has ever made ever.
 

Team Charles/Erik Shirts
And immediately after, I found myself 10th in line to be one of the first 1000 people to pre-order the Blu-Ray of X-Men First Class, which meant also picking either a Team Erik or Team Charles shirt. I pre-ordered two, one for me, one for my family, so I picked both. WIN.

Ron Lego Keychain
Every year, I treat myself to one Lego character keychain. Over the years I’ve amassed quite the collection, including Hermione, Hagrid, Snape, Luke Skywalker, Catwoman, Harley Quinn and Indiana Jones. This year, I added Ron Weasley to the collection.

Captain America Minimates
I LOVED Captain America and have been building up quite the minimates collection to go with my Lego collection, hence – the entire cast of Captain America in minimate form for me to stick on my geek shelf and never look at again.

Earl Grey Shirt Genius. Gift for my dad.

Walking Dead Board Game
My Comic-Con Everest. Every day I went to the Image booth, only to discover that the new comic based board game (described as a cross between D&D and Stratego) had sold out in under 20 minutes. One morning I carefully planned my time to be in the room the moment it opened, only to discover it opened a half hour earlier than I thought it did. Saturday afternoon, 10 minutes before the hall closed, I found myself once again wandering by the Image booth. Freaked out that I had truly missed my chance to own the Comic-Con Exclusive Edition of the game, months before the regular version came out, I decided to go up and make sure they still had copies for Sunday morning. But because the dude working had seen my flustered daily attempts consistently fail miserably, he took pity on me and made an exception, grabbing a game from the Sunday pile for me. It was a bit of Comic-Con magic that I won’t soon forget. More info on the game here.

Giveaways

Signed Captain America poster
Thanks to an awesome dude at the Marvel booth, I got my hands on a Captain America poster signed by Chris Evans.

Hunger Games Pin & Poster At the HitFix party Wednesday night, multiple bloggers were sporting Mockingjay pins. Upon seeing it for the first time, I think I actually screamed a little. So the next morning, my first stop before beginning my work day was the Lionsgate booth on the floor. The pins weren’t being handed out yet, but once again, an awesome dude helping at the booth threw us a bone and snuck us some. Another case of a kind soul coming through for a complete stranger at Comic-Con this year. Love it!

Admiral Ackbar Fan
Of all the giveaways one could have made for the Star Wars Blu-Ray release, this is either poorly thought out or incredibly thought out, depending on whether or not the marketing department is aware of the It’s A Trap meme. In any event, I know some hipster geeks who would die to get their hands on one of these.

Captain America Shield Fan
Given out at the Hasbro booth, I believe,  it’s a paper fan in the form of Captain America‘s shield. I want anything and everything Captain America. So I was a happy girl to pick this up.

Buffy Paper Doll
Secretly contained in a comic preview at Dark Horse was a Buffy (comic version, natch) paper doll!! A great giveaway I didn’t even know I had!

True Blood Bag
Continuing the tradition of True Blood having the best panel giveaways at the convention, this year the stash included book #4 in the Sookie Stackhouse series, a notebook with one of the three Season 4 True Blood posters gracing its cover, a coupon for 20% off at the HBO store, and one of True Blood‘s famously clever shirts, this one with a set of fangs and the phrase “Grow a Pair” on the front.

Game of Thrones Bag
And it looks like these bags of awesome are in fact an HBO staple! Oh man, I can never miss either of these panels ever. The first ever Game of Thrones Bag contained the first book in the series, a random house shirt, a Westeros mousepad/screen cleaner and another coupon for HBO. Disappointingly while I did nab myself a Stark shirt, everyone else I know got stuck with a Baratheon. Not even a Lannister? Really? The one I wanted most was Targaryn. Oh well. Stark is still badass. And this giveaway still ruled.

Legend of Korra Shirt & Poster
At one point during the Legend of Korra panel, the creators mentioned a poster and t shirt that some people in the audience had. People that weren’t me or my boyfriend. I was not okay with this. Determined to figure out how to get my hands on these items, I ran to the Nick booth as soon as I could on Sunday. Much to my surprise, the fella said to come back around 4pm for the final Legend of Korra giveaway. I did, and after waiting in line for about 20 minutes, the poster and t-shirt were mine. Thanks Giveaway Gods!

Fringe Poster & Luggage Tag
If you made it to the Fox booth during Comic-Con, you would have found a slew of fun posters for Fox television shows. I grabbed myself one for Fringe (hey, who knows, maybe one day I’ll have the balls to get it signed). The giveaway at the panel this year was a lenticular luggage tag, featuring a disappearing Peter. On the back it reads something along the lines of  “if found in the wrong universe, please contact ______” Cute idea, though nowhere near as awesome as the exclusive giveaway I didn’t get my hands one….(see bottom)

Pan Am Bag
While not as high quality as the one the website was suggesting they were giving away, it was still on my list to get and I still got it. The process involved waiting in line to sign up for a “flight”. Then you received a boarding pass and a flight time. You then came back to Pan Am at that time, watched a short featurette for the upcoming show in a recreation of an airplane (which was actually pretty effing cool to sit in) and then got a messenger bag. Supposedly they retail for $89, but this looked more like it’s $12 knock off cousin. Still, it’s a bag, and if I love the show, I’ll be thrilled to have one.

Chuck Shirt
The giveaway at the Chuck panel this year was a shirt in the style of a Fake Tuxedo shirt, but for the Buy More uniform. I didn’t get to the panel, so got the shirt from a friend, but once I realized the Chuck panel was actually its last, since the show is headed into its final season, I got quite upset. Especially after hearing that Jeffster performed and Zac Levi teared up. The giveaway is a nice consolation prize, but doesn’t make up for missing what was a lot of folks’ favorite panel at the whole con.

Captain America Shirt
While not quite as cool as the Mondo Cap poster that was also given out at the first showing (with Chris Evans in person) screening Thursday morning, this shirt still rules and is one of the only soft ones given out anywhere at the entire event.

The River Flashlight
The giveaway for ABC’s new show The River, rather than being yet another uncomfortable XL t shirt was a The River branded flashlight. Cool!

Avengers Shirt
At least shirts in XL, when paired with belts, make GREAT dresses….?

Lord of the Rings: War of the North Shirt
Given out at the “WB Key Party” and made the whole experience worth it. I’m sure whatever happened once it got dark outside was awesome as well, but unfortunately, my group has somewhere to be so when things started running a half hour behind schedule, we had to high tail it out of there. But the shirt is soft and in my size so, win anyway!

Didn’t Get

Captain America/SHIELD Pins
RARGH! Saw these online listed as Marvel Booth giveaways and wanted both but they vanished from the Marvel booth rather quickly. Can’t win em all.

Save Peter Fringe Shirt
For the second year in a row, the actors on the Fringe panel turned the question asking around and engaged in a trivia contest with the audience. Any audience member who got the answer won a black shirt that read “Save Peter.” Why this couldn’t have been the main giveaway, I don’t know. Sigh.

Community DVD Slip Case
At the Community panel, Dan Harmon showed off their Comic-Con Exclusive DVD slipcover – identical to the normal season 2 one, but with the characters in claymation form as opposed to human form. WANT.

Locke & Key Volume One
Since Wednesday is most often spent grabbing exclusives before having to leave, I always save Sunday as my comics, toys and art day. Unfortunately, I only ended up with about ninety minutes max on the floor and when that window became thirty minutes and I still didn’t have anything on my comics list, I began my high octane mission to acquire anything I still could.  After not being able to find a single vintage comics booth to grab my old school finds, I decided I’d at least make a point of nabbing the first volume of Locke and Key and that would be enough, since at least I knew where the graphic novel dealers were. Alas, five different dealers informed me that volume one was complete sold out. Great for the comic (and for the not picked up pilot I’ve heard amazing things about), but sucky for me.