This piece is brought to you by the sponsor for my trip to San Diego Comic Con, Lunar Distribution. Thanks to the team over there for helping me make my way to the event.

Going into San Diego Comic Con 2026, I was no longer the fresh-faced newcomer of the past but a savvy veteran who knew what to expect. You see, I’d been before. Once. In 2024. That meant I knew the ins and outs of SDCC, so I came prepared for everything this massive event had to offer.

Or so I thought.

Even though like in 2024, I spent effectively six full days in San Diego, stayed at a Hilton that was a five-minute walk away each time, and built my entire schedule around attending the Eisner Awards on Friday night, my second experience at SDCC wasn’t remotely the same. It was to an almost comically, preposterously so, as I routinely wondered to myself, “Why is this so different?”

Part of that was by design, of course. One of my goals during this edition was to spend more quality time with people, as 2024 was a speed run where I spent five minutes with a person here or ran into a person for a minute there. Don’t get me wrong: plenty of good times were had. But I wanted longer stretches with folks this time out, and maybe a bit less stress because I stacked too many things together.

But it wasn’t all by design. San Diego Comic Con is a living, breathing monster that constantly changes. All you can do is adjust, and every choice you make shifts your experience, whether that’s staying in the Hilton Gaslamp instead of the Hilton Bayfront 25 or coming in off a red-eye flight from Alaska instead of a mini-vacation in Los Angeles in the days before. It all makes a difference.

Whatever choices I made along the way, I knew that there would be one thing that united both adventures, and that’s a journal of my six days in San Diego. This is something Heidi MacDonald inspired me to do last time, as I kept track of my first San Diego Comic Con experience by writing a journal about in 2024. I had so much fun with it that I knew I wanted to do it again this time, so I spent each morning writing down what happened the day before and in what order, using photos and videos as a guide to timestamp the whole thing. While there will still be some extrapolation along the way, it acts as a far too detailed guide to what proved to be a glorious, even award-winning adventure to San Diego Comic Con. 26

Tuesday, July 23^rd: Day -1

6:53 am: This is an aside to start, but our red-eye flight from Anchorage, Alaska comes with a layover in Las Vegas. Both Amber and I have a soft spot for gambling, so we decide to try our luck at some slot machines while we wait for our flight.

I deposit $6 into a Wheel of Fortune machine and walk away with $34.

“This is going to be a good trip,” I think to myself.

9:32 am: While heading to the baggage claim in San Diego International Airport, everywhere I look I find ads for Delta promoting how you can watch anime on their flights thanks to a partnership with Crunchyroll. That felt like one of those, “While you slept, the world changed” moments from House of X, as an international airport being covered in ads about how you can watch anime on your flight speaks directly to how much the world has evolved in my lifetime when it comes to nerd things.

10:08 am: Our ride to the hotel takes us directly past the San Diego Convention Center where the event is held, and it’s already covered in signage and bustling with people. The surrounding area — both around the convention center and in the Gaslamp Quarter — is all under construction, both in terms of advertisements and activations that will debut in the next day or two. Despite the fact I’m operating on a maximum of three hours of bad sleep, the hype is really kicking in.

I’m ready for Comic Con now.

10:24 am: Like with my Vegas airport riches, the trip continues to hit jackpot, as our room in the Hilton Gaslamp is ready despite the fact we’re nearly six hours out from check-in. “Yes, we would like to check in early!” I perhaps too excitedly tell the person working at the front desk.

Now, it’s worth noting that this is when I make my first big mistake, and it was arguably the biggest of the trip. When we got in our room, there were two main options available to us: take a nap so we can make up for that bad night of sleep or get some breakfast and let the good times roll. The smart play was the former, especially considering that I didn’t have anything officially on the books until 2 pm. We went with the latter, and that tiredness stuck with us throughout the remainder of the trip.

Pro tip: Rest early so you can maximize your energy during the con itself! The decision to not take a nap when we landed haunted me. Also, just don’t take a red-eye flight if you can avoid it.

11:00 am: To be fair, we ate at Gaslamp Breakfast Company, and its California Breakfast Burrito dulled some of the pain of that decision. I quite like that place!

12:50 pm: Here’s your second pro tip: Do not pick up your badge right as pickup opens.

It was a complete mess, no one knew where people looking for professional badges should go, and it resulted us being told that it might be at entrance C or it might be at entrance A when in reality we actually needed to go behind the building. It all depended on who you ask or how long the line is. The amusing thing, though, was the line started at A and then they moved you up to C, so both were true at the same time in a way.

It worked out in the end, and it really didn’t take as long as it seemed it could. But when you pick up early on Tuesday, it’s going to be a work in progress. Give them a bit before you go. It’ll be better for everyone, including yourself.

2:00 pm: I meet up with Heidi MacDonald at Kos Coffee and let me spoil what she would tell you if she was writing this post: You should go there. It has excellent coffee, but more importantly, its banana bread is transcendent. I think Heidi referred to it more times during the con than anything that actually happened at the event.

2:39 pm: We make our way to Now or Never Comics, San Diego’s premier comic shop. The team there doesn’t know we’re coming, and we descend on a regular, calm Tuesday at the store like an atom bomb. I’m surprised Aaron Trites, the shop’s owner, and Zach Norris, The Wolf of Now or Never, 27 survived the experience of a sleep-deprived version of me and a banana bread-infused Heidi crashing their store.

It was a pleasure visiting the shop, as it always is with that crew, and it was a treat to see how impressed Heidi was by Now or Never. It helps that they asked her to sign their staircase, though, which is something they do with comic creators and folks around comics like the two of us. 28 But she quickly recognized how special the store is — particularly the boxes they made for back issues, which she talked about for most of our walk back — especially with gems like Trites and Norris leading the way.

5:30 pm: When Amber and I take vacations, we try and get one fancy dinner in. This time we went to Callie, a nice Mediterranean spot outside the Gaslamp. It was lovely and delicious. It will also be the last meal we have where no one obviously from Comic Con is within our line of sight.

8:30 pm: I meet up with Heidi, Rob Salkowitz, David Hyde, and some other folks at a bar that’s very near Petco Park, where Ed Sheeran is performing. Loudly. I elect to not drink because SDCC is a marathon, not a sprint. I do not choose to moderate my voice because Sheeran’s concert is loud enough you kind of have to talk loudly. It’s a lovely visit, but my voice is already beginning to go.

It’s SDCC Day Minus One.