Comic-Con Adventures, 2007 edition

TelltaleGames

From left to right: Dave Grossman, Mike Stemmle, and Steve Purcell. Photo care of Mike Stemmle's camera.



The story so far: Last Friday, we loaded up Jake's parents' Highlander with all the merchandise we would be selling at Comic-Con and he drove down to San Diego. The rest of us followed on airplanes a few days later, with the end result of eight Telltalians converging on Comic-Con City by Wednesday night. On Thursday, we realized we couldn't find the camera we'd so diligently packed anywhere. On Friday, Jake remembered he's packed a second camera, but that, too, had mysteriously vanished. This left us, at around two o'clock on Friday, defeated by the fact that our attempts to blog from Comic-Con would be depressingly without graphics. Which, as everyone knows, is a boring way to blog.
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Elsewhere in San Diego, Mr. and Mrs. Herrera (parents of Daniel) were on their way to visit their son at the convention with a digital camera in tow. They let us borrow it, and we took a bunch of pictures of our booth and the Sam & Max costume and the LucasArts booth where every single game they ever made was encased in glass. But then! We tried to get the pictures off the card reader and somehow ended up with a corrupt file system on the memory card, effectively wiping out all the pictures we'd taken, as well as years' worth of Herrera family memories. (We're sorry.)



But then!! We had a signing at our booth with Steve Purcell, Dave Grossman, and Mike Stemmle, and Mike had a camera that he let us use. So now we have pictures, and this blog can finally be posted. Horray!






A picture taken for us by a fan named Allen Barrett, at the height of the Great Camera Despair of 2007. From left to right: Chuck, Jake, Dave, Daniel, Doug, Theodore, Emily, demo machine.





Camera woes aside, it's been a good show. On Thursday morning, we did our panel with Hothead Games, developers of the Penny Arcade Adventures. Chris Remo of Shacknews was the moderator. It was really interesting to hear Hothead's perspective because what they're doing -- and their philosophy in general -- is really similar to ours. It's like looking in a mirror (or, more accurately, looking back a year to the time right before we released the first episode of Sam & Max…)



During the panel, we teased the audience with a few concepts from Season Two and a brand new render. What, you want to see them too? Well, here you go!

On Thursday afternoon, we tried out the full-sized Sam & Max costume for the first time. We had been told the suit was built for a 5'9" wearer, so we found a guy who's 5'9" to wear it. Unfortunately for all involved, the suit is actually built for someone who's 5'6", so the pants are a little funky. But all in all it looks great, and it's hilarious to see a great big Sam lumbering around. He can't get very far without being stopped by a gaggle of picture-taking admirers, and small children run up and spontaneously hug him. (Much better than bursting into tears, which is what I was afraid of.)

Sam posing with Playboy's Miss November 1998 and a small boy. Welcome to Comic-Con. Also: Sam and Max posing with Nick, and with Mike Stemmle. Click a thumbnail for even more costume and signing pics!





Intern Nick has been following the Sam suit around with a video camera but we forgot to bring a firewire cable with us, so you'll have to wait until next week to see the spoils of these excursions. Here's a hint: Mega Man is involved.





As far as merchandise goes, we have pretty much everything we sell in our well-stocked store, plus a few new goodies. Following up on last year's The Age of S & M (which is still available right here in Telltale's store), Steve released a new sketchbook this year, called The Effigy Mound. Back by popular demand are cringe-worthy requests from the censors on the cartoon show ("Sorry, but the flatulence jokes are still unacceptable."), plus concept art and a bunch of other neat stuff most people in the world have never seen before. We also have a brand new print here, based on the art Steve did for the Season One Bonus DVD.





We know, we know, it's just not fair that we're at Comic-Con with brand new sketchbooks and a brand new print, and you're not. We can't stand to make you mad, so here's a compromise: we'll be adding the new sketchbook and print to the store in the very near future. (We would have added it already, but things like setting up products in the store are unbelievably annoying when you're in San Diego mooching off some other booth's wireless internet...)




The signing was well attended, with lots of adventure game fanboys (and girls) showing up to have discs, sketchbooks, and prints signed. I used the opportunity to get Steve to sign my copy of Surfin' the Highway (I'll scan the picture and post it once I get back home, because it's awesome.)






One last little gem: Steve's Sam & Max webcomic was up for Best Digital Comic in Friday night's Eisner Awards... and and he won! He got a trophy and everything. We'd take a picture of it for you to see... if only we had a camera.