This was the first official day of the 2007 San Diego Comic-Con. Yesterday was the “exclusive” preview, and today we had the normal crowd. This first picture is from the convention floor. The next picture…

… was from the line to get in this morning. Compare it to the picture of the line from yesterday. The increase is dramatic, and this is the smallest of the convention days. I got a late start this morning and ended up towards the end of this line (although there were some folks behind me).

For those who remember the animated TV show Speed Racer, here’s the Mach 5 that’s being used in the live-action movie. I thought I’d show another picture of a genre car, in keeping with the batmobile shot from yesterday.

This is a set in the display area of one of the toy manufacturers. They’re selling some sort of merchandise from the Indiana Jones franchise. It was a pretty elaborate prop. I don’t know how successful a marketing tool this was, but there were a lot of us taking pictures of the set.

Yes, there are a lot of folks in costume at the event. Wonder Woman and the Storm Trooper are a couple who will pose for pictures together. It’s a real blending of two totally different worlds. But, if you look carefully, you’ll see that the Storm Trooper is pushing a baby carriage. And, you can just make out the chubby legs of the baby in the carriage. This just goes to show that that Geekdom can cross generational divides!

Lego is at this event with some very impressive sculptures. Here are R2D2 and C3PO made entirely from Legos. You can get a sense of the height from the granularity of the robot parts. It was really impressive work, and they aren’t alone. There were a lot of impressive statues at this booth, including a huge representation of Batman standing on a rooftop. These two seemed to be the newest of the statues. They are really amazing.

This image was taken by the artist of the comic that I’m holding. I just happened to come to the booth where the artist (Rikki Niehaus) and the writer (Dana Gavin) had unwrapped and put out their brand new book. I bought the first book they sold, so they wanted a picture on me holding my new copy. The title is Art in the Blood, and is a re-examination of a Sherlock Holmes story where Watson has just come back from Afghanistan, and so there is a real tie in with current events. It sounds really interesting.

Weta is the special effects studio that worked on the Lord Of The Rings trilogy, and this is in their display area. Those are statues, made from a rubber/plastic material that is pretty creepy to feel. It’s a lot like skin – but not. There were a lot of us that had to touch the statues, and then wrinkled up our faces from how creepy they felt.

There are lots of sessions on a variety of topics going on throughout the convention. I attended this one on graphic story telling. Some of the sessions are put on by media companies to talk about their shows and have cast autograph signings. Those can get pretty crowded. Saturday looks to be pretty heavy with movie presentations.

This was my favorite image from the show today. Nothing elaborate, no special effects. It was just on the hand bag of a woman going to the show this morning. It made me smile.

There are a lot of little images and events that really add to the convention. It’s a great place for folks to show off their cleverness.

So, here’s today’s damage (or haul, or score, or clutter). I start out trying to arrange things in order to emphasize individual traits. But about half way through I realize that it’s all about volume.

Remember, that’s just today’s stuff. More tomorrow, along with bigger crowds.