San Diego Comic Con has gotten so big it has begun to breed other smaller cons across the country. This past weekend I visited one of the many spawn of SDCC in Austin, TX.

Perhaps I should go into a little of my history with cons and geekdom in general. I've made the nerd pilgrimage to SDCC five times in my life. The first when I was an awkward 16 year old in the year 1998. At the time SDCC was getting bigger but you could still walk around without getting 50 NTD's (nerdily transmitted diseases). Being a major comic book geek and aspiring artist I went from booth to booth with a portfolio of freshly drawn comics (now very painful to look at) and a dream of being picked up by Marvel or Image on the spot. I murmured screechy sentences of awkwardness at artists I idolized. I couldn't believe that Jim Mahfood was at an empty table just sitting there bored and eager to talk to me about anything. I left with a sketch and cherished it as if it were the one ring. SDCC had earned it's place in my heart.

Fast Forward to 2010, SDCC is a giant mutated scaly beast, breathing fliers and merch down on the Tokyo nerd citizens. Moving from one end of the room to the other is slower than a slow loris

but just as entertaining. Now there is A-list Celebrities, Movie premieres, exclusives for every type of collectible, and booth babes... So many hot booth babes. It's truly the ultimate collection of all that induces nerdgasm. So having this experience, how does the first Austin Comic Con rate?

Well since it is the first year I need to cut it some slack but it was still disappointing. First off, No vinyl toys to be found. It's comic - con very much in name. So no vinyl toys just comics and comic related things. Oh and a dozen bored looking low level celebrities like lou ferrigno, ernie hudson, the cast of human centipede, the bionic man, adam west. While its kind of interesting to see these people in real life it almost makes you feel sorry that this is what's become of them. Other than that you got about 50 comic book mini stores, artist alley and some people who don't belong. Foot massage guys, wtf?

Some great artists in the alley, although very much confined to comics and web. Still I really enjoyed meeting artists like Joe Madureira, Rob Guilloroy and Tommy Castillo but I wish there was some other types of artists. It would be really easy for vinyl and lowbrow artists to stand out at these things.

So Austin Comic Con is still a tiny misshapen clone of the beast that is SDCC but i think the event was succesful enough to warrant future cons and hopefully a larger surge of toys and art in Austin.