LOST in Comics

Preamble

Hey hey hello my friends! I wanted to make a little travelogue so you guys could see what you helped make happen. Before we get into this intense photo and video-filled post, we need some atmosphere and stuff. Let’s pretend this youtube is, like, uh, a record. Yeah! And pressing play will drop the needle. Drop it. DROP IT!!! Or don’t. Whatever.

 

Chapter 1: The Poster

By now you’re probably familiar, but here’s a recap of the chain of events that got us to Comic-Con. Starting around May our family was struck with a series of unfortunate events. The consequences of which totally devoured our Comic-Con savings. Oh what to do, what to do? I had this idea for a Lost + Star Wars mash-up painting kicking around my noggin for a while, so I thought maybe I could do a limited run of prints. The actual painting took up my free time for a couple of weeks (I think around 40 hours), but I finally finished:

Along the way I showed some peeks of it to a few friends in the Lostie community and the reaction was way beyond I’d anticipated. Ok, maybe we have something here! But with Comic-Con only a few weeks away, how do I get this in front of the number of people I’ll need to sell out?

Aha, a video! That part happened so fast. I really just had to point the camera at the kids and let them tell our story.

So we had the poster and the video ready. We put them up and the reaction was UNREAL. The karmic universe flipped upside down for us as we found ourselves blessed by a series of very fortunate events including a tweet by Damon Lindelof! We were in total disbelief of everything going on. I could not keep up with wave of emails and comments coming in!

Before I knew it, we were sold out and Damon’s assistant, Josie (rock star!), was sending me messages inviting us to come out and meet with Damon at Comic-Con! Not only that, but he wanted to buy a batch of the posters to give to fans at the LOST panel! What the what! Then they saw that I am a member of the 501st Legion and suddenly a plot was brewing. Josie asked if I knew any Stormtroopers that were going to be in San Diego and fit Carlton’s build (he’s very tall!). Well, it just so happened that my best friend, Ruel, is exactly Cartlon’s build, he was going to Comic-Con, and he has TK armor that we built together. The coincidences were uncanny.

The level of excitement at our house was reaching terminal velocity! Like that feeling you have when you’re in line for a big roller coaster and you feel like you have to pee but you don’t really have to pee.

We tried our best to calm down. We set out to fulfill all of the poster orders and make our travel arrangements. Next stop: COMIC-CON!!!!

Chapter 2: The LOST Panel

We arrived in San Diego on Thursday. The weather was just perfect. We stayed on Coronado Island, which is right behind the convention center and so pretty. Every day we enjoyed a quick ferry ride directly to and from the convention center. The kids loved it!

But enough of that. You want to hear about the big LOST panel! Entertainment Weekly’s Totally LOST panel was Friday afternoon. After a couple of phone calls with Josie we figured out where we were supposed to be. Josie met us with our special secret friendship bracelets that would get us into the club as we made our way into the green room. Ruel has worked on shows for ABC doing set design, so he’s used to this kind of stuff, but I was filled with butterflies. Of course, on the exterior, I played it cool and professional.

It was so calm in there. Very different from the hustle and bustle of the con halls. I was introduced to Carlton and then Damon–both of whom are as friendly and approachable as you can imagine. Carlton was sincerely grateful that we were there and could help out with his costume for the panel.

Ruel was packing a suitcase full of Stormtrooper armor for Carlton, so they kind of scooted off to a corner of the room with Cory, Carlton’s assistant, to get him suited up as I chatted with Damon for a bit.

A dork and Damon Lindelof

Cory lacing up Carlton

TK-Carlton’s first steps. We’re so proud!

Ruel, Carlton, and Me

Some nerds escorting Carlton from the green room to the panel

Damon and Carlton’s big reveal!

The mysterious “Marbled Rye” clip!

Josie Fett!

Chapter 3: It’s all about the kids!
 

Riding the ferry to the Con! Every morning!

Look at that face!

The Spongebob that moves creeped them out just a little.

Chapter 4: Adventure Time!

If ever there was a year for Adventure Time fans to be at Comic-Con, this was it. Finn and Jake were all over the place! For Adventure Time nerds like us, It was totally amazeballs.

We heard that Pendleton Ward, Adventure Time’s creator and all around fuzzy awesome dood, would be signing at Entertainment Earth on Saturday morning. We scooted right over there and luckily not many people caught on that he was doing this. No rushy rushy, move along now, move along. We even met his sweet mom! Pen was wicked cool with the kids and totally catered to their every request.

Later that afternoon we had the time of our lives at the Adventure Time panel. The room was filled with so much energy it was amazing! Hard to compare with the LOST panel the day before, but seriously, SO much fun! As a family, it had to be our most memorable experience.

Yo Magnolia! Pen complimented us on our kids’ names a couple of times. He was pretty proud of his mom for the names she gave him and his siblings, too.

Magnolia, Pendleton, and Venture

Chapter 5: The Loot

We did not come home with a ton of stuff. Good for the wallet! Here are some of the highlights…

Each of the kids got a set of these algebraic Finn & Jake action figures!

The End

I just wanted to say THANK YOU again to everyone who helped make this happen. It’s been a couple of years since we were able to take a nice family vacation like this and we will be forever grateful. As a parent, it’s the experiences that you share with your kids that they will always remember, not so much the stuff you buy for them. Thank you so much for helping to make this such a wonderful experience! We could not have done this without you!!

Our little champions of the con on the last ferry of the last day

Emails and tweets of thanks have been pouring in from people who have already received their posters and even from people who got them at the con! It makes me so happy to be able to share my love for LOST with so many who obviously feel the same. I LOVE hearing from you and I will do my best to catch up on emails soon!

As you can imagine there is a long list forming of folks who missed out and are dying to get one of these posters. I know there were a handful left at the panel because we ended before everyone could ask a question. I’ll try to find out what is happening with those, but otherwise this edition is totally closed. Oh, but I will say that even though this is a good-sized print at 22 inches tall, I would love to do a much larger jumbo print for myself someday. Maybe I’ll do a short run and offer them up! We’ll see.

Oh yeah, also here’s this new thing I’m working on…

Not saying there’s a new poster coming, but if there is, you might want to follow me on twitter or subscribe to the RSS. Just sayin’.