Here were my prizes for waiting in line for an hour:
Free pink lemonade by a Trader Joe's employee dressed as Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter
A photo of a guy in a pretty impressive Darth Vader costume (my oldest son now thinks I know the actual Darth Vader)
A free assortment of homemade cookies
An hour long conversation with few 5 star comic book readers. (*FYI- Unless you are at least a 3 star comic book reader, these conversations should be avoided.) Luckily, the conversation eventual shifted to the topic of Chinese urbanization. Though I did get some great recommendations on titles I should explore.
Autographs by several writers and authors that everyone in line seemed impressed with but I was clueless about. The one writer/artist I looked up that is pretty impressive is Gene Luen Yang (twitter @geneluenyang). He is the author of American Born Chinese (currently #31 on goodreads.com best graphic novels list http://www.goodreads.com/list/show/210.Best_Graphic_Novels#118944)
Additionally, he is the author of the Avatar: Last Airbender comic series and the graphic novels Boxers and Saints.
Finally, the comics. There were about 30 to choose from. We were allowed to pick 3. With my 3 picks and the 2 author signings I left with 5 in all. Some for me, some for my little ones.
