Sometimes my job sends me to really random places, and one of those places for four years in a row was Comic Con in San Diego.

When I was assigned the project, I was all this on the outside:

But on the inside, I was all:

Let’s be honest, it’s a total nerd fest, but I’m a total nerd so I felt right at home.  I mean, I wasn’t playing “Magic the Gathering” in the corner or taking Klingon-as-a-second-language classes or anything, but I was as dazzled as anyone else entering the entirely overwhelming 615,700 sq. ft. of pure advertising.  No longer a convention of comics, this convention had now become Hollywood’s launching pad.  Premiere something at Comic Con and the message goes flying to the four corners of the earth as quickly as you can say something in 140 characters.

The first year I went I was pretty impressed with the costumes.  I mean…these guys,  amiright?

Or this curious looking group:

Or my new friend:

However, what I will never understand is this whole bizarre world of Anime.  I’m not judging it, but seriously, I really don’t understand it.  It this a cat?  A person?  A caperson?  And does it have a super power?

So whenever I have a few minutes of downtime I roam around the exhibition floor and one time I just sort of stumbled upon the Bill Plympton booth–Bill is a cartoonist who I happened to think is pretty awesome.  I chatted with him for a little while, he seemed to like me, and then he drew this for me!  I think he captured me pretty well here, right?

As I was about to leave RON JEREMY!! just sort of sidles up and totally crashes my conversation with Bill!  Not only did he crash the conversation, but he completely took control of the conversation.  And quickly organized an impromptu photo session.  He grabbed my phone right out of my hand and had his friend take a photo of he and I together (which I will not be posting because I look pretty horrible in it…and terrified).  Then he gave me my phone back and posed with Bill and I snatched this photo.

And then we all chatted for a while like we’d known each other for years.  There was talk of drinks and “where’s the party at” which I just kind of stayed out of.  More because I couldn’t quite grasp what was happening than anything else.  I mean, it was all seriously very bizarre.  However, throughout that conversation I learned that Ron Jeremy is actually a pretty nice guy.  Maybe he’s not very nice looking, but he’s a nice guy.  And Bill Plympton, well, Bill is just all kinds of awesome.

So the moral of the story here is…everyone should go to Comic Con at least once.  Because you might run into Ron Jeremy.  Or Lou Ferrigno.  Who is pretty much the coolest guy in the world.  Hulk, indeed, although I think I can take him in an arm wrestling match pretty easy.  Probably.