Smiling fans pour off the trolley, funnel into the convention center, and swarm the halls of Comic-Con. Shoulder to shoulder, every stranger with a badge is an old friend.

I got caught in a mad mosh pit of swag seekers.  Somebody yelled "free posters" and all of a sudden I was swept up in a throng of bodies reaching and grabbing.  I was slightly traumatized, but not so shaken that I couldn't snap a pic.  My advice?  Use the buddy system and when you hear "free," run for your life.

Some filmmakers and celebrities come to Comic-Con because they need to promote their movies to a particular fan base. But others come because they ARE that fan base.  This includes Quentin Tarantino (whom I met at a friend’s poster booth before Reservoir Dogs came out), Robert Rodriguez, Sam Raimi, and of course, Guillermo del Toro. Con attendees embrace these people because they share the same obsessions. After del Toro's panel in 2004, he was mobbed by fans in the hallway but took time to talk with almost everyone (including Aaron Soto, one of our KPBS Comic-Con team members, who gets a photo op with del Toro at the end of this video).

There are probably more than 100,000 reasons for going to the San Diego Comic-Con International -- one for each person who attends because that's how different and precise everyone's motive is for going to this gathering of pop culture fanatics. And yes, we are fanatics because we care passionately about our obsessions and we appreciate that Comic-Con is put on by people who feel exactly like we do.