Comic Con, Day 3: Inflatable things are awesome!

Friday and Saturday are the busiest days of the Comic Convention. I made the mistake of thinking that the parking lot I had chosen was sufficiently far away from the Convention Center that it wouldn't be full at 9 AM. I was wrong. I had to park across the street, at a lot that was considerably more expensive. It was my own fault, really. I shouldn't have expected any nearby lots to be empty, especially the cheaper ones. Oh well, live and learn.

Friday was all about interviews. For some reason, each interview was scheduled on the opposite side of the Center from the previous one. I began my day by interviewing Edgar Wright, Simon Pegg, and Jessica Hynes, the talents behind the excellent UK sitcom Spaced. Some of you may also recognize the trio from Shaun of the Dead, and Pegg and Wright from Hot Fuzz. The group was all good humored, and the first question was how Pegg really felt about The Phantom Menace. "It was disappointing," Pegg conceded. He then told the story of how the show tried to use Star Wars figures and images in the first season of the show, and Lucasfilm squarely denied them. Then, having seen how reverential the series was to the original trilogy, Lucasfilm offered them any licensing rights they wished, but since Pegg had seen The Phantom Menace in the interim, they no longer wanted it. Asked why they thought British comedy in general, and Spaced in particular got such an enthusiastic response from Americans, the trio attributed it to the popularity of the show on the internet, which doesn't know international boundaries, and the strength of the writing.

From there, I raced over to the Marriott hotel next door, where I was set to interview cast members of the cult classic show Mystery Science Theater 3000. Specifically, I spoke with Joel Hodgson, the show's creator, Trace Beaulieu, who played Crow T. Robot, and Jim Mallon, who voiced Gypsy. They talked about the show's origins, as a filler program for a UHF cable station. The reason they chose the bad movies they did is because that's all the TV station had in its library. I asked Joel if there was ever a film that was so bad that they couldn't riff it, and he said that they almost didn't do Manos: The Hands of Fate because of all the long driving shots where seemingly nothing is happening. I asked if he knew the show would last as long as it did, and he replied that the only reason you make a show is because you hope it will last, but he never expected people to be celebrating the series' 20th anniversary.

While I was there, I also interviewed Martin Baynton, creator of Jane and the Dragon, WETA Digital's first TV series. Made with motion capture, the digitally created show is designed to look like a moving storybook. Baynton was very proud of the achievements of the staff, and the end product. He said the goal of the books and the show was to give young girls of today a role model. He pointed out that unlike almost all other fantasy, Jane and the Dragon has no villains. Instead, Jane learns the consequences that her actions have on the people around her, even if they're well intentioned.

At this point, I was actually able to see a few panels. First up was the Star Wars panel, showcasing two things: The Force Unleashed video game and The Clone Wars movie and TV series. Despite a few good clips, the panel itself was probably the most boring out of all the ones I attended during the Con. Still, here are a few pictures from it:








After that came a panel called "Visionary Filmmakers." I don't really know why the called the panel that, except that I suppose it sounded better than "Four guys who make comic book movies." The panel consisted of Kevin Smith, Judd Apatow, Zack Snyder, and Frank Miller. Smith and Apatow dominated the proceedings. Snyder tried to keep up as best he could, and Frank Miller seemed like he wasn't even paying attention. However, the quips from Apatow and Smith came fast and furious (I didn't even bother trying to count how many times the word"penis" was uttered aloud). The worst part of the panel was when a lady came up to ask the question of whether or not Kevin Smith thought the Superman film franchise should be rebooted. Turns out, she runs a website dedicated to the subject, and pimped it during the Q&A, causing my groans. Smith was actually quite complementary to Bryan Singer, and broke the unease by joking, "Nobody cares about my own work. They just want my opinion on other people's."








And then it was time for what was, in my mind, the best panel of the entire Convention. I've been a fan of Mystery Science Theater 3000 for many years. And at this panel, all of the members of the cast, and crew appeared together on the same stage for the first time in over a decade. The panel, moderated by comedian Patton Oswalt, was quick and witty, as the panelists continually tried to one-up each other, just like the riffs they did on the show. In addition, four episodes were announced for release on DVD that had never been available before: "First Spaceship on Venus," "Laserblast," "Werewolf," and "Future War." All of them have great original artwork on the cover and can be purchased separately, or in a box set together with some additional physical goodies, including a Crow T. Robot figure.






Finally, we ended the night with a screening of three episodes of Spaced. The episodes, voted on by fans, were introduced by Simon Pegg, Edgar Wright, and Jessica Hynes. All three were, as expected, hilarious.






The episodes ended after midnight, which was going to make life less than happy in the morning, but it was great to see the trio do their thing (including a finger gun fight with the entire crowd!). Eventually, I made my way back home and stumbled onto my bed, tired and wondering how I was going to get through two more days at Comic Con.

Just a little while longer...

Ok, so I'm a bit behind on the Comic Con coverage. That would be because I'm utterly exhausted. It will be up soon. I promise.

Comic Con, Day 2: You know what you need? A B.P.R.D. zippo!

Thursday is the ideal day to go to Comic Con. No, it doesn't have the best panels, but it does have some of the offbeat kooky ones that appeal to a guy like me. And since most people still work on Thursday, the crowds aren't so bad. The only panel I saw with a huge line was for Dexter, and deservedly so. My morning started with the sickening realization that I had no gotten enough sleep, and that this was probably the most I would get all weekend. Still, I was able to take find a parking space easily enough, and hoofed it down the half mile to the Convention Center.

The first panel of the day was for the TV shows Tiny Toon Adventures and Freakazoid, which are both coming out on DVD July 29th. The panel consisted of Bruce Timm, John McCann, Paul Rugg, Sherri Stoner, Paul Dini, Jean MacCurdy, Rich Arons, and Andrea Romano. Rugg, the voice of Freakazoid, moderated the panel, and opened the discussion with the accusation, "Where were you all 12 years ago?" And from there we got a lively set of recollections from the gang, all of whom had fond memories. We got to see interview clips from the special features of the DVD sets, and, of course, the fans asked questions. A lot of time was spent talking about the They Might Be Giants episodes, and the Relax-O-Vision.

After that, I hopped on over to Will Wright's keynote speech. For those who don't know, Will Wright is the creator of the Sims and the upcoming game Spore. The speech, aided by a humorous Power Point presentation, was an overview of how art relates to entertainment. It was well reasoned and Wright himself was very well spoken. I don't know if he had done the speech before, but he knew his stuff. He mentioned that he was the curator of a museum exhibit that featured several different art mediums, including comic books and video games. He was the curator of the video game section, obviously. During an interview, the journalist told him that the other curators, including the comic book one, didn't think that video games should have been included in the exhibit. "When comic books look down on you as an art form," Wright said, "Then you know you're at the bottom of the barrel." He then proceeded to show off Spore. Most of what we had seen involved creating creatures. A few weeks back, a Creature Editor was released that would allow people to create monsters in advance of the release of the game. He said that over two million unique creatures had been created to date. He then showed us the later stages of the game, where your civilization is able to move out into the universe as a space-faring culture. The code that runs that game must be incredibly complex, but the actual user interface looks smooth and polished. Wright zipped from world to world with ease, and even used a black hole to jump from one side of the galaxy to the other. The game is massive and will surely suck my life away when it's released in September.






I then got a one-on-one interview with Jean MacCurdy and Paul Rugg (all audio clips and/or transcripts will be posted at a later date). I asked if they felt like the time they spent doing those shows was akin to the atmosphere at Termite Terrace. Jean said that it did, and that Warner Bros. really never interfered with their work. The goal, she explain, was to keep Steven Spielberg happy. Paul agreed that they got away with quite a lot. I also asked how they felt the shows lived up to the legacy of the classic Looney Tunes, and while Jean wasn't willing to put them on the same level, she said that the shows do hold up and still entertain.

From there, it was off to the Genius Products booth, out on the Convention Center floor. I was there to interview Frank Darabont, but while I waited, I spoke with the creator of the new Halo interactive strategy game. The game board comes in several pieces, which you can reconfigure in several different ways, to emulate different scenarios, a la the maps in Halo. But what makes the game unique is that it comes with a DVD that you can use while playing the game. It has three separate campaigns, and when your characters get into fights, you can actually watch them duke it out on the DVD. The Halo interactive game comes out in the Fall.

Then it was time to talk to Frank Darabont, director of such modern day greats as The Shawshank Redemption, The Green Mile, and most recently The Mist. And while we were there to talk about his latest Stephen King adaptation, I actually began the conversation by complimenting Darabont's contribution to the recent fantastic five-disc Blade Runner set. We commiserated about how it makes no thematic sense for Deckard to be a Replicant. But anyway, we eventually moved on to The Mist, coming out in a new DVD edition and for the first time ever on Blu-ray, available on September 16th. Darabont spoke about how long Stephen King sat on the story just so Darabont could do it. He also was very passionate about the anti-extremist themes laced into the picture. Thomas Jane was also there, and we spoke briefly. He talked about how tight the production was, in line with the focused nature of the story. Almost everyone, he said, took paycuts so the movie could be made on a lower budget.

At this point, I had a little time and traversed the Exhibition Floor. Here are a few selected sights, picked at random:







And yes, that was a shot of the new Ghostbusters game that you saw in there.

After the day ended, I went to a party for Konami's Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe. The game felt like classic Mortal Kombat, and the DC characters fit in better than I expected. The thing that surprised me the most was how the characters took visible damage as they lost health. The graphics were great. This wasn't a final build of the game, but if they finish it as expected, it's a game I'm looking forward to. The biggest surprise of the night, though, was Wheelman, which stars Vin Deisel as a car driver visiting Spain. The game, which looked like a GTA/Burnout rip-off, handled very well, and had some genuine visceral thrills. It had a neat mechanic whereby you could ram into other cars from the side, causing them to go careening off the road, into walls, other cars, etc. We obviously won't know how the game will be until it's released, but it went from looking like a cheap knock off to an interesting proposition in and of itself.

Quote of the day, heard on the convention floor: One attendee, depressed about something, is being consoled by his friend, who discovers a cure for his ailment. "You know what you need?" he intoned, "You need a B.P.R.D. zippo lighter!" Only at Comic Con, folks. Stay tuned for the next exciting installment: Death Dealers at the Dawn of Desire!

Oh yeah...

I knew my posts would get more disjointed as time went on, but this is ridiculous. I already forgot that Wednesday night, after the Convention Center closed its doors for the night, I went and saw Tropic Thunder at a private screening. It was, as expected, hilarious, and it had a special exclusive Comic Con intro (filmed, not live) with Ben Stiller, Jack Black, and Robert Downey Jr.

On a less funny note, due to unforseen technical limitations, I will not be able to post the full audio of the interviews I'm conducting while at Comic Con until I get home. And even then some of them may not be easy on the ears, due to the Con being the worst possible place to get clean sound. If it's not something that I can post, I will do a transcript at a later point.

I'll get up my Thursday ravings sometime during the day on Friday. Thank goodness for the quiet, tucked away press room. Until then, here's a picture of Gizmo from Gremlins. Why? Because I can.

Comic Con, Day 1: What's the point of Preview Night?

I'll admit it. I haven't been to the San Diego Comic Convention in roughly 10 years. Back then, I was a bright-eyed boy, looking simply to convince my grandfather to part ways with his cash so that I could spend it on toys and comic books. I doubt I even have any of the items I purchased from that day anymore. But I do remember that the hall, while packed from end to end with vendors, was filled with true comic book fanatics, such as myself. I don't recall endless parades of movie and television promotion, fighting for space with video game advertisements and girls in tight pants wooing you in to a booth to see replica statues worth thousands of dollars. Of course, being younger, I probably just didn't notice the girls and the replicas, as they were undoubtedly there. But I'm pretty sure my other observations are correct. Comic Con used to be a place for comic book fans to get together and geek out over their favorite subject: Comics. If movies entered into it, it was simply as an outgrowth of our enthusiasm.

As all things do, Comic Con has changed. But now more so than ever. Comics are no longer relegated to a cultural ghetto. When you have a film like The Dark Knight grossing over $200 million in five days, and every major movie studio with a comic book film or three on its slate, it becomes clear that comics have reached a level of popular acceptance unknown in the medium's history. But the movie studios and gaming companies realize that it's not just comics that make big money. No, anything a little offbeat, fantastical, or beyond the normal can be exploited, if marketed correctly to the crowd that dresses up like hobbits and stormtroopers. And that's why you see these corporations buying up more time and space at events like Comic Con, ready to hand out freebies and show off their toys to the masses, who are more than willing to go along with the program.

All that probably sounds pretty cynical. Let me pause here and say that I'm as much a part of this machine as anyone else. More so, in fact. Not only do I fall for the marketing (I've seen The Dark Knight three times already), but I propagate it by writing about it. The question has to be asked: Why? Why do I do this if I know how manipulative it all is? I'll tell you why. This stuff is cool. Damn cool. I've come home tonight with toys galore (more on that later). I like it. I get a kick out of it. Some of this stuff I grew up with. Others have only recently come around. I'm a sucker for this kind of thing. But that doesn't mean I can't go through the experience with a an eye for what's gone wrong. In fact, I'd say it's my responsibility to look at the experience of the San Diego Comic Con through some kind of critical lens, otherwise this simply becomes another fanboy report. So, to the day's events.

For those who don't know, the San Diego Comic Con has become synonymous with the term "Cluster Fuck." You don't sell out an entire convention center and have things go smoothly. It doesn't happen. It's just too big. So, before I even set foot in the place, I encountered my first obstacle. Namely parking. The San Diego Convention Center is located downtown, where parking is already a little frustrating. More so if you're going somewhere for more than 9 hours (there are a lot of lots that will let you park in 9 hour increments, don't ask me why). The Convention Center parking lot fills up around 8 AM (note that nothing is scheduled to start at the Con until 10 at the earliest), although, with today being only a half day, I imagine the parking lot was full at 8:15. I ended up parking a few miles away and hoofing it to the Center, which I'm sure was great exercise, but, combined with the non-stop walking on the Convention floor, pretty much ensures that my feet will be nothing but bloody stumps by the end of the day Friday.

Getting to the Convention Center, I see lots of people milling about. Some look purposeful. Many look confused. I make a beeline to the first person who looks official and ask where the press go to check in. Now, I don't want to sound like a complainer, because I know that being with the press is a good gig and I get to do a lot that many people would pay for, let alone get paid for, but this was easily the worst handling of a press event I've ever seen. There were three sections to pick up your badges. One was for general attendees with four day passes. Then there was the professional/exhibitor line, and the press line. Well, out of the three, the general attendee line might have been the longest in length, but I promise you that the press had the longest wait time. We were being let in five people at a time. And the intervals between each group were vast. Finally getting inside, I understand why. There's only a single booth for pre-registered press. Obnoxiously, there were two booths for press who just happened to show up. If I had known that, I wouldn't have gone to all the trouble of registering in advance. And, to top it off, they had no freebie bags. I know, a minor complaint, given that you always walk away from Comic Con with a mountain of free crap, but that little freebie bag makes you feel like you've arrived. It seemed anti-climactic without it. I went on a long and fruitless search for a bag. Each time I asked someone about their location, I got a different answer. No one seemed to know what I was talking about. As I said, it's just too big.

At this point I took a little break to head back to roughly where I parked. I met several people from DVD Talk at Hooters. I had never been in a Hooters before, and the food was better than I thought it would be. One of the guys commented, "I don't want to sound like a sexist pig, but our waitress has a great ass." My reply, "They want you to be a sexist pig, it's how they make their tips." Anyway, I digress. Here's a picture of our ugly mugs:

If you're in it, you know who you are.

We head back to the Convention Center around 5:45 PM. The doors for the Exhibition Hall open at 6. This is the sight that greets us:

Great. Wonderful. This is what Comic Con used to look like on a Saturday. Now it's the crowd for Preview Night. The only people who are meant to get in to Preview Night are people with four day passes, exhibitor/professional passes, and press passes. How many four day passes did they sell? It's ridiculous. Also, I heard from some people that they were selling Preview Night tickets to walk-ins. I thought the point of Preview Night was that it was an extra incentive for people who bought the four day pass. I've heard others say they saw people being denied a one-day ticket, but I'm sure it was a case by case situation. Either way, this is just too crowded for what's meant to be an easy going Wednesday evening. You're meant to leisurely stroll the floor on Preview Night. That's not the case anymore.

As soon as the doors opened, people went rushing in. Within seconds, I saw people who had managed to get their hands on free stuff. A lot of people were handing out oversized bags, which I tried to get so I could actually put my purchases in them, but no. That wasn't good enough. Attendees were snagging them by the handfuls and stuffing them away, to save as a souvenir, or more likely sell. I think people need some perspective. These are free bags. You could get 1,001 of them without even stopping at a booth. How much money can these really garner on the secondhand market? At one point, I was by the Warner Bros. booth, and they started handing out free oversized Wonder Woman bags. I went to get one, as I now was weighed down with merchandise, and immediately got crushed by a crowd that made a Nine Inch Nails mosh pit look like a picnic. It took all I had not to elbow somebody. This wasn't a Watchmen bag, or a Dark Knight bag, just an animated Wonder Woman bag. Either way, I digress.

For those who don't know, the exhibition floor is massively impressive. Here's what I saw the moment I walked in through the doors:


Truly a geek's paradise. Also, completely overwhelming. And, this being Preview Night, not every booth is actually open. Most of them are, but some of the smaller vendors won't set up until Friday or Saturday. I wandered, mostly in a daze, trying to avoid being crushed by the unthinking throngs of people in search of the cool and bizarre. Seeing as how there were no events or interviews on Wednesday, it was my shopping day. I searched mostly for The Dark Knight and Wall-E products, and saw very few of either, unless i wanted to spend $1,000 on some meticulously rendered statue, which I didn't. Below are some of the highlights of what I saw.








A few shots of a rather significant prop from the upcoming Warner Bros. film Watchmen.







A pair of photos from Sony's upcoming PS3 game, Little Big Planet.




Jabba The Hutt, Iron Man, and Lego Batman all made appearances. None were willing to sign any autographs.





Iron Man and the Angel of Death both showed up without bodies. Hellboy did bring his body, but in miniature proportions. I sure hope the little guy doesn't suffer from an inferiority complex. After all, he's destined to destroy the world.







DC had a lot of banners and some neat products. Check out that Joker poker set. Pretty neat stuff.




Star Wars: The Clone Wars was heavily advertised.

I saw more, but things were so hectic that I wasn't able to take too many more pictures. Hopefully I'll have time during the rest of the week. If I'm not dead by then.

Check in tomorrow for my report on Thursday: Revenge of the Nazis from Mars with Handicap Parking Plates.