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!