This past Friday I was fortunate enough to attend the San Diego Comic Con.
For the record, when I speak of geeks/nerds/fanboys I gladly include myself in those categories.
I've never been to a Comic-Con before but have enjoyed attendance at other conventions devoted to interests of, shall we say, less than main stream subject matters. While the geeks/nerds/fanboys were out in force, this con ended up being far less exclusionary to your average person than some of the others I've been too. Believe me, you have no idea how deep the geek rabbit hole goes.
For fear of its corrupting influence of what is considered holy by it's followers; Big Media is often spoken in hushed whispers in places like these. Like it's some hobbit squashing villain out to corrupt all that we love. And while the Eye of Sauron has focused on the Con for the time being, it's effect are far less destructive than one might imagine. It may even end up saving the comics industry. That is, for as long as they deem it useful.
There are three parts that made the Con what it is, for me; the panels, the exhibition hall, and the people.
The Panels.
While attendance was huge this year, 100,000+ from what I heard, it was relatively easy to get into all the panels that I wanted. Basically, companies/studios that want to get information out about their product, book one of the halls for a group of creative teams/actors/producers/directors, to talk about the product and answer questions from fans. They know that if there's nothing geeks like it's being ahead of the curve on their favorite shows/books/movies. The hardest part of this all was actually deciding on which panel to attend. With no less than half a dozen panels going on at any one time and the Con running for 10 hours, there were some hard choices made.
I started the day out with a triple dose of panels about Stargate; the new movie releasing Tuesday, the game, and the spin-off TV show. The cast of the movie were obviously old pros at these types of events and had the audience eating out of their hand from the beginning. News on the game was kept thankfully short as no one was interested. And the panel of the spin-off TV show was saved by one of their very funny writers, who hosted that one. There was zero relatively interesting info about the franchise but I still enjoyed it. It was funny.
After that was the big, and my favorite panel of the day; Joss Whedons'. No information was given ahead of time on the topic (other then Whedon would be there) but it was easy to guess; it was about his new webmovie thingy Dr Horrible. I would just like to say, I know Whedon is working the whole "quirky writer genius guy" angle but would it kill him to occasionally straighten himself up a bit? Not look like he just woke up after sleeping in his clothes? Every time I see him he looks like a mess. His gig line was way off. You can be "quirky writer genius guy" and still spend 10 seconds to brush your hair before you meet people. Anyway, Whedon first brought out his douchey family members that "worked" on the project, they decided not to physically ride out on his coat-tails but the feeling was still there. They kept off to the side and remained pretty quiet, thankfully. He then brought out the main cast; NPH (Dr Horrible), Nathan Fillion (Captain Hammer), Felicia Day (Penny) and Simon Helberg (Moist!!!). The crowd went nuts. This panel alone would have made the trip worth while. Everyone was funny, charasmatic, and got along great. Joss Whedon is brilliant and told great stories when answering audience questions, but most importantly announced there will be an Act IV. Awesome!
The next panel I saw was for Bones. Now, I really feel there's a fine line between what is funny and what is being a dick to someone. It's a line that not everyone can see, or at least they see it differently. Which is where friends/family hopefully step in to tell you when you've gone to far. Enter: David Boreanaz. People have apparently stopped telling him when he's crossed the line because he came off as a total dick. I lay blame for which squarely at the feet of the producer of the show who insisted on laughing hysterically at every word that came out of David's mouth; even the borderline insulting words he slung at his fellow cast mates. The rest of the cast played it off as best they could but it just ended up being an uncomfortable mess. Hopefully I can wash its awfulness from my brain before the new season starts and is ruined for me.
Which brings me to the final panel I saw which was the fabled Kevin Smith one I've been hearing about forever. This year he was promoting his new movie Zack and Miri Make a Porno. He played a preivew for it, then brought out most of the cast, Seth Rogen, Elizabeth Banks, Traci Lords, Jason Mewes, Justin Long and a couple others I didn't recognized. If you like Kevin Smith movies, or any of the recent Seth Rogen stuff this movie looked really promising. It doesn't look like its going to break any barriers for those who don't care for their style of movies. The cast was all funny, seemed to get along. They talked a bit about making the movie but a majority of the audience questions were aimed at Kevin Smith. How he got into the business, how does he work with the MPAA, how did he get into writing. What I expect is the usual fanboy questions he gets asked but it didn't lessen the experience for me. Kevin smith came off as a genuinely nice guy who knows where his movies exist within Hollywood, what people think of them, what his critics say and he doesn't care. He makes the movies that he likes, with his friends and is going to ride that train for as long as they let him. I was glad I got to see him but it still didn't trump Joss Whedon's panel.
And yes, for those who've noticed, none of the panels I saw were actually about comics.
The Exhibition Hall
The second part of Comic-Con was the Exhibition hall. Somewhere between hour long panels I manged to break off long enough to walk it a few times. This was where, presumably in the past there were comic books to be bought and sold. I think I noticed some off in the corner but they had been pushed aside for Big Media's entertainment booths. Pretty much any movie/tv show with even the faintest hint of a connection to anything Sci-fi or fantasy had a huge section rented out there. Fans completely encircling their booths, packed 6 or 7 people deep. Grasping for swag like drunken co-eds at Mardi Gras. It was a mess. A beautiful mess. Of awesomeness. I loved it. there just something about being there that brings out the inner hoarder in you. If it's given away for free you must have it. Case in point; I saw a few people carrying a mega 3ft by 4ft "Wonder Woman" swag bag over their shoulder. I finally stopped one of them to ask about it. When they smiled and politely told me they had gotten it the day before, the only day they were available, I wanted to kill them on the spot. I quickly calculated that I probably couldn't fit their dead body into the mega 3ft by 4ft "Watchmen" swag bag I already had, so I gave them a pass. I liked my bag better but there was something about the fact that their's was different and I couldn't get one that just made me want it more. Thankfully later in the day, after all the Watchmen bags were gone, some chump asked me where I had gotten mine. I smiled and politely pointed out where the booth was, but told them unfortunately they had run out last time I walked by it. So that was what that felt like? Yeah... taste the douche.
And speaking of douches I caught this guy sitting next to me at lunch:
I nearly punched him out of reflex alone.
The People
Along with the buckets of people dressed as SuperHeros you would expect, Klingons were to be found, along with some Minbari, a Narn, dozens of Jedi, Sith, Storm Troopers, a few Indiana Jones and Dr Irina Spalkos, Cylons (both classic and the new 'skin job' variety), Naturo characters, Twilight Vampires (thanks to my sister for pointing them out to me), Sailor Moon Scouts, Air Benders, Spartans, Ryu, Cloud, Pikachu, a LARPer, a handful of characters wearing cat ears and carrying giant swords I didn't recognize (fuck manga), and no less than a dozen Princess Leias in the slave outfit. Speaking of, I'm kinda over the whole Princess Leia look these days. While the outfit is, and always will be, undeniable hot, and I do applaud the women courageous enough to wear it in public, it's lost a bit of the geekiness that made it so great. There was an added level of hotness to a woman who knew enough about nerd lore to recognize that outfit for what it was and what it meant to us. Where as now you may have simply happened upon such knowledge having watched an episode of Friends. That's just how I feel anyway. And on this topic I wanted to make a special mention about the women who come to conventions like these dressed up. I found that like the other cons I've been to, the women can be divided into 2 categories in this regard. There are the "hot" women of course. Sometimes called "booth babes" because they are usually models hired by the booth owner to help promote the product but can also be found reluctantly dragged around by their reformed-geek boyfriend in his favorite heroine's outfit to an event. They're almost always what people would consider attractive in the real world. Generally they're in great shape and possibly sport artificial 'enhancements' to further cement their attractiveness in society's eyes. As a guy, I take no umbrage to them being there or dressing like that of course, but there's something about the insincerity that doesn't appeal to me. Then we have the other women. Those often in the 'real world', finding themselves as pieces of a puzzle that don't quiet match up, considered weird, frumpy or whatever else they're called because they don't conform. This is where everything fits together. This is where they stand above the rest. They are ether unaware of their 'imperfections' or most often, from those I've had the pleasure of meeting, simply do not care. And I love them for it. :)
Overall I was very glad I went to the Comic con. I'm going to hit it up again next year, possibly staying for more than just the one day. If you're in the area I would definitely recommend going at least once, even if it doesn't seem like something you would normally be interested in. The one day pass was only $30 and one day at Comic Con is overflowing with enough events to keep anyone busy.
P.s. I'm going to get a Flickr slide show going with some of the pics we took as soon as possible.
Thursday, August 7, 2008 at 12:56AM 