Thanks Kevin. Not just for the recap, but for a reminder that Breathed is
still putting out Bloom County. Can't believe I'd forgotten...If you have the
chance to see him give a talk, take it.
I'll second Kevin's recommendation for checking out the Gaslamp District. It's
a great break from the convention hall, and is arguably better for people
watching. As Comic Con continues to grow, I'd expect the Gaslamp action to
increase even more.
I assume no luck with the Conan tapings?
David
On Saturday, July 21, 2018, 3:30:00 AM EDT, Kevin M.
<[email protected]> wrote:
As promised, a few words on Comic Con.
First point of praise: When I was there years ago, there were con staffers
whose job it was to scold anybody who dared to sit in line or lean against
walls in line. Back then failure to comply with their orders would get you
ejected from the event. Luckily, those days are gone, and crowd control in
general was handled in a friendlier manner.
First point of criticism: Event planners need to put a food court on site. I
didn’t even discover the food trucks over behind the baseball stadium until the
end of my second day. If the city wants to cut the congestion of the city
streets, put some food options in the convention center.
Most of the panels I attended were good. The Robotech panel was promoted as a
look at Harmony Gold’s plans for an upcoming movie now that they’ve worked out
the rights to everything... but no, it was a look at all the overpriced product
tie-ins (“... Spaceballs, the bed sheets!...”).
By far, my favorite panel experience was the Mad Magazine panel. They planned
and prepared in advance so although it was less spontaneous than most, it was
more engaging and entertaining. They teased upcoming features, promoted the
brand, and discussed the changes since the staff’s move to Burbank... and it
was fun... and I want to invest in real estate with Allie Geortz. She’s my new
Twitter crush.
Second point of criticism: The exhibit hall, aka the sales floor. Back in my
Peace Corps days, I was one of few volunteers who genuinely enjoyed the Asian
bazaars, with street food and knock off merchandise and haggling in foreign
languages and general chaos. But those bazaars have nothing on the
claustrophobic pandemonium of the exhibit hall. My man boobs haven’t
experienced that much action in 20 years. Frankly, the big name media companies
like Fox and Marvel need to move to another room or series of rooms, as the
biggest obstacle for navigating the exhibition hall were the people waiting in
long lines for exclusive comic con merchandise. I liked chatting with the
people behind their counters who were all eager to talk about their art and
their craft, but it was impossible while being jostled and molested.
Second point of praise: Although the merchandise is still all cluttered
together, a lot of the big and small companies have taken advantage of the
downtown area (the Gaslamp District) to erect areas focused on their brands and
media, with rides and themed foods and performance stages... and those areas
are accessible to even those who do not buy Comic Con tickets. “The Good Place”
probably did the best job in that regard, and the unique pop-up gallery for
Peanuts/Snoopy next door to the Chuck Jones Gallery was small but awesome.
In terms of any TV related stuff, I attended the Voltron panel this morning.
I’d only barely registered that the animated series had been resurrected, and
knew very little about it, but whenever I have attended Comic Con, I experience
a group of people (both creators and fans) who share a passion and a love for
something, and their collective joy brings me joy, even if I don’t totally
share their passion or love. I experienced that at the Voltron panel. They
screened the next season premiere, and for any who might follow the series, I
won’t give spoilers, except that one major character is revealed to be gay... a
revelation which was met with cheers of joy if not ecstasy from the true fans
as they watched the storyline unfold. It isn’t done flamboyantly, and it was
frankly done in such a way that a kid young enough to not be aware of human
sexuality might not even pay much attention to it.
I did not attend today’s big Hall H panel for Star Trek Discovery (people
camped out overnight to get into all the Hall H events, H being the biggest
room with the events most-hyped... I am not the camping type), but I did get
all the Trek spoilers. Notably, although I lament the cancellation of TNT’s The
Librarians, the Trek people could not have done a better job casting Rebecca
Romijn as the enigmatic first first officer of the Enterprise, known in the
pilot episode only as Number One. I’m still unwilling to fork over money for
CBS All Access, but she is a perfect choice for that. I attended most of the
separate Rod Roddenberry panel, but that was mostly a review of trinkets and
memorabilia from the Roddenberry estate that was going to be for sale this
year.
I attended a panel of the Transformers: Unicron comic book line, which will
conclude all of the IDW publishing’s Transformers lines. They will still have
the Star Trek/Transformers crossover series of books, with the Trek
characterizations based on the old Filmation animated series... but ultimately
the comic books don’t relate to the TV shows or movies.
Another panel I found fascinating was Max Allan Collins discussing his friend
and mentor, the late Mickey Spillane, creator of the Mike Hammer character. I
knew next to nothing about Spillane himself, why he stopped writing, how his
writing led directly to the success of the Ian Fleming James Bond novels, and
on and on. This was a very interesting hour.
A panel I sat through but lost interest in was the Shooting Clerks panel, a
panel featuring the cast and crew of the movie about how Kevin Smith created
the original movie Clerks almost 25 years ago. I think I’m just suffering from
Kevin Smith fatigue.
I’m not a big seeker or collector of autographs, but I did secure an autograph
of the creator of Bloom County, Berkeley Breathed. Since he resurrected Opus
and Bill as an online strip, I’ve made a point of buying all of his book
releases to support the free entertainment he has given me. Good humor must be
recognized and subsidized in these trying times. I didn’t wait in line in the
hall of autographs or whatever they call it this year, not because they didn’t
have good people there, but names on pieces of paper has never been my thing...
but I wanted Breathed’s. I wanted to shake his hand and thank him.
I did take part in cosplay this year, but because I can never do what everybody
else does, I didn’t choose a character from science fiction or fantasy... I
chose John Wayne as Rooster Cogburn... I even grew my sideburns long for the
first time since I was maybe 10 years old. The eyepatch, which thankfully went
over my blind eye, became itchy after a while, so by the end of the day I was
less Rooster Cogburn and more the Cowboy from the Village People.
I think I saw more women cosplaying as the new Doctor than any other character,
though a close second would have to be Harley Quinn, which still annoys me.
Lots of Assassins Creed guys this year, and lots of Jedi. I saw nobody dressed
as characters from the new Han Solo movie, and nobody dressed as characters
from Star Trek Discovery.
I had two favorite costumes. The first was a blind boy dressed as Ash from
Pokémon, but what clinched it was his seeing eye dog dressed as Pikachu. The
second costume, and if this sounds like I’m making fun of the woman I’m not
because she totally owned it, was a biggish woman dressed as a TARDIS, but the
reason I said she owned it was because she chose to extend her already large
frame by incorporating a massive hoop skirt into the costume design, the end
result being a TARDIS the size of a Volkswagen, and people had to acknowledge
her and make way for her as she strutted through the convention center with a
happy, satisfied smile.
In a related note, there are several non-fans who show up to Comic Con in
character, and they are paid by somebody to promote something. And despite most
of these paid cosplayers being physically attractive women, there is a fakery
to taking money to pretend to be a fan to lure people over to your display
booth or whatever, and it bugs me. But one group in particular might have (and
I’m still digesting this mentally and emotionally, so I may take all of this
back in the morning) crossed the line of good taste, and they were a group of
women dressed as members of the Manson family (the cult of murderers under the
spell of Charles Manson) walking around like moon-eyed hippies — not breaking
character — saying things like “Charlie loves you”... all to promote the
pending release of yet another film about Manson. It just felt
tasteless/tactless/shameless. Maybe tomorrow I’ll realize it was just a cheap
publicity gimmick and I should just calm down about it, but I found the very
idea distasteful.
Overall I had a positive experience at Comic Con, but I went into it not
looking to rush around and meet everybody and get all the exclusive
merchandise, but rather to just relax and gather and talk amongst fellow geeks.
Perhaps those who try to cram more into a day would’ve found this year’s Comic
Con too much or too overflowing. I mean, there were panels I wanted to get into
but was unable to attend for various reasons, but my mindset was just to do
what I could and not worry about what I couldn’t accomplish. I took a break
from my life to let loose and be goofy; if that notion sounds good for you,
then I recommend Comic Con. If you’re the type who feels compelled to adhere to
a strict schedule and gets all hot and bothered when things don’t go as
planned, you might want to skip Comic Con.
On Thu, Jul 12, 2018 at 3:30 PM 'David Bruggeman' via TVorNotTV
<[email protected]> wrote:
Hey Kevin,
Congrats on getting the tickets.
Based on my experience last year, here's what advice I can offer on the free
stuff. TL;DR - plan ahead and expect to wait.
If you think one of the panels you're interested in seeing will be popular (or
at least popular enough to fill whatever room it's scheduled in), you'd be well
served to get there early, even early enough to see the panel before. You
probably already know how crazy it is to get into Hall H, but I discovered that
their second biggest room, Ballroom 20, it at least as bad. But it can happen
to small rooms that have a panel booked that's popular enough. For me last
year it was the Adam Savage panel. Room seated less than 400 but effectively
filled up almost immediately after the last panel ended.
There may be one or more local galleries in the Gaslight district that have
Comic-Con themed exhibits. This would be in addition to the things like what
NBC is doing for The Good Place, and likely smaller. I went to one that had
costumes and the captain's chair from Star Trek Discovery. They will most
likely be free, but there will be lines due to limited space.
Similarly, at least look in the guidebooks to see if there's something that
might interest you in the official venues outside of the convention hall.
There were plenty of interesting things in a small theater in the Gaslight (I
checked out a panel of voice actors there 'moderated' by John DiMaggio/Bender)
I was standby for all the Conan tapings through whatever audience service
handled it. As best as I could tell, they didn't release any. You can try
your luck standing in line, but since you're only at the Con Thursday and
Friday, either skip it or consider doing it on Wednesday (they may or may not
tape on Saturday).
I don't have any vendor or panel requests. The Peanuts merch booth was
impressive, but the line was *always* long. Plenty of great art to check out.
Have fun.
Best,David
On Thursday, July 12, 2018, 12:37:52 AM EDT, Kevin M.
<[email protected]> wrote:
I years ago stopped trying to get tickets to SDCC since they sell out seconds
after they are made available online, but I have a friend, and she worked some
magic... long story short, I’ll be geeking next Thursday and Friday in
America’s Finest City. I have a lengthy list of panels I hope to gain
admittance to, but if anybody has anything they’d like me to check out while
I’m there and report back to the group, let me know. It is possible I will even
do some cosplay while I’m there. Money is extra tight, so please don’t ask me
to check out any of the sideshow events that require extra fees (unless you
want to contribute to the cause!).
A few of the TV related stuff I plan to check out includes panels on Stargate,
Mickey Spillane, Snoopy, Robotech, Voltron, Robot Chicken, Bob’s Burgers, and
Archer. I also plan to check out the section of downtown San Diego that NBC is
converting into “The Good Place” (they might have frozen yogurt or clam
chowder... either way, I’m happy), and I’m on the stand-by list for ConanCon
admission.
It’s my first vacation in years, and I intend to make the most of it. Again,
ideas for any events or vendors to check out while I’m there are welcome.--
Kevin M. (RPCV)
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