Alex’s Comic-Con Adventure- Day One
FRIDAY, a.k.a. “Star Wars Day”
Since I was just a young whippersnapper of 15 or 16 years I first dreamt of going to the eden that is Comic-Con. Every year I would tell myself, “Some day I’ll go. Some day I’ll have money and I’ll go to Comic-Con and my life will be complete.” But even then it felt like a distant dream, one that was destined to be unfulfilled.
Until now.
Even as my mother and I walked the four blocks or so to the San Diego Convention Center, during which we saw this guy:
…I was still not entirely convinced that this was actually going to happen. I figured something would happen, the security guards would figure out I wasn’t supposed to be there and drag me kicking and screaming out the door. But then my mom grabbed her pass and gave me one of her coworkers who had yet to arrive, and then we were inside the exhibition hall, and I literally said to her, “This is the best day of my life.” And it may have been.
The first thing that struck me was how massive the convention center was.
I walked from end to end during my ten hours there and still really only saw about 60% of the exhibition floor. My mom’s coworker wasn’t arriving until later in the day, so I had free reign to use her pass and go to panels until she showed up. So I hurried to Room 6 to see the Farscape 10th Anniversary Panel, which rocked my world. Afterwards, I felt a sense of complete serenity. If someone had shot me dead right then and there I would have died with a smile on my face.
Farscape 10th Anniversary Panel
The panel was moderated by Keith R.A. DeCandido, writer for all the Farscape comics, and featured co-creators Rockne S. O’Bannon and Brian Henson (son of Jim) and stars Ben Browder (Crichton) and Claudia Black (Aeryn). First off, let me say that Claudia Black is just as hot in person as she is on the show, and surprisingly so now that she’s 36 years old. The panel was mainly there to promote the upcoming 10th Anniversary DVD set, but I wasn’t really that interested as I already own the originals and it’s not being released on Blu-Ray for some bizarre reason. I was really there to gawk at seeing some of my favorite characters of all time in person, and to get little tidbits of info on the future of Farscape from Brian and Rockne.
Thankfully, the webisode series is not dead, and the hope is that it will act as a lead-in to the “next big chapter in the Farscape saga.” The creators were vague on what that chapter would actually be, but my bets are on either a made-for-TV/DVD movie or another miniseries. At the end, a representative from the Guinness Book of World Records came to present Brian with a record Farscape had achieved- the TV show with the most visual effects ever. Brian seemed genuinely surprised, which was sweet. When the panel was over there was a mad rush for autographs, which I joined, but Ben and Claudia were shuffled off before I could get to either of them. I did get to about two feet from Ben though, which made my day. And my day was just beginning.
Afterwards I walked the floor for a bit. Friday was “Star Wars Day” for some reason, so the exhibition hall was overflowing with stormtroopers, Darth Vaders, and Mandalorian warriors.
I headed to the Sideshow Collectibles booth to check out their sweet models and dioramas, although I’d never be dumb enough to drop $500 on a statuette of Aragorn (despite what many of you may think). The stuff they had on display was AWESOME, here’s just a taste:
I entered a raffle to win some free miniatures, but didn’t win anything. Great story, right?
My mom informed me that I could hang onto the badge for a bit more, so I decided to try and get into the taping of G4’s “Attack of the Show,” more because I have a crush on Olivia Munn than because I watch the show that much. I didn’t get there early enough so I didn’t get in, but I did catch Olivia walking by and saw half of her face as she passed, which gave me a minor half-chub.
I continued to wander the floor, running into hordes of wacky costumes:
Hilarious picture
There was a small Avatar display, including this life-size mech-warrior.
Unfortunately I missed the Avatar panel and footage screening, which was on Thursday, but this was almost as cool. Almost…
There were two displays for games that purported to involve “mind control,” one with the Star Wars brand. I never got to try them so I don’t know if they’re bullshit or not, but the basic idea as I garnered was this: strap a sensor around your forehead, which plugs into the device. Think really, really hard and the device will shoot out pressurized air, which makes a ping-pong ball hover. I think the idea was if you wanted it to hover up to say, 6 inches, you just concentrate as hard as possible on the number 6, and hypothetically the ball will rise that high. Hypothetically.
I headed to the BOOM! Comics booth to get my Farscape comics signed by Keith R.A. DeCandido. I also wanted to pick up D’argo’s Lament #4, but got so excited when I shook hands with Keith that I bought #3, which I already owned, and had him sign it before I realized my mistake. So now I have a total of three signed Farscape comics. At first I figured I’d sell the extra one on EBay, then realized I’d had him sign it “To Alex.” So… yeah. He was really nice though, and told me to come back at 2:00 P.M. when Rockne S’Obannon would be signing as well. I did, and got to meet the man behind Farscape, SeaQuest DSV, and Alien Nation. He was friendly and gave me some advice for getting into television writing. It was generic (“keep writing”) but I appreciated it.
Some other cool shit:
The Bat-Pod
Spongebob made out of LEGOs
Dexter action figures (which I almost bought)
Props from the show
I saw Stan Lee twice:
And the guy who plays Chewbacca, but I decided I didn’t need a photo of him. Mark Hamill was signing autographs, but the line was massive so I just memorized his face with my eyeballs and moved on.
Then probably the best moment of the whole day happened. I didn’t think I could top the Farscape panel, until I spotted Colonel Tigh standing at a random booth. I rushed over and realized actor Michael Hogan was signing autographs and taking photos with fans. The photo only costed $10, so I jumped at the opportunity and had my picture taken with him:
Whooooaaaaa......
I was kinda shocked by how friendly he was. I thought, “Aren’t you supposed to be all grouchy, and you know, Canadian pirate-like?” But he was super cool and nice and shook my hand and seemed genuinely pleased that I had asked him to take his picture with me. That’s probably because Edward James Olmos was standing at the table adjacent to him, which I realized afterward. James Callis (Gaius Baltar) was there too, although I’m not sure he was signing anything. Dude’s mad short.
I figured, “Well, I can’t get my picture with Tigh and not Adama. Also, it’s Edward fucking Olmos.” Eddie’s price was a little steeper- $20, but I just knew I had to shake his hand and take a picture with him, too. So I did:
I briefly considered having him autograph one of the many photos of him for $55, but figured as I didn’t have a job and was freeloading off my mom it probably wasn’t a good idea. One of them was really excellent, and I wish I had taken a photo of it in hindsight- it was that stenciled Obama “Hope” poster, with the red and blue coloring, only it was a picture of Eddie and said “Adama.” Which is really funny, because Alison and I had previously joked about how much “Obama” sounds like “Adama,” and how funny it would be if Barack played Adama and on the show everyone came up to him and said, “Admiral Obama, the Cylons are attacking!!” (Alison’s actually busy making a shirt with the Adama poster logo)
Adam Baldwin, a.k.a. Jayne Cobb of Firefly fame was there too, and seemed kinda like his character, but without the sociopathic tendencies.
I would have liked to have a photo with him too, but I was low on cash and frankly, Jayne just wasn’t worth it.
Coming off the high of meeting EDWARD FUCKING OLMOS, I didn’t really know what to do with myself, so I headed back to my mom’s booth. She gave me her badge and said I could go try and get in to another panel. I headed to Hall H, the big hall, which holds approximately 6,500 people, to see the District 9 preview and panel, which happened to be paired with another Sony Pictures movie, some whack Christian-themed action film called Legion. The line was massive:
By the time the panel was slated to begin, I had only made it halfway through the line, and was about to give up when a Con employee informed us that the panel for 9 had just started, and the District 9 / Legion panel had been pushed back by 45 mins. He said we had a good chance of getting in. So I waited in line for another hour, and chatted with the people waiting with me. Normally I’m shy when it comes to meeting new people, but I felt no fear talking to any of the geeks at Con, probably because they were all far more awkward and less attractive than me and had similar interests. They were also generally friendly, which was a surprise.
Something that I found particularly amusing was the drama caused by New Moon’s presence at the Con. The day before I watched news reports about the panel, and how flocks of tween girls with IQs of 0 camped out to get a glimpse of Robert “I’ve never heard of a comb” Paterson, and how when he showed up there was nearly a riot as the under-sexed female horde surrounded him. The thing is, the hardcore geeks, the people who really appreciate Comic-Con, despise Twilight, and even more, despise anyone who likes it. I was definitely on their side, especially since the wastes of space who would have jerked off onto RP if they had dicks had only come to San Diego to see the New Moon panel, and couldn’t give a shit about the rest of the convention.
By the time I finally made it to the front of the line, another employee came up and told us that the District 9 panel was already underway. Next up was the Star Wars Spectacular, which I definitely would have gotten into, but it focused almost entirely on the animated Clone Wars show which I had absolutely no
interest in. I could have sat through that and then waited for the Peter Jackson / James Cameron panel, but I had to return my mom’s badge by 6 and didn’t really feel like waiting. Also, I realized I hadn’t eaten or drank anything since 8:30 that morning, and was thus suffering from intense dehydration and mild heat exhaustion. I hurried back into the exhibition hall and grabbed an overpriced hot-dog and bottle of water. Then I decided to check out some of the new videogames that were on display.
I watched someone play Brütal Legend, which looked awesome and which I will now definitely buy. Tim Schafer is the man, and Jack Black has a funny voice. Then I played a little bit of Dante’s Inferno, a game I had no prior interest in at all, but which was surprisingly fun. It came off like the Xbox 360’s answer to God of War. Speaking of which, GOW III was on display as well, but it was a little too packed to get to. Then I watched a bit of The Saboteur demo, which looked interesting but didn’t completely convince me. I’ll need to play it first. I did get to play some of Batman: Arkham Asylum, which was a lot of fun and is definitely worth checking out in August when it’s released. Beat em’ up games are always entertaining, and it features the voice-acting talents of Mark Hamill as the Joker and Kevin Conway as Batman / Bruce Wayne, both of which voiced said characters on The Animated Series. I also fooled around with the Dead Space: Extraction demo, a rail-gun spin-off for the Wii. It was a lot of fun, but obviously not as good as the original.
Feeling on the verge of fainting, I meandered about for a bit more before heading back to the hotel. The coolest thing I saw during the latter part of the day was a huge display of props and costumes from LOST, including:
Sawyer's DHARMA jumpsuit
The Hatch
1977 new DHARMA recruits photo
Hurley's winning lotto numbers
Ben's fake passport
Locke's suicide note
There was also one of MJ’s gloves, which was kind of morbid.
I stumbled back to my hotel and marveled at my first day’s haul of schwag:
Learning from my experience at the District 9 fiasco, I decided to get up bright and early the next day and get in line for the LOST final season panel two hours in advance. This time, I decided, I’m bringing some fucking water.
That night, while wandering around in the abysmal neighborhood that surrounds the convention center looking for food, I met an LA native who directed me a pizza place. He tried to act like Californian pizza is just as good as New York or Chicago-style, and is merely “different,” and his naivete prompts me to address all Californians:
YOUR PIZZA SUCKS. Really. It really, really sucks. Don’t try to argue. I don’t care if you’ve had pizza in New York. Doesn’t matter. I don’t care what part of California you’re from. There’s just no two ways around it. You’re pizza sucks balls. So please… please… stop trying to act like it’s good. I know you Californians are very proud of your heritage. I know that if you’re from LA, all you like to do is talk about how awesome LA is, and about how everything on the east coast is sub-par to you pinnacle of modern metropolises. And yes, you’re probably right- our Mexican food isn’t as good. Big surprise, as we’re not the state bordering fucking Mexico. But save yourself some embarrassment and stop trying to act like you have good pizza. Because you don’t. And every time you talk about “California-style pizza,” you just sound like an asshole.
