San Diego Comic-Con report YEA
Saturday, July 14
LJ ate this part when I tried to first make the cut tag. :( To summarize: I drove down Saturday night to San Diego and wandered around the Convention Center and the Gaslamp by myself. I ate mediocre gelato and overpriced salad & french fries. Still, pleasant enough evening.
Sunday, July 15
The target arrival time for Comic-Con was 8:30am... which meant 9am. In actuality, I arrived at 9:15am.
This ^ happened before I got to the Convention Center.
Once I got my pass (it said Professional on it!!) I began to walk the exhibitor's hall.
It was CROWDED.
You probably heard this from most people who came to Comic-Con. The lines for all the Hall H panels were hours long. Two of my friends waited 5 hours to get into the Legends of Kora panel - not even in Hall H! - and couldn't get in.
There's a bunch of reasons for the crowds, mostly (I think) to do with the increased Hollywood presence. The stars attract throngs of people, whether in Hall H or in the exhibitor's hall at the WB Booth.
Anyways, the first stop ended up being the CBLDF booth. I remembered from WonderCon that they sold nice copies of the graphic novels/trades I wanted to own. Instead of a book, I walked away with this t-shirt. It's soft. The print of the poem it's taken from, "The Day the Saucers Came" hangs above my computer desk. It's signed by Neil Gaiman too.
Eventually I coordinated with ivy_rat and her daughter/my friend Winter. We met up at the Dark Horse booth.
We did some walking around the Hall. We managed to bump our way through to the far end to see our friend Jim. He was working at a toy company booth near the WB area. I think the cast of Supernatural was over there while we were talking to Jim. We didn't see anything, sadly. Soooo maaaany faaaans. Once we had enough, it was panel time. Raina Telgemeier and a few other young adult/children's comic book writers were doing a panel where they read from their new works aloud. Telgemeier has a graphic novel coming out called Drama. I read her previous work, Smile. I like her style. I really enjoyed the dramatic readings. Sunday is kids day at Comic-Con. So, the authors weren't afraid to do funny voices and make the kids in the audience laugh.
I skipped out towards the end of the Q&A to go to the Jane Espenson panel. A friend of mine helped organize it. Most of the panel was about her webseries Husbands. The panelists, which included Jane, her co-writer/star Cheeks, the other star, and the director, were hilarious. The audience asked nice questions. Even though I've never seen the show before, I still could follow the conversation. ALSO! They played a clip from Season 2... with guest star Joss Whedon, playing an agent. :D
Besides the clip, my favorite part was the discussion about online original video content being the next step after TV and cable. I've probably mentioned this before, but Jeff and I don't own a TV. We consume TV produced content on Hulu, Netflix, YouTube, iTunes, Amazon, etc. The arrangement works for me. Plus we don't have space for a TV.
After the panel, I enjoyed a hot dog outside.
San Diego is beautiful.
My tranquil moment in the sun over, I headed BACK to the exhibitor's hall in search of more swag. By the time my panel rolled around, I had purchased Fables Vol. 16 and book 1 of Locke and Key. Fables has been my favorite series for several years. I first learned about Locke and Key at the horror panel I attended at WonderCon earlier in the year. It's written by Joe Hill, an author who happens to be Stephen King's son. Hill said smart and entertaining things on the panel. Also, he's fun on Twitter. I'm not sure if I will like Locke and Key. The Walking Dead pushes my comfort zone already. But I wanted to read something new-ish.
Since I stayed away from Hall H, I missed the big Doctor Who panel. Thankfully, friend Robyn braved the lines. EEE I can't wait for next season! She told me & Winter all about it what the panel showed and talked about while we slowly walked through the exhibitor's hall. We steered ourselves towards the Small Press area.
I loved walking through that area when I went to con several years ago with Pauline and Rachel. Even that section was crowded this year! I was bummed. It made window shopping a chore. I met up with ivy_rat again at Larry Marder's booth. Larry's nice. Ivy introduced me to her long-time friend Kathy. Kathy and I ended up talking about con, theatre, and photography. She raved over the National Theatre of England's broadcast series, NT Live. They show NT productions at movie theatres across the country.
Next stop was THE HARRY POTTER PANEL!
I was nervous.
Thankfully chickadilly/Lea let me have one of her water bottles. The nervousness was making me thirsty! On a side note, I LOVED seeing Lea at the panel. We had dinner together maybe a month or two ago. The last time I saw her so often was in college. :)
I hadn't met any of the other panelists before. I didn't know where to go, so I hung outside. The first panelist I met was Joey Richter from Team StarKid. He's known for playing Ron Wesley in their Potter musicals. Nice person!
When the room emptied out of its previous panel, we met the other panelists and went backstage. I didn't realize panels had backstage areas in the rooms... We actually walked on as a group onstage. The lights were even semi-dimmed, and we had a jumbo-tron! Lea snapped this picture with her phone:
From left to right: Andrew Simms from Hypable & MuggleCast, Julia Thomas from the International Quiddith Association, Jarrod Perkins from the Harry Potter Alliance, Alex Carpenter of the Remus Lupins wizard wrock band, myself, Hilly and Hannah from the Hillywood Show, and Joey from Team StarKid (who you can't see but was on the end). I'm wearing my Gryffindor sweater from the 2006 Masquerade where I was Ron Wesley.
Andrew moderated. We talked about what drives the fandom today, what keeps it together even though the last book came out 5 years ago. It was neat to be up there with people who are a part of this current wave of fandom! I've been more of a supporter than a content creator. I think my favorite moments came from audience questions. One person asked what house we were all sorted to in Pottermore. We got solid answers... till it was my turn. I haven't been sorted because I can't find the hat. The panel determined that I was probably Hufflepuff, but honestly who knows because a Hufflepuff would probably be able to find the hat. :) The people to my left hadn't been sorted either. They said they just hadn't gotten around it it yet.
Another question was what quote or part of the series is our favorite. We had "You're a wizard, Harry!," and "Not my daughter, you bitch!" I think someone said "Of course it is happening inside your head, Harry, but why on earth should that mean that it is not real?" The latter is what is included in probably my favorite part in the whole series. The scenes in book 7, when Harry is walking through the forest to meet Voldemort, and the aftermath with Dumbledore in the white room, were intense. The combination of tears from Harry seeing his loved ones again combined with my joy and amazment that JK Rowling both killed Harry and let him live... good memories.
The panel was so much fun!
Once the panel was over, Lea and I headed to the Exhibitor's Hall. We tried to get in... but the guards said it was closed. :( Ivy, Winter, et co were doing their traditional con run, where they try to walk from one side of the hall to the other as many times as they can before the guards make them leave. Once they were kicked out, we all met up in the floor. The guards then cleared out that area, appearntly a first for con? I heard that con got a new security company this year and that has caused some oddness all around.
After more talking outside, Lea said goodbye. Ivy, Kathy, and I headed to Ivy's car. Kathy and I had dinner at Panera, while Ivy and family looked on. They had dinner plans with friend of theirs. They have dinner with this family every year after con, which is why Kathy and I didn't go. We didn't know them. Then it was back to the convention centy with Kathy, who has been going to con since the 1980s. It was fun to pick her brain about how the experience has changed. According to her, Hollywood started to get more involved with Comic Con in the 1990s, after the first Batman movie came out. Comic Con became an incubator of sorts for new projects. Somehow this developed into the intense film and TV presence we have today!
It's too much, in my opinion. I understand shows like Doctor Who, Supernatural, and Community coming with large panels. Besides the crossover audience, those are basically genre shows. There's enough of a link to comics to justify its attendance. But Shameless?? Sons of Anarchy?? Nothing supernatural, sci-fi, fantasy about those.
I talked a lot about this with my friend Jim on the way home (same Jim who was working the con).
Overall, an enjoyable day. I was SO TIRED when I got home at 1am this morning.