COMIC-CON
CONFESSIONAL
In
the spirit of Comic-Con, lets imagine for a moment this
article is a comic strip. Frame One is a wide shot of a
convention centre larger than several combined airplane
hangers, swarming with tens of thousands of ant-like people.
Some are made of larger pen strokes than others (the people
in Optimus Prime costumes, natch), yet our artist can
somehow convey to you, the reader, that one of the smallest
dots near the front is me, entering that giant room. We zoom
right in on my dot for Frame Two: here’s me, mouth agape,
people pushing and shoving past me on all sides, a speech
bubble over my head filled with nothing but an exclamation
mark to express the inarticulate gulping noise I’m making.And I’ve barely walked through the door.
I swim across the current of four thousand people, pulling myself over at the nearest wall to take stock. We’ll use this rest break to fill you in, dear reader, on a couple of important facts. Firstly, I’m Australian, and I’m here all alone. The idea that I might even have the smallest chance of journeying to San Diego for Comic Con didn’t enter my world until late January, so I was a fool and only went online to purchase my tickets then: a silly 6 months out from the event. Turns out the regular attendees can pre-register for next year during each event, leaving few tickets remaining. Hence, the full 4 day membership for the 2010 event was sold out online some 9 months in advance. All that was available to me was a one-day pass for Thursday and a one-day pass for Sunday. I bought them both as a precaution, then waited until late May to get the actual confirmation (from my job, real life etc) that I’d be in the USA at the right time to attend.
These
last few years, the fire marshals in charge of San Diego’s
Convention Center have cut off ticket sales at 126,000. And
clearly, with tickets selling out as early as they do, there
are more people willing and able to go. It’s for this reason
that the two very fine cities of Las Vegas and Los Angeles
are both attempting to steal Comic Con from its San Diego
home of the last 40 years – they can both offer larger
convention space and cram in more attendees.It’s the opinion of this lonely little Aussie, pinned against a wall trying to come up with a game plan, that 126,000 is more than enough. And the icon that is San Diego Comic Con International (SDCC) should be left alone. But time will tell on that front. Back to the scared child (age 29), clutching a program and the false hope that she’d see panels in several different rooms that day.
I’ve had my iPod (Glee soundtrack) plugged in for the last hour while breakfasting and walking down but realize it’s time to unplug and start overhearing the buzz of the room – namely that people have been queuing for seats in the main panel room “Hall H” since, I dunno, 2 weeks ago? So clearly I will need to devote some time to lining up today. Check.
It’s still early, about 9am, so I wander (am swept with the masses) for 2 hours through Hall G – the vendor room. Anything you could think to buy/fondle/photograph that is Geek/Anime /Genre /sooo-in-right-now is there in that room, along with the mega stands for television networks (WB, Fox etc) and major companies like DC, Lucasfilm, Marvel and Lego. At various stages throughout the next four days, the stars of some panels will be at these booths signing autographs for the little folk (and causing traffic jams) while TV networks will stream live from slightly elevated positions to give you at home an idea of what this famous event looks like.
Around 11am I stop for food – my choices being a pretzel, or a hot dog wrapped in a pretzel – and use this opportunity to decide once and for all what panels on my hand-written plan from the SDCC website (written the previous week while still in Aus and optimistic/hopeful/blissfully ignorant) I am not prepared to miss. Because by now, it is clear to me: pick a room and commit to it. I can’t bounce between panels/rooms as I had thought. The answer is obvious: Joss Whedon. I CANNOT MISS Joss Whedon. So, I forego Charlaine Harris (sorry Charlaine! Love your work!) and join the queue for Hall H three hours prior to Joss’s panel with JJ Abrams.
2
hours later (filling in part of that time re-watching Dr
Horrible on my netbook, coz that will never
not be funny) I find a seat in Hall H, about a kilometer
back from the stage but well-positioned for one of the giant
screens. Michelle Rodriguez and Aaron Eckhart were just
finishing up on stage (Battle: Los Angeles panel),
and two ladies in front of me were comparing the photos
they’d taken about 20 minutes prior of Angelina Jolie (Salt
panel). THIS WAS THE MOMENT…. The moment I realized that
seriously big movie stars would be here too – that this
event had grown beyond the mere geeks among us. Actually,
some geeks (I’ve discovered by reading their blogs) feel
that Hollywood is taking over SDCC. To them I say this:
BRUCE WILLIS JUST WALKED ON STAGE… And (to play my trump
card) his movie Red is based off a graphic novel.
Check and mate, naysayers. Hollywood is welcome
here, as far as I’m concerned.As I was completely unaware that Bruce would attend, insert the appropriate amount of SQUEEing (and texting OMG to Bruce fans back home), before I settled in to watch the panel and was astounded that (a) Bruce (sorry, Mr Willis) is a soft-spoken gentleman and (b) Helen Mirren, Red costar and Oscar-winner extraordinaire, is bloody funny.
Up
next was my personal deity, Joss Whedon. It is not the job
of this memoir to relate the gossip/news/jokes that were
revealed during this panel (mostly because I was too star
struck to write anything down. Youtube, people -- it has its
purpose!). All I can say is that Joss will take any
question thrown at him, and give an answer that could belong
in Buffy dialogue, (that’s how engrained his
“voice” is in the shows we love him for), and that he’ll do
a damn fine job of The Avengers, whenever he gets
round to starting in on it.Next panel in Hall H, which I hadn’t given prior thought to as I’d assumed I’d be in Ballroom 20 checking out Showtime’s virally-marketed “Anti-Heroes” panel, was the tough-guy cast of The Expendables. The Streisand writer/director/star in this mega-action-headsmasher is Sylvester Stallone – another big surprise on the “Hey! He’s FUNNY!” list. Sly was interrupted in his telling of anecdotes from the South American set by Bruce Willis, who wanders out (several beers into his evening, in my opinion) to praise Sly and the Expendables cast on being awesome in general. No objections from the audience – in fact one young man goes so far as to preface his question by telling the row of action heroes on stage that they, not his parents, had raised him. 45 minutes of discussing fun, fights, injuries and egos on-set, and the tough guys of The Expendables shuffle (in a manly way) off the stage.
The
excitement in Hall H builds. It builds a lot. The
next panel is the highly-anticipated cast of Scott
Pilgrim Vs The World. Based on
the graphic novels,
directed and co-written by the genius behind Hot Fuzz,
and starring a host of geeky icons (the most recent big
screen Superman, a Twilight human, and George.
Michael. BLUTH), this ode to love through video games,
comics and rock music sets itself up, upon one viewing of
the trailer, to possibly be THE movie of 2010. And yes, I
know I’m making a call THAT HUGE in the year of Eclipse
and Deathly Hallows, Part 1. I’m even more inclined
to stand by that call after Edgar Wright demonstrated just
how much he values the fans by escorting a few hundred
randomly selected audience members to a nearby movie theatre
to see the first private screening of
the film. Oh, how I
wish this account could be enhanced by the next sentence
revealing me to be among them, but alas I’m never
that lucky. As for the panel itself, it was entertaining and
all-too-brief, with a few too many cast members onstage to
give anyone besides Michael Cera and Brendan Routh much time
to speak (and these two only because they were the
recipients of pretty much every audience question). Simon
Pegg and Nick Frost briefly crashed the party, only to caper
about onstage for a moment and run away again. Too many
awesome people onstage at once? Mind = blown.Two days pass without me around to report on them. Amongst the panels missed that break my heart the most: Chuck, The Vampire Diaries, Tim Kring with Zach Quinto, more Joss Whedon, True Blood, Green Lantern, The announcement of The Avengers cast + many other Marvel (um…) marvels, Fringe, new Harry Potter footage, and Kevin Smith. The highlight (as I understand from my “research” – I told you, YouTube has it’s uses: Ryan Reynolds delivering the Green Lantern Oath to a small boy (who will probably now grow up to cure hate or something… or maybe just wear a lot of spandex).
Sunday: Day 2 for me, Day 4 for the convention and therefore the “quietest” day. It’s “kids day” in all the smaller rooms. Mega-room Hall H is not even used – the biggest panels are found in the 5000 seat Ballroom 20, which is where I, too, was to be found. I lined up 2 hours prior to the 10am start (Smallville panel) and thought I wasn’t too far back in the line… until it started to move, and after 20 minutes of mindless shuffling through snaking rows, I turned a corner and saw… another 400 metres of winding rows to shuffle through. Then beyond that, a lateral move indoors to retrace those last few hundred meters in a straight line before then reaching the doors. Luckily I made it inside and to a reasonably well-placed seat (another benefit of being a solo attendee – finding loose seats!) with a few minutes to spare before the first panel: not the case for many obvious fans of the Superman franchise, waltzing into the line up after 9am. At least the guy in the full spandex Superman suit made it in – that kind of dedication shouldn’t be left outside in the cold.
The
Smallville cast and producers came to discuss their
10th and final season, a veritable bucket list of Superman
lore and guest stars to pile into one season. Returning for
a short cameo in the series opener is Clark Kent’s hot Dad
John Schneider (Hi, Bo Duke!) who walked himself onto the
panel with the unofficial air of a hijacker, and
commandeered answers to many of the questions delivered to
other panel members. Tom Welling came to pitch his side
project (soon to be fulltime job) Hellcats, and
Justin “almost didn’t recognise ya with your shirt on”
Hartley seemed tired (possibly hungover) and yet somehow
still too sexy for words.Up next was the Supernatural panel, and the second occasion in four days I nearly shit myself (first being Bruce, if you didn’t catch that a few paragraphs ago). The reason this time? The only confirmed panel members were the three main exec producers… so imagine my surprise and delight when out walks Jensen Ackles, my all time #1 favourite TV dude EVAH, to introduce the preview of series 6, from the episode he directed himself. (Block your ears now.) SQUEEEEEE!
As
a director, Jensen shows promise – his short preview
reminiscent of some of Joss Whedon’s “for your Emmy
consideration” episodes, with loooong tracking shots and
artistic angles. As the main attraction of the cast for over
five years now, he is still enthusiastic, loves his fans,
and is charmingly Texan is some of his mannerisms (including
chewing gum with his mouth open, which I will forgive
because it is JENSEN EFFING ACKLES. Have you SEEN this
guy???)Sorry, I’m making it seem as though the rest of the cast did not attend. They did. The adorable Jared Padalecki somehow hauling all 6 foot 5 of himself onto the stage and acting his age, oddly enough, and the humorous/witty/life of the party Misha Collins were the other standouts. No particular news or gossip, except the hint that one year of show time will pass before the season opener – and for those like myself who raised a giant eyebrow at the microscopic cliffhanger in the last finale, that is going to make things interesting indeed.
Next was the American Dad panel, to which I only paid minimal attention (lunch break – pretzel time!), to note that Seth McFarlane is a surprise hottie. Charming, smiling and pleasant, he is… well, not Peter Griffin, as you may be forgiven for having assumed.
Time
to get seriously excited -- the Glee panel!
Although, it was very oddly done. In all previous panels,
the moderator introduced all cast and crew individually, so
they could walk onstage to applause relative to their
importance. The Glee team instead showed a
lengthy recap of Season 1 (probably 15 minutes worth of
whole scenes, like “Safety Dance”, Finn’s date with
Santana and Britney, Burt’s awesome telling-off to Finn for
homophobia, etc… Someone needs to be taught how to make a
proper montage) and during this, the cast and
producers quietly took the stage and sat there in darkness
until the end of the clip show. Despite this eating into our
time, the Glee folks were awesome. Ryan Murphy
revealed secrets of the new season that the cast was hearing
for the first time. Chris Colfer (Kurt) was easily the most
well-spoken and affable of the cast, and Naya Rivera
(Santana) presented the mashup name of Santitney for the
(inevitable?) on-screen smooch between her character and
audience fave Britney. Kevin McHale (Artie) was so painfully
shy I took about 15 photos attempting to get one of him
facing the audience, and my only success has his hands in
front of his mouth. A few brief audience questions and our
time was up! Hopefully the immense popularity of the show
(and the allegiance it owes to SDCC after the Glee
unveiling of 2009) will draw the adult cast -- Jane Lynch
(Sue Sylvester) and Jayma Mays (Emma) pleasepleaseplease --
in future years.
To
conclude my afternoon I strolled (was swept with the masses)
through the vendors in Hall G one last time, Glee
playing through my iPod, lost in thought. Will I come to
Comic-Con again? Hard to tell -- I may simply be too
terrified to attempt it. The sheer volume of people can’t be
expressed with numbers like 126,000 spread through a handful
of indoor rooms equating to perhaps a few acres. The
people-watching factor is phenomenal, and almost worth it
all on its own -- and I don’t just mean watching the icons
of the big and small screens. The fans who attend, in all
their varying levels of crazy and efforts at costumes,
deserve a huge pat on the collective back, and make for
interesting and eye-catching fun in every direction you
look. The prestigious number of great (or at least famous)
actors adding every year to the ginormity of this event is
another factor to consider when weighing up the expense and
hassle of attending. These thoughts are rolling around in my head as I say an internal goodbye and leave the convention centre, and San Diego, for good. So, will I attend again? With sensible expectations and earlier purchase of ticket? Yeah, I think I might have to. It could take years before I can even secure tickets again, so I should start hoping for it now. Dreaming of it now.
All I can tell myself is: Don’t Stop Believing.
-- Cathy
Thomson
Location photos courtesy of Cathy Thomson
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