Comic-Con 2007

Well, I made it back from San Diego Comic-Con last night. Tired, but not as tired as I feel like I should feel. Overall thoughts this year are that there was just too much to see and do at this one. It was nuts. The crowds were crazy, moreso even than last year. In fact, they sold out of "memberships" (i.e. tickets) for all four days, which I think is unprecedented. I believe, although I don't have the facts at my fingertips, that that is 140,000 people per day. OTOH, I think they managed the crowds a lot better this year. The flow around the hall 1-6 rooms was a real pain in the ass, but I think it kept the crowds from getting too out of control. They also scheduled a lot of popular programming to run at the same time, so people had to choose what they'd go to, which is good, because even so, there was not enough space for a lot of the panels.

Daily rundown:

Thursday: Get up at 6am, fly into SAN at 9am, register at hotel, go to con, register, panels, go to screening of Stardust, get back to hotel around midnight.

Friday: Get up early to get to con by 10:30, more panels, some walking around the show floor, go to dinner at Ruth's Chris (conveniently located next to hotel), get to bed around midnight.

Saturday: Slept in until around 10. Made my way to con around noon, show up at hall 20 for Heroes, find out the hall is closed 40 minutes before the panel starts. Go to Family Guy panel instead. Come back to Hall 20 for the rest of the day for BSG, Futurama, and Joss Whedon panel. Zip out of the theater with Wendy and Eric to go see the 8:15 show of Simpsons movie. Head down the street after that to see Too Much Coffee Man: The Opera at 11pm with Wendy. Get back to hotel around 12:30.

Sunday: Get up at 7:30 to have breakfast with Noelle's mom and grandparents (and Noelle of course). Head over to con to see 4400 panel. Wandered floor for a while with Noelle, hung out with Peter Gross in Artist Alley, then went to watch the Flash Gordon panel. Con is now over for us. Head back with Wendy, Eric, and Noelle to the hotel to get our bags and it's off to the airport. Bye bye, San Diego! After waiting for the plane which was half an hour late getting in, we had to wait another half hour or so because someone at the gate had a boarding pass they thought was already used to get on the plane. So they had to check every person's ID (It's Southwest, the don't really know where people are sitting.). Finally the plane takes off and I sleep my way through the entire flight. Home again, home again, jiggidy jig.

Con highlights:

• The Paramount panel was outstanding. We got to see Jon Favreau who's producing Iron Man, which looks really good (much to my surprise). Stars Robert Downey Jr as Iron Man. We all pretty much grew to hate Paramount because the trailer has the Black Sabbath song, which we couldn't get out of our heads at con. Paramount also talked briefly about a new Star Trek movie which appears to be a reimagining of the original show. They didn't talk much about plot, but they reveal that Zachary Quinto aka Sylar on Heroes will play Spock. And then they brought out Leonard fucking Nimoy! Awesome! They also had Neil Gaiman there to promote Stardust which is coming out next month, and Beowulf. Neil was entertaining as always (he was the guest of honor at the con). Finally, they had Steven Spielberg, Harrison Ford, and Karen Black (along with a couple guys I didn't recognize) do a remote greeting from the set of Indy IV. The swag bag that Paramount gave out was the best one I've ever seen.


• Lots and lots of Neil Gaiman. Besides the Paramount panel, he did a signing at the CBLDF booth (where I got a nice Neil rat drawn on the back of my badge), there was a spotlight panel just for him, where he spoke extemporaneously on his times at con, and he spoke after the Stardust movie at the theater for a few minutes.


• Stardust. This is an awesome movie! Noelle and I got reserved seats to the showing by making a donation to the CBLDF (Which we did while waiting in line for the Harry Potter book last week. On an iPhone. Because we are such tremendous nerds.). This meant we actually got seats unlike the hundreds of other people who got passes for which there were no seats. I don't want to spoil the movie overmuch, but it was really great. The closest thing I can compare it to is The Princess Bride.
  If you liked that and you like Neil's writing, you'll probably love Stardust.


• Watchmen movie. They didn't have a lot to say about this movie, because it's in the early stages. The directory is Zak Snyder, who did 300. They announced a date (3-6-09, for Zak, who is bad with numbers) and a philosophy of how to approach making the movie. Basically Snyder said all the right things. He respects the source material immensely and thinks it should be shot the way it looks in the graphic novel. It's going to be R rated, because that's basically what the source material implies. He gave the studio two scripts: one for the main story, one for the pirate story. Zak Snyder says he wants to make a movie where: "I don't think this will happen, but some day after it comes out, Alan Moore will pop the DVD in and after watching will say 'Well, they didn't fuck that one up too badly.'" I have very high hopes for this movie, since I liked what Snyder did in 300.


• Blade Runner: The Final Cut. At the Warner Home Video panel, they talked (among other things) about the upcoming Final Cut release of BR. Ridley Scott was there, Syd Mead, one of FX guys, Joe Turkel, James Hong, Joanna Cassidy, and Sean Young were there as well. Turkel and Hong were really animated and fun to listen to. There will be a limited theatrical release of the Final Cut (which is what Ridley would have done with the Directors Cut, if he had had the money at the time) and several versions of it will be released in November of this year. The ultimate one (which is of course on my Christmas list) comes in a Voight-Kampf style briefcase, complete with the spinner. It has five discs, including the workprint, a three and a half hour long documentary, the final cut disc, and I am hoping the theatrical release. Looks great for Blade Runner nerds such as myself.


• Futurama is back, baby! They gave us a futurama comic before the panel started. Then Matt Groening and the cast of Futurama (including Katey Seagall, Billy West, and John Dimaggio) came out and read through the comic. Super fun! The show will be airing new episodes in January on Comedy Central and there will be four feature length DVDs released as well.


• Too Much Coffee Man: The Opera. I have been a huge fan of TMCM for years and seeing Shannon Wheeler at con has always been a great pleasure. This year, they put on several performances of the opera based on the comic on during the convention. They had real professional singers and a libretto which was about what I would expect from a combination of opera and TMCM. It was great fun.


• I got to meet Mike Carey, one of my favorite comic writers this year. He was on a couple panels and I ran into him on the show floor, which was pretty cool. Carey has written for (among other things) Lucifer and Hellblazer.


• Family Guy panel: This year Seth McFarland made it to the show (as well as others). The notable thing is that the opening episode this season will be a one hour long Star Wars episode with the regular characters playing SW parts (e.g. Peter plays Han Solo).


• Ray Bradbury came within two feet of me.