As odd as that scene may seem to most of you, I assure you that it was just one of the many fantastic sights from this year’s annual gathering of nerds, known far and wide as San Diego Comic-Con 2010.
Last year was my first time going to The Con, so I had no idea what to expect. This year was interesting because I knew what it would be like, but I still was not fully prepared for the grandeur and sheer size of the massive event.
I went in more prepared. I had my list of panels I wanted to see. I scoped out the floor on Wednesday night (I get to go on the preview night because I’m a member of the media—and also because I’m quite awesome) to get the lay of the land and feel out the booths that would be best to visit again and again for all kinds of swag.
But I still missed out on a lot of stuff. People who weren’t even there asked me afterwards, “Did you see Angelina Jolie?” or “Did you find out if Mark Ruffalo was confirmed as the new Hulk?” or “Did you get stabbed in the eye with a pen by a kid wearing a Harry Potter shirt?” (which actually happened to someone, by the way). I saw a lot of stuff, but I still came away feeling like I missed a lot as well. I suppose that’s part of the genius of The Con; even after an intense week of nerdery, you still walk away wanting more.
But getting back to the things I did experience, it wasn’t quite as awe-inspiring for me as it was last year. I guess I’ll never really recapture that childlike wonderment that comes along with the maiden voyage to Comic-Con, which is a little bit sad. But there was still lots to see, and I will do my best to recount some of the amazing sights, sounds and experiences I encountered.
The bike from the upcoming Tron movie:
Wednesday Night
I used a summer camp analogy to describe last year’s Comic-Con, and if you’ll forgive the duplication, I have just one more comparison to make—the first night of The Con is a lot like the first day at camp. You don’t really know your way around yet, the kids who got their first already called the cool cabin, and nothing’s really going full swing just yet. It’s a good night to just wander the floor aimlessly, as I did for the better part of two hours, seeing what booths are giving out good stuff (that would be the Columbia Pictures booth, featuring the movie Salt, The Green Hornet and a sequel to the movie 30 Days Of Night) and what booths are going to be lame and stingy. (Seriously, G4? You only have buttons this year, and you expect us to pay for t-shirts? Not cool.)
But one of the most amusing moments for me (I’m a word nerd, so you may not find this funny at all) was on the trolley down to the convention center. The trolley driver, explaining that this was the red line special event service train, said that we could exit the trolley at one of three stops if we were attending “The Comic-Con.” I had to Tweet about that when it happened, because (as all nerds know), it’s not “The” Comic-Con, it’s just Comic-Con. So I went about calling it The Comic-Con for the rest of the week. And I considered this to be hilarious.
The rest of Wednesday night at The Comic-Con was spent watching part of a sneak-peek at the upcoming CW network series Nikita, about an assassin who is trying to… um…assassinate people.
I couldn’t really get into it at all because the characters kept just saying what they were feeling or describing what was happening. For example, a scene in which the show’s star, Nikita, is escaping from a secure location. She gets followed to an alley behind the building and caught by a member of the security team, who also (apparently) used to know this girl and/or have a relationship with her. Anyway, the dialogue was so elementary, they were actually saying things like “You know I can’t shoot you…not after all we’ve been through…” instead of, you know, letting the flashbacks we saw tell the story about how they went through things together. I’m not saying I could do it any better, but I can at least recognize when it’s not exactly Tolkien-esque. I’ll get down off my writer’s soapbox now.
Friday Night
I skipped Thursday this year, partly to save on gas money, and partly because I am married now, and I should probably pay at least a cursory amount of attention to my bride of just over two months. Love you, sweetheart!
Anyway, I went back down on Friday night, and I could immediately tell the difference between the weekend and the earlier mid-week days. It was pretty packed, and the costumes were starting to be much more numerous (and detailed). I saw some princesses (who explicitly said, “We’re not representing Disney!” to avoid any potential lawsuits):
...as well as some interesting takes on classic characters, such as Nintendo’s Mario looked a tad suspicious with his flashy suit, big hat and stylish cane:
...and some good, homemade group costumes (the cast of Pokemon, as worn by four girls who really did a great job with the costumes):
It's hard to see this girl with the camouflage on, except that it barely covers her:
I always forget about the autograph area until the end of the day, so by the time I got up there, not very many celebrities were still around. Olivia Munn was there signing copies of her book, Suck It, Wonder Woman: The Misadventures Of A Hollywood Geek, but I missed the ticket giveaway earlier that morning, so I just snapped a photo and moved along:
Not much happened Friday night, so I went home a little early and got ready for The Comic-Con’s big day.
It's Scott Wolf! From Party Of Five! AAAHHHH!!!!
Harry Potter's cloak of invisibility:
Saturday
Let me start off the story of my Comic-Con Saturday with a little shout out to the event staff—I almost missed out on the craziness of the day, but the sympathy and kind heart of one particular staff member made it possible.
Basically, I forgot my press pass when I drove down to meet the trolley to the convention center. As I mentioned, the need to save on gas money is a priority when you get married, so there was not enough fuel to get me home again, then back down to the trolley. So I embarked for the convention center, hoping that my press confirmation letter and photo ID would be enough.
The official policy of Comic-Con is that they don’t reissue press passes. To replace a lost attendee badge costs $100. I talked to four different people at three different locations, and there appeared to be nothing they could do.
Well, after talking with one of the supervisors, and assuring them that I had not sold my pass or anything like that, she took pity on me and issued me a one-day press pass for no charge. I won’t mention her name, just in case there would be any trouble she could get into, but I thanked her profusely and headed off to the exhibit hall once again.
Saturday at The Comic-Con is a new world full of bright colors, loud, random sounds and a whirlwind of activity that will turn your brain upside-down. It reminds me of the time I accidentally took too much Benadryl (and by too much, I mean I took one pill—I’m apparently a wimp when it comes to medicine) and ended up feeling loopy and unsure of spatial stimuli and tactile input for an entire evening.
But instead of feeling out of it, the excitement of the exhibition floor gets you pumped up for a day of costumes, celebrities and… well, waiting in line for upwards of two hours just to see something worth seeing. Woo hoo!
Batman gets interviewed...because he's always so available, after all:
Yes, there was some Twilight gear there.
At least it didn't ruin Comic-Con this year, like it did last year, apparently.
Celebrities were everywhere, from Chris Evans and Hugo Weaving (from the new Captain America movie) at the Marvel booth...
...to Michael Chiklis (who played The Thing in the Fantastic Four movies)...
to Seth MacFarlane (creator of Family Guy and The Cleveland Show)...
No, I didn’t see Angelina Jolie, or Will Ferrell, or Chevy Chase. Oh wait, I did see Chevy Chase.
And I totally nodded my head in his general direction as he walked by. We’re pretty much best friends now.
The costumes were amazing, from (my personal favorite) Colonel Sanders...
...to Gandalf...
to Voltron...
...to whatever this is...
...and that’s before the Masquerade even began. But we’ll get to that in a bit.
I had to go to the Attack Of The Show (AOTS) panel, mostly because it’s a hilarious show on G4 that shows the latest internet video sensations, gadget reviews, movie news and general awesomeness. Also, the hosts, Kevin Pereira and Olivia Munn, are really funny. I pretty much stalked Miss Munn last year at The Con, even participating in the now-famous Running Of The Munns that took place when one of her autograph sessions had to be moved at the last minute. I'm sure she's used to it.
Anyway, the AOTS panel brought the goods, as it does every year, with a contest to see which nerd could best imitate the now-famous “Double Rainbow” video clip that’s been circling the Web. They also had a bingo contest regarding the things that would happen during the panel. Some of the possible goings-on included “Sexy Yeti Sighting,” “AOTS Batman Surprises Kevin,” and “Zombie Apocalypse.” I did not win the bingo, but whoever had “Yeti Gets Upset With The Ending To The Twilight Series” got some fabulous prizes.
I got a couple autographs...
...took a photo with Pereira...
and boogied out to see what else was happening.
Turns out they close the exhibition hall at 7 p.m., but there was still plenty to see. In my wanderings, I happened upon the line for the Masquerade, an event I missed last year. They still had tickets, so I grabbed one and wondered (with some trepidation) if I would be forced to slow dance.
To my great relief, I did not. From the comfort of my seat, I was able to watch what was essentially a fashion show combined with an improv class, all featuring some awesome costumes.
Some were marvels of engineering, like the Amp suit from the movie Avatar:
...or the entirely-homemade minotaur:
...or the crowd-favorite Puff The Magic Dragon:
Others were great because of the presentation, such as the Xavier School Musical (the X-Men cartoon characters singing and dancing, like in that series of teen song-and-dance movies that shall not be named):
and the mish-mash of time-traveling heroes that included Bill & Ted, Dr. Who, Sam Beckett and Ziggy (from Quantum Leap) and, of course, Doc Brown and Marty McFly:
And some were just plain awesome, like the kid with the War Machine (from Iron Man 2) costume:
...or the Avatar vs. Avatar showdown (between the main characters from Avatar: The Last Airbender and James Cameron’s Avatar):
...or the winner of Best In Show, a group called Viva Las Villains that featured some famous comic book villains as they might appear in their own series of casinos:
The costumes were amazing, the presentation varied from uncomfortable to genuinely clever and funny, and the atmosphere was electric. Nerds love their cosplay, I suppose.
All told, it was a great week. I even had a few observations gathered over the course of The Comic-Con this year.
—There was a tremendous amount of diversity in the crowd, which shouldn’t really be a surprise in 2010, but was still noteworthy in a socially positive sense. From the black guy dressed as Batman Beyond:
...to the Asian kid dressed as “super” hero Kick-A**:
...to the Hispanic Jedi warrior I waited in line with to get a tin of red hots from the WB booth.
The world of the nerd apparently knows no boundaries, and The Comic-Con was a perfect example.
—The best swag (which stands for Stuff We All Get) came from the aforementioned Columbia Pictures booth, where they handed out three different free t-shirts, posters, buttons, and, on occasion, packages of microwave popcorn. They did it right—sometimes they weren’t handing out anything, sometimes you got a bunch of stuff. You had to check back at random times to see if you could score something cool.
The booth that was so close to getting it right was the booth for Millenium Films, featuring upcoming releases Red, Drive Angry and The Expendables. They gave out free t-shirts, but with a catch—you had to go to a different part of the exhibition hall to wait in line, and they only gave out a limited number, so the line was immediately full as soon as it opened. They gave away a lot of other stuff, including refrigerator magnets and keychains, but it mostly cluttered up my backpack and after the second day of it, nobody really wanted another cord organizer from the upcoming movie Sourcecode.
I was pretty disappointed with the G4 booth, which gave away lots of stuff last year, but insisted on selling stuff this year. They handed out buttons this year, but compared to last year’s giveaways of shirts, rub-on tattoos, photos, posters and even green plastic visors, it was just sad. Same with the WB booth, which clearly had enough foot traffic to justify some cool handouts, but only passed out little red hots in a Vampire Diaries tin, a free Harry Potter broomstick for your character on Xbox Live, some little buttons, and a card to go to another booth to get a Big Bang Theory button. For one thing, don’t make me stand in line all that time just to send me on an errand. And for another thing, come on folks, it’s The Comic-Con. This is not the time to skimp.
—As always, there was a lot I kind of saw but didn’t get to investigate. There is apparently a new Medal Of Honor video game coming out (I was a HUGE fan of the MOH series when it was on Playstation 1 & 2, when it was about World War II, but this one looks like it involves modern wars), and I didn’t really get down to the Marvel booth that often (they didn’t hand out much, and it was a little ways away from the main booths congregated in the center of the exhibition hall). I heard a lot about different panels, but you can pretty much only see one panel a day (unless you stay for back-to-back panels in the same room) because the lines get so long so quickly.
I wish I’d had a little more time to check out the autograph area as well; I did take some photos of the scattered celebrities who were left on Saturday night (including the voice cast of Futurama:
...as well as the guy who played The Soup Nazi on Seinfeld):
but I didn’t get any sweet autographs this year.
But there were a couple of random sightings that made my week, in a weird way. I checked out last year’s Comic-Con photos, and found this picture of a nerdy kid with big white shoes riding the trolley the first day:
Well, I saw him on the trolley again this year, but in a much bigger crowd, so I couldn’t get a shot of him. I saw another guy, also from last year’s trolley ride (this nerdy guy, who was thoroughly engrossed in his bag of goodies):
...on the trolley ride home on Saturday. In a weird way, it was a cool way to end my Comic-Con experience this year, as if seeing those guys brought it all around, full-circle.
And it reminded me that no matter how cool I get, or how many times I see an angry yeti storm off a stage, I’m just a big, nerdy kid inside.
Be sure to write in if you have any thoughts about Comic-Con, or if you have any photos from The Con that you'd like to share.
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