Wondercon 2008 detoured me this weekend from completing this post. The weather made travel interesting this weekend; and when I mean interesting I mean "damp and windy". Let's go back now and look at last summers Comic-Con and see what the way-back machine has for us.
Looking at my collection of pictures reminded me of why I had so little photos of the con. Delta saw fit to crush my camera in their haphazard baggage handling, leaving it inoperable for the weekend. Since I had left the camera in the care of the boyfriend he decided to buy me another one at the local Best Buy. We got a nice discount since it was open stock but we didn't find out until the next day that the package of extras didn't contain the battery recharger. So needless to say this was a poorly recorded Comic-Con trip.
Every time we visit San Diego we always enjoy ourselves with the various side trips and destinations in the city and beyond. Tijuana is only a 10 minute drive south and open 24 hours for all your pharmaceutical needs. Coronado island has a spooky hotel and unique shopping. Old Town has bangin' authentic mexican restaurants. The weather during the summer in SoCal is usually undesirable to those that are accustomed to the foggy, windy summers of the San Francisco bay. But San Diego is unusual in that it tends to receive cool off-shore winds instead of broil in the convection that is the Santa Ana winds (but it's definitely humid).
We traveled on the first day of the con and didn't arrive until late so our plans to check in and grab badges did not happen. In fact the only thing we could tolerate was to get to our hotel and have dinner at "The Old Spaghetti Factory" in San Marcos (meaning we missed the awesome "Indiana Jones" panel in which Steven Spielberg and the whole cast showed up). We started early Friday morning to make up for lost time after grabbing a free breakfast of bagels and cheese. The traffic to downtown San Diego on a work day is brutal so we relied on the quirky trolly system to get around the city. Getting out of the trolly we spied the totally packed entrance of the convention center and heard grumbles that registration had already sold out Friday and Saturday tickets and had to turn away onsite registration attendees. It was surprising to hear that the con would reach maximum capacity so quickly (need to register early folks).
Now, some people may argue with me on this but I believe the point of Comic-con is to see and meet the entertainment industry players and producers. So much information is gathered in the crazy fan fueled weekend that movies, TV shows, animation and print media can be made or broken based on audience (the paying public) opinion (your money). You, the con attendee payed so much money to get to the convention (flight, hotel, car, parking, food) it kills me to hear that some spend their entire time in the exhibit hall (not to say the hall isn't the shit, there are some awesome booths waiting for you to walk by so they could throw shit at you!). Needless to say, the majority of our time is spent in the hard to get into panels.
On Friday, we managed to get into several big panels and get some pics. The first one was Laurel K. Hamilton which was honestly the only way we'd be able to attend the American Dad panel afterwards (Comic-Con purposefully schedules non-relating panels to follow one another to make sure that people don't do what we do). At least I read her books so that we were there for a legitimate reason. She didn't have much planned in terms of material to talk about so opened the entire hour for Q&A. You can most assuredly rely on the stupidity of fans to make sure juicy literary details are destroyed or ignored for the sake of fandom wank. LKH was a good sport and admitted to Comic-Con being her first big public appearance and spent the entire hour pacing back and forth furtively as she was lobbed question after question about Anita, Jean-Claude and Richard. I found her mannerisms and the way she talks a little off putting (a lot of "bark" type comments and talking out of the corner of her mouth). But I still enjoy her Anita Blake series (besides the fact that it is one big "Mary Sue" storyline) and still believe that her best work was done in the earlier volumes. And to those naysayers who have a problem with Anita; LKH says it best, "Get the fuck out".
The American Dad panel was great because the boyfriend and I scuttled up the front to get a great view of the entire cast who ended up doing a table read of an episode that aired this past fall before the WGA strike. Since we've been to the con for a few years now we always make sure to attend any panel Seth McFarlane appears in (1. he's a funny guy 2. his voice is deliciously creamy). We also managed to get into the Family Guy panel on Saturday but no photography was allowed because they showed the then unaired "Star Wars" parody "Blue Harvest" episode.
The last panel of the day was one of the hardest to get into. Kevin Smith was already talking about his newest side project by the time we were able to get a seat in the ginormous Hall H. We got to see the premiere episode of "Reaper" and were teased with info about the 2 scripts he was working on at the time, "Zack and Miri make a Porno"(which finally started filming) and "Redstate"(a zombie flick). The panel closed with asinine fan questions and Kevin heckling them back to their respective seats.
Saturday is the most event intensive days with absolutely no chance of getting into the exhibit hall. All day we tried getting into the Heros and The Simpsons panel but room squatters kept people from getting any seats. After a 2 hour wait in an endless line we were able to get into the Futurama panel at which the entire cast did a 10-minute table read of the new episode that was released on DVD this past fall (also included an accidental run in with Seth Rogen and the cast of "Superbad"). Again no pics were allowed to be taken so don't ask.
Later that afternoon we managed to get great seats for the Rifftrax panel at which we got a chance see peeks into the new "Film Crew" straight to DVD riffs of cruddy old movies. There was a short Q&A at which the fans asked questions mainly about their MST3K days. Mike, Kevin and Bill were great in person and were kind enough to spend time with the fans after their panel.
Saturday night was going to be our last night in San Diego so it was our only chance to be tourists. We went and had dinner at the little bar/restaurant that appears in Top Gun, Kansas City Barbecue. It was a small place with all kinds of crazy military crap and bras tack onto every surface. The barbecue chicken was really good but I loved their onion rings. In case you were wondering the bathroom was clean and had an amusing condom dispenser you can spy down below.
Another Comic-Con had came and went and we miss it already. Despite the difficulty in traveling, headaches from dangerously low blood sugar, and getting around the body-packed convention center it was an experience we would never pass up. In fact we are set and ready for 2008 and can't wait to start that crazy week of ultimate fandom. If you decide to go this year, you'll know where to find me (in line for that fucking Heros panel).
See you in San Diego everyone! I've been missing you.
Su
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