SDCC 09: Comic-Con Hangover Part I

SDCC 2009 COVERAGE SPONSORED BY

Writing about his career as a globe-trotting journalist veteran journalist John F. Burnett admits he failed to accurately report from the 2003 invasion of Iraq because he was engulfed in the fog of war; he had bonded with the soldiers he hung out with (and that were protecting his life), and the information that he got sometimes came from unreliable third-hand stories and government spin.

And, yes, you did click on a link for a story featuring a Comic-Con recap.

And double-yes, I am stupid enough to make a terrible and crass comparison between a pop-culture convention — where people buy cool things and all manners of entertainment are hyped up a couple months before it’s released — to war, where lives are lost, and the extremes of humanity are on display on a regular basis. So there that is.

But i think it’s sort of a valid comparison. You experience a similar phenomenon to the fog of war trying to report on Comic-Con because it’s an absolutely massive spectacle and aside from the general tone of the floor, and a couple panels or interviews a day, there’s an impossible amount of worthy stuff going on at any given moment. By nature, you also end up relying on a lot of third- and fourth-hand stories, as well as PR hype. (I still can’t figure out if Tarantino was there for an Inglorious Basterds screening, and I didn’t hear about the awesome Tron arcade until two days after the fact.)

This “fog of waiting in really long lines” is the reason I waited until I got home to write my recap of this year Comic-Con International. Well, and also because I was super-busy having fun and didn’t have the proper time to accurately write about everything that made the convention what it is.) Anyway, here are my Comic-Con 2009 memories.

Chewbacca Gets The Party Started

This year’s San Diego Comic-Con broke me — mentally, physically, and especially financially. But even when I was a brain-dead, exhausted-mess fighting through the crowds on Sunday, I was already totally looking forward to doing it all over again next year. Such is the magic of Nerdi Gras.

I have twelve previous San Diego Comic-Cons under my belt and I still managed to be shocked at how scary-fast this year went. Even now, a couple of days later, it remains a blur of line-waiting, checking out cool things on the floor, hanging out with old friends, all bookmarked by random celebrity sightings.

I decided that’s actually the easiest way to make sense of my convention-timeline, which officially kicked off with a Wookie battle-cry in my mind when I saw Chewbacca himself, Peter Mayhew, pass through the lobby of my hotel Wednesday afternoon.

Wednesday’s Preview Night lived up to its name, offering a preview of the 125,000 people that would fill the convention center for the next sold-out four days. It felt weird that Wednesday was one of the busiest days for the floor (Sunday being the other), but it also makes total sense since there was nothing else going on. I wonder if Preview Night might see programming in the future.

The nerd mosh-pit spat me out near the Small Press section and I got the chance to thank Camilla d’Erricco for being a great interviewee, as well pick up some good stuff at her table that was filled with awesomeness. I also stopped by Ted Mathot and Derek Monster’s booth and talked a bit about their next Pixar project, the Brad Bird-directed(!) live-action (!!) 1902, set amidst the San Fransisco earthquake.  It’s still in the “pre-pre-production” phase, but despite his best efforts (including some really cool research), Derek “Monster” Thompson hadn’t been able to slip any of his patently cool creatures into the story, which won’t have any overly fantastical elements.

The floor itself didn’t look all that different from last year, from the overall layout to booths recycling their props from last year (Mattell’s Castle Greyskull and the Jedis at the Hasbro booth.)  The coolest booth personnel was a toss up between the green “Star Trek” girls working the Paramount booth, or “The Prisoner” booth, which had all the guys wearing Number Six’s patented wardrobe from the original series. (They were also creating identity cards, giving con-goers their own Number.) Preview Night ended all too quickly.