SDCC 2009 COVERAGE SPONSORED BY
The Black Parade Marches On
One of my Comic-Con highlights was easily Saturday morning’s Lost panel, which began with Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse walking out to the triumphant Final Countdown, making no small deal about Lost’s upcoming final season, as well as their last Comic-Con appearance promoting the show.
“The most important thing we should do, is to acknowledge all of you,” said Cuse. “So our theme for today’s Comic-Con panel is fan appreciation.”
The next hour was a mix of laughs, puzzling teases, and even a few tears. (I wasn’t the only one to get choked up over the ‘In Memoriam’ montage of dead characters set to Boyz II Men’s “It’s So Hard To Say Goodbye To Yesterday,” right?…Right?) It was pretty cool to learn how much thought they had put into the panel afterwards.
From the NY Times:
“That hourlong show, complete with scripted comedy routines and 13 glossy original videos, took a dozen people four months to produce. The budget for song rights, props and actor travel alone was $25,000.”
I was planning to do a recap of the panel, but, seriously, just watch it yourself. It’s that good. Start here.
And don’t forget to check out the videos shown to the crowd, offering some interesting clues for next year.
It wasn’t all jokes and games though, with the big news breaking that fan-favorites Daniel Faraday and Juliet Burke would return in the final season, as well as the brief appearance of Dominic Monaghan at the end of the panel, who flashed his hand to the crowd, where he had “Am I Alive?” scribbled on the palm, an homage to his Season 3 death.
Other coolness: as everyone entered Hall H they were given a flyer advertising “Lost University” (the mascot is a polar bear), with a phone number for Prof. Nussdorf scribbled on the back in pencil. When you call the number (818-824-6300) you get a message saying the professor’s on vacation until later in September.
The next panel I checked out was for Joe Hill (“Locke & Key”, 20th Century Ghosts) and it was a nerd-crime that more people didn’t show up. Hill has the potential to be in the same league as Neil Gaiman, and that has nothing to with his dad being You-Know-Who. Not only does Hill successfully tells stories in different forms and mediums, but he understands how to remix different genres, adding his own unique brew of weirdness and heart, creating something entirely new.
Another sign that he’s not getting enough love? One of the security guards told him to stand in the line-up for his own panel. (He didn’t go, but seemed totally cool with the misunderstanding.)
After that, the rest of my day was mostly failure. I got an e-mail about a potential Venture Brothers interview that never happened. I stood in line for the V pilot screening and the Fringe panel wasn’t going to make it in. And I didn’t dare brave the Hall H lineup for the Iron Man 2 panel.
I opted for my last panel of the day to be Entertainment Weekly’s “Totally Lost” panel, and while I was waiting in line to get in, Gerard Way (My Chemical Romance, writer of “Umbrella Academy”) passed by with a mini-entourage in tow. I was half-expecting a gothy-version of the intro scene of Hard Day’s Night to errupt, but there wasn’t even a shriek. Random celebrity appearances quickly become second-nature in Comic-Con Reality.
I closed out of the day hunting down as many costumed-folks as possible to take pictures of before the Masquerade started, which is truly one of the most fun things you can do at Comic-Con.
What A Wookie
Sunday was mostly a blur with the previous four days finally catching up to me. After walking the floor one last time, I packed up all my swag and headed to the airport, already trying to adjust back into the real world, where waiting in lines isn’t a mandatory things, grocery stores aren’t packed with mobs and people don’t push wheelchairs into your Achilles tendon on their way to see James Cameron. (Thanks, buddy!)
After going to the con for many years, it’s weird looking at the event from outside of the San Diego bubble. If you jump around enough news sites, you can find all the big announcements showing up almost-live. You can watch most of the “exclusive” trailers, and even entire panels, from the safety of your own house. And, hopefully this is a sign of things to come, people are sweding the stuff that isn’t released.
I was in the airport McDonald’s, looking down at the people arriving for their flights when I saw Peter Mayhew again, looking pretty much the same as when he walked through the hotel lobby on the first day of the convention. There was one difference, though. His cane was replaced by a blue lightsaber. At first glance, it didn’t seem weird that Chewbacca was getting medical help from a Star Wars prop. Four days of being exposed to very elaborate and impressive costumes will do that. But it made me appreciate what the convention is all about.
It’s accepting a reality where it becomes ordinary to see your pop-culture heroes up close. It’s about waiting in lines and earning the right to watch a someone on a big screen, even though they’re hundreds of feet away. It’s about fighting through crowds of your fellow nerd to find cool stuff you can’t get at home. It’s about trying not to lose your mind amidst a non-stop flow of pop-culture entertainment. It’s frustrating work, but it’s fun as hell, and I can’t wait until next year.