Eric AD’s Comic Con 2011 Journal -Day One

And so begins another San Diego Comic Con Journal, as I detail my experience at the various signings and panels I attended at the largest, sweatiest pop culture celebration in the world.  Comic Con for me is like Mardi Gras for people who love alcohol or what Burning Man is for hippies…I might bitch about the crowds and the smell and the over priced food, but in my heart I love this damn thing more than I care to admit, eleven years and counting. So come with me and experience all the cool stuff you didn’t get to see because you live in Nebraska or Wyoming or one of those places I’ve read about but will likely never visit.

San Diego Comic Con Day One, Thursday, July 21st, 11:45 A.M.  Anne Rice Signing

Author Anne Rice has been my favorite author since I was thirteen years old.  I carried around worn and read copies of her Vampire Chronicles series of novels in my backpack at school while every other teenage kid had like, The Catcher in the Rye or something. So when I found out she was making her first appearance at Comic Con, I was beyond excited. The last time I had been to a signing of hers was way back in 1995. Back then, she was at the height of her fame, in a post Interview with the Vampire -The Movie world. I remember I was in line for like eight hours at a Barnes & Noble once just to meet my literary idol.

Well, these days, the eight hour lines are for the likes of Twilight and True Blood, but I haven’t forgotten where my vampiric loyalties lie (ok, I do love me some True Blood though. Sue me.) I get in line for the signing at 11:45 A.M. or so, and there are already a good chunk of people waiting. She is officially signing in the IDW booth, since they are making a comic book version of her novel The Servant of the Bones. Luckily, they allow us to bring one other item to sign, and I bring a very worn copy of the first paperback edition of Interview with the Vampire from 1977. It has a terribly cheesy cover, and the back cover has a photo of models who look nothing like the characters in the books. But I was the first version of the book I knew, back when I was a very small child and that version of the novel sat in my aunt’s bookcase, drawing my obsession until I was finally old enough to be allowed to read it.

When Mrs. Rice sees what I ask her to sign, she can’t believe her eyes, and says “Oh my goodness, I haven’t seen this version in decades.” I explain to her how this was the version that belonged to my late aunt, who introduced me to her world, and how much it meant to me. She then gave me a big smile and said “Then I’ll be extra careful then when I sign this.” It is a brief exchange, and I don’t have time to say the majority of things I want to say, but nevertheless, an awesome way to start my first day at the convention.

Thursday, July 21st, Hall H, 1:15 PM  – Pee Wee Herman

Next it was the surprise panel of the Con, as Pee Wee Herman was a last minute addition to the show. He was there promoting his soon to be released HBO Special of The Pee-Wee Herman Show, and although he was there as his Pee Wee character, he did slip into his true Paul Reubens persona on occasion. This might have been the best Q&A I have been to at a Con yet. Moderated by Quint from Aint-It-Cool-News,  Pee-Wee responded to sincere questions like “Did you have any idea 25 years ago that you would be still going this strong?” with a smugly answered “yeah.”  Some earnest fan yelled out a question early, to which  PW responded in his usual high pitched tone “I don’t believe we’ve called out for audience questions yet” 

Some bits and pieces of news that were dropped were the news that Pee Wee’s new movie with Judd Apatow will be a road movie in the spirit of Pee Wee’s Big Adventure. A fan brought up Pee Wee’s work on the classic Star Tours ride at the Disney theme parks, where he voiced the pilot Rex the Robot for nearly twenty five years. Apparently, part of the reason he took the job was he was assured that as long as he was a part of the ride, he had a lifelong pass to Disneyland. Now he was obviously kinda miffed that he’d lost his lifelong free pass. Although apparently he worried for nothing; recently he received word from Disney that Rex or no Rex in Star Tours, he had a lifelong pass to Disneyland forever. Awww.

He talked a bit about how Large Marge scarred a generation of children, and his work in non Pee Wee movies like Blow. A fan asked how the censors let him get away with so much stuff back in the Pee Wee’s Playhouse days…to which he coyly responded “I’m sure I don’t know what you mean.” He then said the only time CBS censors ever gave him any trouble was when he tried to stick a pencil in a potato…and then they eventually said “oh go ahead and do it anyway” Before Pee Wee left he thanked his loyal fans and informed everyone in Hall H that he was off to do an episode of Top Chef…being filmed at the Alamo. Any fan of Pee Wee’s Big Adventure will understand the significance.  

Oh, and the secret word for the day? “Comic Con.”  Duh.

Thursday, July 21st,  2:25: PM – Game of Thrones. Or Not.

I attempt to go to the Game of Thrones panel, being held in Ballroom 20. I figure being there an hour and a half early will possibly get me into the very back of the room, but yeah…this is not happening. There is a line going out to the Marina. Yeah, screw that. I’m disappointed, but the truth is Game of Thrones has not even finished casting their second season, much less started shooting it, so I knew there wasn’t going to be anything new to show in regards to footage. I did want that swag though…HBO always gives out the best goody bags. I would later see tons of posts of facebook from people saying they waited three to four hours in line for that panel and didn’t get in, so I’m glad I didn’t waste my time. Oh well then, time for an overpriced lunch, then wander the floor for a bit and get in line for the next panel…..

Thursday, July 21st, 4:45 P.M.  Star Wars: The Clone Wars Season Four 

If you’re a lapsed Star Wars fanboy, one of those “George Lucas raped my childhood” people, chances are you’re not watching the awesome animated Clone Wars series on Cartoon Network. Well, sucks to be you then, because when this show is firing on all cylinders, it is the best Star Wars anything since The Empire Strikes Back. Executive Producer Dave Filoni is a Star Wars fanboy who gets to make his own little expensive Star Wars mini movies at the rate of 22 episodes a year, and as a faithful Star Wars fan since the age of three, I enjoy the Hell out of this show. The second half of year three was absolutely amazing, and I can’t wait for season four.

Filoni brought a ton of new footage  from the upcoming fourth season, including footage of an extended underwater battle sequence featuring Clone Troopers and Jedi fighting below the surface on the planet Mon Calamari. Longtime Star Wars fans know Mon Calamari means we’ll see a young Admiral Ackbar in this series of episodes, although he will simply be Captain Ackbar at this point. All of the footage looked spectacular; the animators on Clone Wars get more and more sophisticated with each passing season.  Among other clips shown was an extended action sequence on the newly created world of Umbara, a planet  in which it is always night time. Because of the constant dark, the native plants and terrain have this weird fluorescent light, much like certain forms of sea life in the depths of the ocean. Seeing as this was an entirely new world, without any previous movie references, everything had to be designed from the ground up, and the design team did an amazing job.

Other tidbits dropped during the panel were the news that many of the fan loved bounty hunters would return, including Bossk, Boba Fett, Cad Bane and they would be introducing Dengar from The Empire Strikes Back in season four as well. (now where is IG-88? God, I’m such a nerd.)  The Clone Trooper armor is going to be changing in season four as well, looking more like the armor seen in Episode III rather than Episode II. One Clone who won’t like the change is Captain Rex, who see the Republic moving the Clones to a more disposable look, and therefore modifies and creates his own armor. Possibly the coolest tidbit that was shown at the panel was the debut of the first female Mandalorian warrior, to be voiced by Katee Sackhoff. Her look is a mix of the classic Boba Fett look and that of a barn owl, and Dave Filoni wanted something new for female cos-players to dress as other than just Leia/Padme/Random Jedi all the time.

Finally, old school Star Wars fans can breathe of sigh of relief…Filoni said that as long as he’s in charge of the show, we would never see a kid version of Han Solo on Clone Wars, despite the introduction of many classic trilogy characters over the years. He wants to preserve his entrance into the saga just as it was, in the Mos Eisley cantina in A New Hope. This got a pretty big round of applause.

Thursday, July 21st, 6:00-7:00 P.M.  LGBTX: The X-Men’s Queer Characters, Themes, and Fans

I wasn’t sure if I was going to this panel, but since I wasn’t going to the annual Gays In Comics Panel on Saturday, I had to make it to at least one LGBT themed panel this year, and so I chose the LGBT X-Men panel.  The line up was pretty impressive, with panelists including Peter David (X-Factor), Phil Jimenez (Astonishing X-Men), Chuck Kim (Age of X), Marjorie Liu (Daken: Dark Wolverine), Scott Lobdell (Uncanny X-Men) and screenwriter Zack Stentz (X-Men: First Class). I’m glad I went, as this turned into a pretty interesting (and often funny) conversation. Many people mention how the underlying theme of tolerance and metaphor for minority discrimination is what drew them to the X-Men universe, or at least that is what they say when asked. I honestly think for most fanboys they just like Wolverine popping his claws into people. However, when you ask a queer X-Men fan why we love the property, we really mean it when we say we respond to the underlying metaphor. And in a big way.

Some of my favorite moments from the panel were when X-Men First Class co-writer Zack Stentz was asked about why he was asked to join the panel…a month or so back, Thinkprogress.org  wrote up a story about how the X-Men movies were successful metaphors for the LGBT community. A person responded in the comments section saying this:

“Um, nothing really gay about it. I’ve loved all Marvel comics since a kid and there never was nor is there anything gay in X-Men. Say that to Wolverine and he’d likely rip ya a new one. Not that they shouldn’t have a gay super hero. There just wasn’t ever any in X-men. The men in the film were friends. I think it’s kinda homophobic to assume every male freindship is gay. So, they shared a tender moment. They didn’t have sex. As Stan Lee used to say, ‘Nuff said.”

This comment drew the ire of Stentz, who just couldn’t believe the obtuse outlook of that comment, and responded in kind:

“Um, no offense, but you’re wrong. I helped write the movie, and can tell you the gay rights/ post-holocaust Jewish identity / civil rights allegory stuff was all put in there on purpose. Joss Whedon designed the whole “Cure” storyline in the comic books specifically as a gay allegory, and Bryan Singer wove his own feelings of outsiderdom as a gay man into the movie series. The whole “Have you ever tried NOT being a mutant” coming out scene in X2 isn’t even particularly subtle, while it is effective.”

SNAP. 

Stentz went on to talk about how First Class was envisioned as the “tragic romance” of Charles and Erik, and when someone asked him if their perceived notion of a romance between Havok and Darwin was intentional, Stentz said “no comment if I ever want to work for Fox again.” 

Finally, someone asked Phil Jimenez whether the gay community would benefit from Magneto’s way of doing things versus the Charles Xavier way, to which he responded that Magneto wanted mutants to kill off and supplant humanity, not a philosophy that gay people should embrace really. Any metaphor, no matter how close, eventually breaks down and can’t be an exact allegory to anything in the real world. The X-Men universe is no different in that regard.

Ok, that is the end of Comic Con 2011 Day One. Not too shabby…now, I head back to the hotel to get ready for the Geekscape party tonight. Once I get to the party, besides the awesomeness of being in the presence of one Stan Lee, I also meet actor Ray Wise, who played Leland Palmer on my favorite show of all time Twin Peaks. Then I cap the night off with Cap….or should I say, a midnight screening of Captain America at Horton Plaza. This might be the best single day of a Comic Con ever. Come back tomorrow to see if my Friday and Saturday experiences were just as awesome (Hint: They weren’t.)